To think that parents don’t often know how shitty their dc’s behaviour is at school

[SpaceRaiders]

Dd9 moved to a new school in March. Whilst we’re happy with the school in other areas, she’s found the boys in her class a real challenge. I’ve heard nothing bad things from her since. From disruptive classes, shouting out and swearing to low level bullying. There seems to be the same boys being disruptive but seemingly the entire class gets reprimanded.

I’m guessing the other parents aren’t fully aware what’s going on during school. They certainly will after today’s incident, where a parent has found out about some awful things that have been said and kicked off on WhatsApp. I won’t go into details as it may be outing for all involved. But I’ve been really appalled by what I’m hearing and it’s completely unexpected from the lovely well to do area that we live in. I’d be absolutely appalled if it were my child.

Some parents are clueless about their own kids. Going back to my school days, I remember my mum saying she worked with someone who had a daughter in my year. She was saying her mum said she was a lovely girl, not a bit of trouble, always kind and friendly etc. When I found out the girl she meant both me and the friend of mine who was round at the time burst out laughing. She was a nightmare, a bully, and a horrible, bitchy girl. I don't know what planet her mother was on!

I don't know why people are being so unpleasant to you, OP. I think it's totally the case that some children can be nasty to others and some parents can't/won't believe that their little angels could ever do anything bad.

Sadly in my experience, you see a kid playing up at school, think the parents arent aware.... then at some point have a playdate at their home and find that actually some parents tolerate so much bad behaviour at home

In my experience school and home are very different. Home is one or two children, generally, pretty quiet etc. School = 30 kids in a class. The dynamics and behaviour are bound to be different. And some kids actually behave well at school and are a pain in the neck at home.

Some parents don't give a toss what their kids do but the vast majority are mortified if they find their kids are behaving badly at school. Funnily enough, parents don't tell their kids to go to school and bully little Sarah or tell the teacher to f off. But that doesn't mean that the kids don't do it but the parents can't control behaviour when they are not there.

And those of you with the "nice, sensitive" kids might have the "naught"y ones in future. Or maybe they used to be "naughty" but have grown up a bit. All kids have their moments.

@tessiegirl

I don't really understand why you have bothered to post about this?

God forbid on a parenting forum, someone should discuss parenting...

however I am allowed to pass comment on the impact of bullying/ disruptive behaviour on the cohort as a whole. That is what this thread was about.

It is unacceptable that children are subjected to aggression on a regular basis from their peers. Some of the other stuff you report is just regular children's behaviour as they learn social skills (unless it's bullying where it is persistent and targeted).

Surely bullies must be bullies at home too.

Generally you'll find they're being bullied at home and on and on the cycle goes. I think boys misbehaving is generally more tolerated. There are some beautifully behaved boys in both my DDs classes but all the "problem" children from two preschools and primary school have been boys. Nature/nurture I don't know but it's quite infuriating at times!

@SpaceRaiders

And yes you are being very snooty with your well to do comments.. come on

Oh give me a break! All I meant was that we don’t live in inner city London, so all the social issues that a previous poster mentioned were less relevant.

It’s interesting how posters will dissect every word and extrapolate what they want from your posts to fit their own narrative. But that’s why I posted to gauge opinions.

Inner. City. London.

What the actual fuck. You actual judgemental cow.

So only children from deprived (FYI inner city London also counts some of THE most expensive areas of the Uk) boroughs possibly could behave as badly as you describe.

@SpaceRaiders the parents may not know, but it's the school's responsibility to tell them. I'd be wary of getting involved in parent WhatsApp conversations about individual students if I were you ... the information parents get from their children is, at best, second hand and is also often exaggerated and one sided. If you're worried about something your child tells you, contact the school, not other parents.

I'm a member of a couple of school WhatsApp groups, also in a nice area, and, frankly, the attitude and behaviour of some of the parents is sometimes unpleasant. It's not surprising some of their kids are badly behaved too.

I can't believe that you express surprise that this behaviour goes on in " well to do areas"🙄 are so naive (or just downright snooty) to believe that the more "posh" the area the better behaved the child!
I can tell you first hand from growing up in a very well to do area that the kids I grew up around were, by the majority, little shits, whose parents,like you, naively thought the sun shone out of their ass because they came out of a "big house"..
I attended a high school that my "neighbours looked down on because the majority of pupils lived in council estates...by the majority, the were decent kids, with good parenting behind them..some of whom I am still friends with to this day....it was attitudes like yours that made me move from a "well to do area"!

As a teaching assistant I can only agree with you OP. The amount of parents who either are totally oblivious to their child's awful behaviour or even see it as something positive never ceases to amaze me. Some parents dress it up as "yeah she can defend herself no one will pick on her" or "yeah he's very competitive, its great because he will always stand his ground and get what's best for himself"

er... no let me translate for you...your dd is violent and aggressive, and your ds is arrogant selfish and can't cope with not getting his own way.

I wish school staff were just allowed to tell it how it really is, no frills, no putting it politely, just the home truths!

Although there will always be the parents who couldn't give a shit anyway.

YANBU.

Some children can be angels at home, terrible at school and vice versa though. @MissyB1 I agree about being able to tell the truth, and that there are some parents who either don't care or are absent when it comes to anything to do with schooling (and don't have work patterns preventing them).

The hardest children to deal with are the ones with parents who refuse to believe that their precious darling is not 100% perfect.

DS has SENs and "fortunately" his challenging behaviour is when the mask slips at home. There could well be the day that he explodes in school and as a parent, my role will be to work with the school on that.
On the rare occasions that there has been an issue with my DCs I've listened to the teacher and I've listened to my child and talked about the issue and other ways of dealing with it. They're human, of course they'll cock up at some point.

When I taught, the pupils throwing accusations of bullying and victimisation around were the ones with ongoing poor behaviour with parents that did not engage well and have sensible boundaries from an early age. When behaviour records were looked at, my reactions were always in-line with school policy and other subject teachers. What a waste of time.

I've found that often the schools with tougher catchments are better at dealing with challenging behaviour than naice schools in pleasant suburbs. Too often they are complacent, brush issues under the carpet and then suddenly have a major issue when it escalates over time.

@CantBeAssed

I can't believe that you express surprise that this behaviour goes on in " well to do areas"🙄 are so naive (or just downright snooty) to believe that the more "posh" the area the better behaved the child! I can tell you first hand from growing up in a very well to do area that the kids I grew up around were, by the majority, little shits, whose parents,like you, naively thought the sun shone out of their ass because they came out of a "big house".. I attended a high school that my "neighbours looked down on because the majority of pupils lived in council estates...by the majority, the were decent kids, with good parenting behind them..some of whom I am still friends with to this day....it was attitudes like yours that made me move from a "well to do area"!

This. The children from 'well-to-do' areas are often quite entitled, rude, badly behaved and unpleasant whilst kids from 'disadvantaged' areas are often pleasant, polite and well brought up.

The children from 'well-to-do' areas are often quite entitled, rude, badly behaved and unpleasant whilst kids from 'disadvantaged' areas are often pleasant, polite and well brought up

Doesn't surprise me. I live in a diverse area and the posher parents are totally ineffectual at disciplining their kids and you often hear some drippy middle class parent whimper "stop doing that darling" whereas the working class parents just tell it like it is and tell the kid off!

Surely all the news about how many girls are groped and sexually harassed at school (as I was back in the day) must be not listened to by the parents of all the boys who have done the harassing?
The parents must all think it's someone else's boys?

Many will of the attitude that "boys will be boys". A little boy at DDs school was hiding under the climbing frame in the yard before school and very blatantly looking up the girls dresses while pointing and giggling about "knickers!". A couple of us mentioned it to the teacher, not because we think he's a sexual predator (they're four) but because it's not appropriate and he needs to be taught that it's not. Tescher approached his mum and she posted a full on rant in the class group chat about how her little boy is not a pervert, he's just a little boy doing what little boys do, all little boys think undies/bottoms are funny, how dare anyone shame him for it, he's four FFS, and so on. Totally missing the point that there is a clear difference between giggling about undies/bottoms and intentionally looking up girls skirts in order to see their undies/bottoms.

I have two sons, we don't subscribe to "boys will be boys" in my house.

Since parents aren’t with their children at school, the only way they will know is if someone makes them aware. If the teacher knows about the behaviour, they should be the ones informing the parents otherwise how do you expect the parents will find out?

I have two sons, we don't subscribe to "boys will be boys" in my house.

I have three and I’m the same. None of them are ‘typical’ boys anyway because they haven’t been raised to act like thugs.

Same here. Growing up, us girls were treated differently to the boys and we had different rules compared to our brothers. I remember as a teen my dad telling me if I came home pregnant that I'd better only be coming home to pack my bags because I wouldn't be raising it in his house whereas my brothers were told "remember lads, practice safe sex - don't give her your real name, hur hur hur!"

My daughters are treated the same as my sons and the same behaviour rules apply to them all.

In my experience of observing school families and shitty bullies, the apple never falls far from the tree. Children pick up and absorb their parents' values and behaviour. And just like their parents, they can have a public and private persona which their parents are not always aware of and will vehemently deny if it reflects badly on their parenting

They know and don't care.

They know and excuse it.

They know but it doesn't match what they see at home so they are unsure how to deal with it.

They know and they put things in place at home,but kids being their own person (especially if in a group) they go with the (negative) "flow".

They actually don't know either because it's not reported to them or their kid is on the fringe of the negative behaviour .

This thread is reminding me of so many things to do with living in a small town where "everyone knows" stuff. Like how utterly useless other parents are, obviously.

"That little boy Nigel has been upsetting my Kira."
-Well everyone knows that Nigel is a terror & his mum won't do anything about it.-

2 anecdotes about living in an "Everyone knows" type town:

1. DS upset Kira, 2 days later Hermione's mum looked at me like dirt on her shoe when we invited Hermione for a playdate with DD. Even though Hermione had been to ours recently without problems, she was "busy" on Tuesday and Thursday next week. Those same days we bumped into Hermione playing idly by herself, bored in the playground of course. Only later I discovered Hermione's mum & Kira's mum were sisters -- "Everyone knew" but not me.

1. Sarah I knew slightly from PTA. She was heavily pregnant seemingly for months and I nearly asked her husband if she'd had the baby when I saw him in supermarket -- grand job I didn't ask because it wasn't his baby. "Everyone knew" but me.

So yeah, just because you "know" everything about someone else's parenting and home life -- more likely you don't know jack, just idle gossip is all you know, that's the reality.

@tessiegirl

I don't really understand why you have bothered to post about this?

To shame the parents of badly behaved children and contrast it with her perfect little, well parented, angel ofc.

Have you considered that your precious child might be a complete nightmare and other parents might be posting about them? Some parents, obviously not you OP, cannot see what their child might do. It's usually a two sided story and the truth is somewhat in the middle but everyone believes their child is the victim.

Perhaps I should have posted;

Some children.

Nor all parents.

Not all boys.

Let’s not forget about the girls.

Not all schools.

And certainly not ones with catchments in deprived areas.

Clearly I’m just a goady, judgemental cow.

MN is such a weird place at times. Thanks for all the measured responses.