School rewarding 8 yr olds for bad behaviour

[Pugwash2005]

My ds and his friends have been complaining because the 4 'naughty' children in their class have a tea party every Friday afternoon if they get over 12 'smileys' in a week, 2 'good' children are also picked to go along. There was an incident in school with one of the challenging pupils but he was still allowed to the party. Ds & I along with other mums think this party is making other children feel they are not rewarded for their good behaviour along with the fact that even when naughty these 4 kids get rewarded. Your opinions on this would be great

I would very strongly discourage your DS's interest in the behaviour management of children who get additional support. I imagine children get jealous, in the same way they'd think it unfair a blind child is allowed a dog at school or a paraplegic child a fun chair to ride around in. Explain simply and then cut off any further discussion.

Some be bright children notice what's happening and then change their behaviour to suit so as they get rewarded too.

OK, I'm out.

Yep all the naughty challenging children have rewards where as the well behaved children watch on and get nothing. Made sense somewhere to someone to do this.

What a load of nasty crap

I wonder how people 'know' that a child does not have sen or that their family does not have any issues. How do people know all of other people's business.

Spikeyball, I know these families quite well, no Sen. I also believe we cannot presume every child who acts up has a medical issue. No doubt a lot do, but not all.

Yes children with special needs should be supported, helped and encouraged. However, not all 'naughty' children have special needs. Some are indeed just badly behaved. They should not be rewarded with tea parties.

Equally, not all 'good, well-behaved' children are without problems. Some are probably hiding all kinds of issues. But they don't get the stickers and tea parties because they don't need to be bribed to behave themselves. They behave anyway, but don't necessarily get noticed for it.

I'm a teacher and understand why this happens, but that doesn't mean it's always fair. If I had a quiet, well-behaved child with issues I'd be pretty pissed off if tuey came home and told me about the naughty kids being routinely rewarded.

Even in primary school, my dc could often appreciate the difference between a child who was wilfully defiant and one who was struggling to deal with school.

There are plenty of school mums I know well who have no idea my dd has Sen. Also hiding this thread now. Some horrible attitudes on here. Good luck bringing your kids up without a shred of empathy for people less fortunate.

Eolian....As a teacher, can I ask you a question? Where does this reward management system come from (where it seems often the children who misbehave are rewarded). Do slt's encourage it? Is it encouraged in teacher training?
Do you also think it will come back to bite teachers? Ie at some point will they realise it doesn't work?

Or mumzypopz perhaps they choose not to tell you.

Today 16:32 Mumzypopz

Eolian....As a teacher, can I ask you a question? Where does this reward management system come from (where it seems often the children who misbehave are rewarded). Do slt's encourage it? Is it encouraged in teacher training?
Do you also think it will come back to bite teachers? Ie at some point will they realise it doesn't work?

I can answer this as a parent. My child's occupational therapist made recommendations to the school as to how to manage and improve the behaviour of my DS who has autism. Part of this included a reward system. It has been very effective and has benefited him. The rest of the class have benefited to as he is now managing his behaviour much better and is less disruptive to them. School had become a positive place to him.

It doesn't come from anywhere. It's not a policy as such, it's just a fairly logical, natural (but potentially unfair use of a reward system). And it's not necessarily true that it doesn't work. The prospect of the reward may well be improving those kids' behaviour (even if they are still naughtier than the 'good' kids).

Consider this equivalent non-school-based situation:
Family A has children with challenging behaviour (but no SEN). They try various methods of getting the kids to behave better with no success, but finally settle on a sticker chart. At the end of each week, if the kids have a certain number of stickers they are allowed a treat. They are still a bit naughty, but their behaviour has improved and as long as they behave well enough to get the sticker total, they get the treat.

Family B has well-behaved children, so have no need for a sticker chart or an end-of-week treat.

Poor old family B's kids get no reward for their good behaviour. Family A's kids are still naughtier than family B's but they get rewarded.

The difference is, in the non-school example, the 'good' kids are unaware of the unfairness. In school, they are not.

In the spirit of anecdotes about favorable treatment.

My "good child" was targeted by a group of children, called a range of insults. The Teacher investigated passed it to the Head who rang the parents and the children wrote letters of apology to my "good child". Another child spat in My "good child's" face, again a letter of apology (no need for an investigation as it happened in class and was witnessed by staff).

My "naughty child" was being taunted by another child. The other child was using a range of insults, holding his lunch box over a bin and other unkind acts. The TA observed them in the classroom, felt my "naughty child" and the other child were interacting well and so no further action was required.

The one incident where my "naughty child" was unkind towards another child, he lost break, had to see the head (to whom he apologised and admitted everything truthfully), write apology letter to the child and write an explanation to me in his communication book. I'm totally supportive of that btw but there is definitely no favour towards him.

I was a follow the rules kind of kid and always behaved well. In fact through much of secondary school I suspect I was pretty invisible to most teachers. I had some very challenging times though, and was I suspect clinically depressed for at least a year.
Please don't assume that all kids who are invisible are happy. Some kids are naturally more obedient, even if they are facing lots of challenges.

Cross-posted. Yes, a reward system can be suggested for specific kids, and schools also have reward/sanction policies, but teachers generally have their own habits in how to apply these and what kids have to do in order to get the rewards. What I meant was that there is no general policy which says "Reward naughty kids"!

I would think this "reward" is more likely a social skills group.

My ds got to spend 2 afternoons a week in the secret garden in juniors. He played games, had toast and loved it. He went because he has asd.
Ds made most academic progress during this time as was less disruptive in class and could learn. I expect that extended to other pupils learning more too.

I'm not sure punishing him with the withdrawal of positive social interaction because of an incident likely caused by his disability would have done much in the way of teaching him anything. It would have increased his anxiety and the number of incidents though.

Ilike describes extremely well my experience of the assumptions made by many/most teachers that the 'naughty' behaviour is caused by family 'dysfunction', etc. and not only did it delay ds's diagnosis (ASD) this view was based on pure ignorance and made it very difficult for me to be taken seriously and led to our complete social isolation. It is extremely hurtful and it has taken years to dispel this mythological 'mantle' of dysfunction. I'm not sure that we completely will until ds finishes his secondary education (just 1 year and 1 term to go).

Spikeyball..... Perhaps they didn't too. I actually know more about this child than the big standard mum at the gate

*Yes children with special needs should be supported, helped and encouraged. However, not all 'naughty' children have special needs. Some are indeed just badly behaved. They should not be rewarded with tea parties.

Equally, not all 'good, well-behaved' children are without problems. Some are probably hiding all kinds of issues. But they don't get the stickers and tea parties because they don't need to be bribed to behave themselves. They behave anyway, but don't necessarily get noticed for it.*

I think you've put it better than I did.

but some people on MN wont accept it because they are so amazing with kids and every child must be like their DC who is bloody amazing and such a delight. Theyve never taught 33 children. Theyve never had parents cry with frustration because they want help and are at their wits end. Theyve never encountered the rare individuals who shout and scream and swear at them (and then its clear why the child thinks its ok). Theyve never had to explain to a class why little timmy gets away with all sorts because home perfectly reasonable for people to let their 12 year old stay up til 1am and drink 3 cans of energy drinks a day and then kick off at staff for wanting the child to behave. Theyll say expecting that child to behave and sanctioning them is unfair and cruel. And then theyll sit on MN like some holier than though person complaining how all the teachers they know are awful about children based on ridiculous ideas that having a child makes you some kind of internet authority on any subject imaginable relates to education.

I was a teacher for many years before I had a child with sn so I a well aware of what it is like.

MaisyPops:

^^

This.

Frayed is there any way you can remove your DS from that school and home ed until secondary? Poor kid.

Pugwash as an SEN teacher I can honestly say all of the children that I have ever worked with would rather be in the 'good' group. They just find school extremely difficult for a vast number of reasons. Please stop encouraging your child to report back and try to get them to focus on themselves and understand that everyone has different needs.