Schools rewarding badly behaved children

[blondiemommy]

I am sick of DS's school rewarding the children who are frequently naughty, unruly in class and cause misery to the other children. Ds has been having bother with such a child at school, I have had to visit his teacher twice this term to explain how upset he has been. He was withdrawn from playtime for a week for hitting and punching my DS. First week back in the playgound and he is rewarded star of the week. It stinks! What about the children who are well behaved and try on a daily basis? I understand the school are trying to encourage good behaviour but I think it is demoralising for the others.

Well said Tiggytape!

This has always happened. I have very few memories prior to age 10 but I do remember the sticker chart in year 1. And the fact that I hardly had any whilst the "naughty boys" (as I called them) had loads.

My mum explained to me that they found sitting still and doing their work really hard. But that seemed like rubbish to me. I found drawing and handwriting really hard. (With hindsight I was a fairly ambidextrous child who was decreed as right handed due to it being a right handed world but I am instinctively left handed so it is no wonder.) I never got a star for trying hard at it. And I tried really hard.

The stars I did get were for maths. And I found maths ridiculously easy. (In modern terms I would count as G&T.)

In a way it was right that I was rewarded for my natural maths ability. I have spent my entire adult life being rewarded for it. But I don't think that that is the point.

The whole system made no sense to me and just made me feel bad.

When did all the rewarding start? It seems from this thread that a primary school child's school life revolves entirely around being given stuff, be it stickers, treats, extra play etc. If none of this paraphernalia existed a teacher's encouragement in the form of individual praise would be worth much more. Then a teacher can praise for whatever that individual child finds difficult, or it could be along the lines of "James, you were really well behaved today, and I've noticed that you always sit nicely and help the TA" etc.

we never had all this bribery when I was at primary school

No, maybe not, Socharlotte, but they had other stuff like the cane

What some of you are forgetting, when you think that good children are going to go bad just to get rewards, is that if you suddenly become bad you get the punishments as well. Seriously, if your child is telling you they want to be bad because the bad kids get all the attention and the prizes maybe you should be pointing out that before they get the praise and prizes they also get the punishments and bad reputation first. No child who is given love an attention at home would want the attention of the teacher so badly that they are going to turn into a badly behaved child at school surely? Wouldn't a good parent just sympathise with them but tell them that there is nothing to be gained by being badly behaved in a way that they understand? If your child doesn't get that then you need to be pointing that out to them. Nobody anywhere has said that the naughty children are getting away scot free. If they are, then the school in question has a problem with behaviour and the way they handle it. It doesn't indicate a problem with the punishment/rewards system itself.

I also take the line that children who struggle with reading get extra help with reading, children who struggle with maths get extra help with that and the same goes for children who struggle with behaviour - they get extra help. The way to give a child who is struggling with behaviour is to overtly praise them when they do something right. To drive the message home you might give them a star on a sticker chart. You don't ignore them when they manage to do well, any more than you would refuse to praise a struggling child who makes some progress in their reading or maths.

I think a lot of the problems with this system are that there are a lot of schools who don't implement it properly. I am very lucky to have 2 well behaved, quiet(ish) boys but neither of them ever complained that they were overlooked. DS2 is already raving to me about how good Golden Time is going to be this week because they are going to go outside and play football (those that want to). The expectation their teacher has is that they are going to be good but that some children will need more encouragement than others - he doesn't have a problem with that and nor should he imo.

Onceortwice 1980s primary schools for me and DH not lots of rewards but defiantly no canes. Though I do think many thinks have improved since that time and I definitely think the teachers put more effort into things than mine did.

BigBoobiedBertha the punishments didn't seem to bother him and nothing we did or said seemed to help him not value the 'bad' attention and poor reputation.

Would agree though that its implemnetation by some teachers that causes the issues. Previous parental complaints on this matter in older DC year group were caused by the same teacher DS had all the issues with. His current teacher mangers to use the same system and get the best out of all the DC.

Still it cause DS considerable harm to his behavior and self confidnce and that taking time to rebuild.

Cassandra, I agree - it is how the teacher works things that matter. Above, where I wrote about the subverted pasta points system, was when my son's class reached the peak of it's bad behaviour. It started when the previous teacher, who was oblivious to this sort of behaviour and tended to encourage it, failed to keep any order. There was a ridiculous amount of bullying going on which noone in the school could see. She went on maternity leave, and a lovely, sweet, kind teacher came and tried terribly hard, introducing the infamous pasta points. When had had enough and we were very luck in that a very strong minded, experienced no nonsense teacher was available on supply. She had them sorted in two weeks.

Unfortunately, most of the 'good children' had left the school by then, having either suffered from the bullying or being fed up of not being able to work in the bad atmosphere. This was year 4 & 5, by the way

Cant believe how widespread this is. When I happened to see a picture of star of the week it was one of the children who is bad all year round < and he was making a face in the picture tut tut>. The good children seem to be last on the list for any rewards. What is the reasoning behind this? Any teachers out there who can explain?

whizmum, sounds like the experience my son had in Y5 at primary. Most of the kids left because one newish boy was allowed to bully the other children and when the parents complained the Head made excuses for him.

My son stayed and fortunately the boy seemed to leave him alone.

Lol at all those saying the reward of rounders would be torture!! I must admit sport is not my DS favourite thing either - however the reward time is working really well and he seems to enjoy the fact he gets to do what everyone else is doing. He actually enjoyed the rounders too!

I think any kind of reward will work better for some dcs than others. I think the idea behind it is that each week there's a group decision so everyone is treated the same.

I know that the whole class has lost 5 minutes before now for being disruptive and therefore there is some attempt at getting the students to work as a group and having met DS school friends I know they praise each other for. Kindness and pull each other up for behaving badly. I think that's a positive thing - cos lets face it, even the 'good' kids aren't perfect!

This thread has been really interesting.

bigboobiedbertha excellent post

There are different reasons for bad behaviour though. Yes there are children with SN , children who have an unsatisfactory homelife.
Then there are also those that are over-indulged and have never come against a firm boundary before starting school .
Then there are those who are just plain mischievous who misbehave for the entertainment value of it.It's more fun to pull little Jane's pigtails thando their sums, or flush the teacher's diary down the toilet Lots of little boys I know would revel in the status of 'naughtiest boy' especially if it was backed up by rewards when they decided to have agood day. It is wrong to say all children want to be good-because they don't!!

YANBU

My now 15 year old DS went to a primary that gave 'star of the week' and other rewards to the naughty kids and it's heartbreaking for the 85% of the rest of the class who are being tortured by them and then seeing their picture on the bloody wall.

A the school there were a high proportion of children with behavioural problems, social problems galore, massive deprivation.

Yes, you would hope that you could feel sympathetic to these children. But when YOUR child is being spat at, bitten, punched and kicked Mon - Thurs then the child in question doesn't do it on Friday and gets an award, it hardens your heart.

It also doesn't work. The teachers hated it, the parents hated it but it was the school 'philosophy'. Some bright spark read an article on positive reinforcement and decided to follow it to the letter. I know it doesnt work because I still know the 'naughty' children as I live in a small community. They are still off the rails but the well-behaved children who didn't get rewarded just ended up demoralised as well.

My DD now goes to a different primary with a more inclusive reward system - everyone who behaves well gets rewarded, those who don't, don't.

I'm still giggling at the 'my child's cleverer than all your children'. Well my dad's harder than yours, so there.

I have just joined because of this thread. It's my daughter's parents consultation this evening, she's only in Year 1. They have a sticker reward system and she and her well behaved and high achieving friend have the least stickers in the class! I call them the "forgotten children" because the only kids that seem to get any attention are the ones that are behaving badly or performing poorly. They have 3 or 4 times the stickers in their books. A few of us "mothers of forgotten children" are going to address this with the Head as it's becoming annoying now. I love the comment about the badly behaved boy getting a parade when he behaved for one day. At our school they give them time out and let them play on Ipads. I'm starting to think that my daughter should go around beating people up, sulking, being generally hideous in order to get more stickers in her book. Good idea?

Errm , don't be silly, Freya. Though I'm sure that was meant in jest...

Depends on your priorities really. Sure, if you think your child's lack of stickers equates to the other kids' reduced life chances, I'd go ahead and encourage her to feel hard done by.

By all means mention (quietly) that your DD is feeling a bit left out of the stickers. But I wouldn't get worked up about a few stickers yourself, being an adult an'all.

I did chortle at "mothers of forgotten children." That's a tad... dramatic? And what Lancelottie says.

Yes Freya, tell her to do that. She will have a marvellous time sitting on her own playing with i-pads.

freya25 I get what you mean. Seeing my hard-working, polite DCs having less stickers/awards and never getting pupil of the week (or whatever) when the class thug/terrorist has his picture on the wall feels horrible, wrong and unfair.

Like your crappest, most incompetent colleague in the workplace, who is always late and bullies everyone else getting promoted instead of you.

It's not fair even for a 4 year old.

Yep, exactly the same as an adult who has gone though however many years of trial & error whilst learning to fit into or not society.

If only all children were born adults and didnt need to learn anything about social skills and behaviour - oh no wait, most of the kids on here are perfect and will never make mistakes and need extra help.

Merlottits - I suppose at least they learn and I agree with you about adults in the workplace.

Just to play devil's advocate. I suppose the rewarding of naughty children is done mainly because it is a pragmatic solution.If you have a classroom with maybe 1 or 2 terrorists , have a dozen with low level bad behaviour, a couple with SENs and another 20 'normal ' children and 2adults then you have to do what you have to do.It's always going to be a compromise rather than the ideal.

Terrorists really????

really

Well, there's one I haven't had before.

my son has been called a lot of things. terrorist isn't one of them. Till now.

And from a person who thinks I am childish. hahahahahahaha!

Terrorist!

What a lovely turn of phrase you have