Aibu to blame a clunky discipline system for my child's poor confidence?

[Almostrubbish]

My child attends school where the teacher hands out strikes if you're 'bad' and bonuses if your good all day long. My child is bright and talkative and a people pleaser but confidence has been shattered by high numbers of strikes early in the day given without warning. 10 can accumulate meaning no end of day treat and huge shame and lack of respect. My suspicion is it is all for talking my DC has no idea. Aibu?

There might be two things going on here (your writing style is a bit odd if I'm truthful so it's quite hard to understand).

One is that you have a rubbish teacher, who is too heavy handed and dependent on this ridiculous system. I would make another appointment and ask why your child is getting so many strikes, and mentioning that they are becoming discouraged. I would be polite and 'let's all see what we can do to make school work for him' about it, but if really unhappy after that, I'd go to the headteacher and discuss the situation with them.

The other thing to think about is that by 9, children do become more introspective, thinking about their place in the world, more aware of competition, suffer existential angst (starts young!) and generally aren't always as upbeat and positive about life as they were say at 6 or 7 as they realise that that's not actually very realistic. Trying to maintain a smaller child's mindset of boundless optimism isn't possible either, and it may be that this is interacting with this new and not very good teacher at the same time. It can be hard for parents when children start expressing their negative feelings about themselves, or their surroundings, their experiences, when in the past, when they were little, they cheered up immediately if you put their favourite show on TV or whatever.

I don't think that means you need to put up with a rubbish teacher, if it was really bad you could think about moving the child but that comes with their own set of problems. However, your child is starting to think in more complex and sometimes more negative ways as part of their developmental process as well (sadly for us as parents!)- I hope you can get something resolved with the teacher. I'd also encourage out of school friendships and clubs (Scouts, sports) so that even if one part of his life isn't going so well, he feels successful in others.

As PPs have said you need to sit down with the teacher and find out what is going on.

Perfectly behaved children don't receive multiple sanctions a day.

The child must know what the sanctions are for - the teacher will tell them at the time.

Go and see the teacher, explain that you are concerned that your child isn't flourishing and is anxious about school and find out why.

From your posts you are making this more complicated than it needs to be. One temporarily broken down teacher/pupil relationship will not ruin all your child's hopes and dreams for life. Cut the drama - it's concerning but it's not insoluble.

It sounds like your child isn't following classroom behavioural standards - go and politely ask what's going on.

btw you are absolutely correct that any system of rewards and benefits has the potential to tie children up in equating rewards to self-worth. When the rewards stop for some reason, (change of teacher, change of speed of development, becoming and adult) there can be a huge problem with the knock to self-esteem.

Children should be engaging with 'the system' because they can see for themselves the benefits it brings, and improving their skills for themselves, not for the approval of others.

The root of your child's anxiety lies at home.

"Clear ability" "bright child" "above averagely bright"

They are terrified of not being perfect.

As other's have said- no way to give specific helpful advice without more info. Job one is to go and flag up the issue, give the teacher chance to help. Some thoughts from a teacher:

1. YABU to be angry. Nothing wrong with that, it's how you feel because you are concerned about your child. But understand it's not reasonable- the teacher doesn't seem to have done anything wrong and going in angry will not end well. Be as supportive as possible.

1. Your child doesn't sound confident from what you've said. Building real confidence is hard, the only way is to give them genuinely difficult stuff to do (appropriate for them) and praise for real achievement. False praise, and praise for just being clever can lead to brittleness. I find teaching children to fail well is my biggest classroom challenge.

1. In my experience a rewards/sanctions system doesn't undermine confidence without something else going on. Foureyes gives a good summary. It could be being applied poorly; it could be nothing to do with what's going on in school. Kids are bloody weird and it can be hard to unpick their motivation.

1. These things sometimes come and go, I think you are at risk of catastrophising a bit. I would give it a little time and DC a little room to sort their head out (in fairness I'm not there, so this one is pure supposition).

Really appreciate that donquix makes a lot of sense to me.

Sorry about my writing style it's deliberately a bit couched to maintain anonymity.

It depends how old the child is. My DS is 4 years old. He's a nice kid but he talks incessantly and there would be little point in treating him like an adult in a work meeting at his age as he has little concept of boundaries. I can't comment on the OP's situation but a chat with the teacher would not be out of order as the teacher might be unaware that her DS is so upset. I am guessing that there are no major issues with behaviour if the teacher has not brought it up with the OP but I sympathise as I would feel sad for my DS if he was feeling anxious about school. As Bob Hoskins once remarked in a BT advert (showing my age), it's good to talk.

"Really appreciate that donquix makes a lot of sense to me."

You are most welcome. Worth mentioning that none of this seems unusual to me, lots of kids lack academic confidence at various points.