What is going on?

[pleasemindyourmanners]

I am a teacher and I am aware that this will no doubt lead to lots of teacher bashing as this appears to have become a national past time.
I just can't work out what is going on with children and parents and attitudes towards school.
Younger and younger children are coming through with less and less resilience. I realise that covid and lockdowns have played a part but this was happening before then too. It is just gradually getting worse.
So many parents also appear almost delusional about their children. That is increasing year on year too. They are not interested in any misdemeanours their child may have been part of. They only believe one version of events. And all want their child to be listened to and their version to be acted upon.
I was looking at my pension pot. I have about 25 years to reach the state pension. That is a terrifying prospect. If behaviour and attitudes towards teaching/schools carry on the same trajectory I dread to think what things will be like by that point.
I really wish I could put my finger on what the main problems are but the issues are so massive there are definitely no easy fixes. Lack of resources and specialist staff is one issue but i don't remember there being such a huge need as there is nowadays.
It is like we, teachers, are also becoming immune to being sworn at by parents and even primary aged kids.
It isn't just my school. Friends in other schools and teachers on teaching Facebook pages are all saying the same thing. I'd say this is one of the many reasons there is a teacher retention issue. It is draining.
I absolutely love the kids and what I do. However, I feel like I can't do my job properly a lot of the time as I've effectively become a bouncer or a referee.
Everything appears to be blamed on teachers. Even icy conditions round school was seen as our fault and we were thoughtless putting them out in the icy playground.
Kids who just get on with things, don't try to cause a drama, who are kind without having constant dramas are becoming more and more rare. This is no longer the expected behaviour and ore like a wishful dream. It is Monday night and I'm totally exhausted already.

Totally agree with this, including the comment about the increased blurring of what is a mental health issue and what just constitues life and common human emotions.

That is part of mental health though - life and common human emotions. Mentally unwell, actually not that many years ago to me meant mad, psycho, loopy etc. Yes, there is a difference between feeling sad one day and being depressed but it's all part of the same human experience.

Absolutely this.

People are completely deluding themselves if they really believe that things were better in the 'good old days'.

My parents were born in the early 50s and things were absolutely not better then. They both had awful, neglectful childhoods. My dad was beaten at school because he was scruffy. Neither of them or any of their siblings learnt anything at school and they've all got alcohol and/or mental health problems 🤷‍♀️

I went to school in the 80s and 90s and there were disruptive kids then. Getting pissed and doing drugs in he park was the usual hobby for plenty of kids. Children had autism but were mostly just ignored. Bullying was absolutely rife as were massive fights between rival schools/gangs. Teenage pregnancy was rife. I can remember a parent threatening to break a teachers legs. I can remember a mother standing by watching while he kids battered another kid.

So please, come off it that things were better. Stop kidding yourselves.

I was teaching then and it was often very much a land of milk and honey.

Teachers were trusted to get on with the job and, crucially, it was much easier to expel violent pupils.

So there was no racism, bullying, fighting?

Homophobia? Section 28 went in 2003.

You were trusted to get on with the job and I am sure you did so diligently but many teachers did not.

Teenage pregnancy rates: what were they like?

Ah, the good old days.

I saw a really good tiktok the other day that reasoned kids today are brats because their millennial/ gen x parents never had their emotional needs met ever. We were left to deal with all our problems ourselves, our MH issues were never dealt with and we felt completely unsupported.

I was born in the early 60s and this was just as true during my school years if not more so. The idea that we had any emotional needs was quite alien. We were at school to learn and that was that.

I don't think you can compare being a teacher in a state school or a nurse in A&E to the majority of private sector jobs. All the private sector jobs I've had have been pretty cushy, no unpaid and excessive overtime, or threats of violence, or having to take responsibility for other people's mental and physical health, certainly.

“YOUR generation” is a bit of a sweeping nonsense statement, since you don’t know how old many people are on here.

And as for kids “dealing with” social media - you do know it’s not oxygen, right? They don’t have to have it, whatever vocal online people might insist. There’s enough research now to show it’s an absolutely terrible idea to let children have access to it, so if children are “struggling” with social media, that’s poor parenting.

Agree with @Catspyjamas17 about some things though. The world looks pretty bleak at the moment, but the answer isn’t a race to the bottom - what would massively help is family and schools not dwelling on self-care and what tiny box we all fit in, but what we can individually do to help others (from helping around the house to volunteering for charities, environmental projects, unions etc when older).

Actually doing something active removes a sense of powerlessness that is at the route of so much (adult and child) anxiety, and benefits everyone around. Less so endless school assemblies about mental health, and parents calling in to say that asking their child to do their homework is causing MH issues in the parent so they’re not going to do it anymore (had that call before half term).

Excellent post.

‘we can't even buy a tomato in the shop due to Brexit’

Nothing to do with Brexit. There are no tariff or import restrictions into the UK from any country ( although the EU has erected some of its own). The vegetable shortage is due to poor harvest ( remember this summer?) , and the increased costs of energy in the EU , making it difficult to heat greenhouses. The energy situation is particularly bad due to the dependence of many states on Russian gas and power, and the imposition of ‘green’ policies which have discouraged greenhouse production of ….tomatoes and peppers, especially in Holland.

but you bang the drum. I expect knives in schools are somehow due to Brexit too.

It's living in Tory Britain for over a decade. It's almost the entirety of these DCs lives; they have been broken. Austerity, poverty, pandemic, mental health services obliterated, war.

Is it any wonder?

Parents often don't help. I have fought for years with Ex to try to make him understand that our child can and does, frequently do things that are wrong. He undermines my attempts at parenting every time. It's infuriating.

Lastly, we often hold children to unrealistic, higher standards of behaviour and conduct than we do ourselves as adults. This doesn't help, and often increases the desire to rebel.

I think the pp was speaking about mental health issues or problems, not mental health.
And being mentally unwell doesn't necessarily mean you're psychotic! (As you know, using language like 'mad' and 'loopy' to describe MH illness is disrespectful and outdated at this stage.)
What about things like severe (clinical) depression or anxiety etc?

Different to being anxious about an exam or temporarily 'depressed' because your team was knocked out of the league, of course.

Yes of course that language is disrespectful. I used it because that's how people generally thought about mental illness and those were the words that were commonly used.

We used to have discipline. That's what was different. Children had respect for teachers and if you got told off by a teacher, your parents would give you a good telling off too. Now they want compensation.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

Socrates complained about pretty much the same things as you, more than two thousand years ago. I think every generation believes that they are the last to behave 'properly' - maybe it is just how society evolves.

Yes, I understand that, sorry that I didn't make that clearer.
My point was there's a big difference in how 'normal' anxiety /depression and clinically diagnosed anxiety or depression affect a person. And there are lots of other MH conditions that make life very difficult - ocd can be a nightmare, for example, and is widely misunderstood.
You don't have to be psychotic to be mentally unwell.

I think the pp you were reponding to was talking about MH problems, not MH equating to everyday emotions.

Teachers in particular get a bad press because they are in a position of having a job but don't acknowledge the comparative incredibly generous time away from work. If teachers acknowledged they spend a lot of time away from the classroom people would be more inclined ,I suspect, to listen to other issues. When people usually have four to six weeks leave a year, to have people who have 13 and complaining, is a turn off. And hence disrespect comes in.

I also think as a profession they haven't kept standards high enough. I watched some of the 'teaching across Britain' and was dismayed by some of the teachers whose main priority seemed to be needing to be popular with the students far too much.

We are a very child orientated society. Children are revered and idolised. From TV shows, to social media, facilities provided and spend via local councils to 'attractions' who go out of their way to please and TV channels. Older people are not wanted. And children know it. So do parents. Everywhere should provide for their every need. No children's menu = outrage ! Except it shouldn't be so.
And if children are ever not number one priority it is confusing to them, so they kick off. As they expect to be.

And largely, the area you work in might make a difference. I know someone who grew up in a very tough area and fighting parents was going on decades ago. That is nothing new.

I think if teachers went on fewer jollies it might help their reputation. The number of times I have been out to somewhere in term time only to see a coach of children turn up, not the slightest bit interested in whatever it is they are visiting I cannot number. It really is just a day out for the teachers. Often just after they have returned from leave. Teachers are in the classroom for a maximum of 5 weeks stretch at any one time. Which is a bit shocking.

I think too the number of issues that happened around Covid disappointed people. A few schools took a proactive 'can do' approach rather than what seemed really a political stance and got children back in the classroom.

So much absolute rubbish in this post.

Why don't you become a teacher if it's so easy?

We probably disagree but..

I feel parents and society are causing a lot of these so called MH problems
Anxious parents=anxious kids. It’s very self-indulgent.

BTW She didn’t have “school refusal”

She hadn’t even expressed an opinion about attending school and in the end acted completely normal.

The dilemma was created in the parent’s head that there might be a “problem” and that the parent felt anxious because this particular parent struggles to say no and in general projects a lot of her own anxieties onto the kid. I see this happening a great deal but if you point it out there is always denial because I think some people enjoy victimhood.

You have my complete sympathies OP.
One of my best friends is a primary teacher and she is at breaking point.

Kids are starting school having never been taught simple basic life skills, she regularly encounters biting, hitting, kicking, children swearing at her, subjecting her to racial abuse, they have been exposed to things primary school age children shouldn't be exposed to as no censorship at home especially when they have free rein of iPads and internet access.

When the parents get called in to discuss their child's behaviour they kick off or couldn't care less.

The UK is in a real mess, educational system is failing everyone, the teachers and the children.

But I also think in general people have no standards anymore.

I didn't say teaching was easy anywhere. In some places it will not be easy at all.

The OP asked why teachers seem to have disrespect. And I have given my views as to why that might be.

What would your answer to the OP be ?

can't quite believe I just read that?!!?

Well, you did.

Let the OP know what you think the reasons might be to her questions.

I feel parents and society are causing a lot of these so called MH problems
Anxious parents=anxious kids. It’s very self-indulgent.

Top marks for your ableism and parent blaming.

School refusal mostly happens because the child has unmet needs. The closure of special schools and cuts in funding/ TAs. SATs and failure to make adjustments for children with dyslexia or neurodiversity and failure to diagnose or even recognise these conditions in some areas lead to children being so anxious and traumatised by being forced into unsuitable environment is what mostly leads to refusal.

For a parent who has to do nothing more than feed, clothe, ensure your child is transported and support with home work to get their child educated it is very easy to judge other parents who aren't so fortunate.

It has nothing to do with the child not being taught resilience or over anxious parenting or enjoying victimhood FFS.

@Guis

So little understanding or comprehension in your post that it's difficult to know where to start.

School trips are a day out for teachers? You have no clue what it involves. Much easier to stay in school.

Most teachers hate days out because of the responsibility, the need to ensure safeguarding, pre-visits to see what the place is like (in their own time). And, of course, a health and safety assessment to be submitted before permission is granted.

You got this so wrong, is it surprising the rest of your post also makes little sense?