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.

Info-slept and fed my babies to sleep. They are both very resilient.

Parents need to let their children experience failure and disappointment and allow them to learn how to deal with it
It's not healthy to big children up constantly, encourage them, support them and protect them but with firm boundaries
When people tell me I'm lucky with my children I want to scream that it was bloody hard work
Oh and school trips are definitely not 'jollies' @Guis , you need to stop watching so much television if you are believing that

OP, I generally agree with your sentiments as someone who’s worked in secondary education for a number of years (and now initial teacher education). It seems issues are getting worse and more extreme.

I think a lot of the issues have stemmed from people only believing what they want and not being willing to listen or change their minds when presented with new information. Anything that contrasts their belief system or way of thinking is ignored. There’s also more extremist views at the moment which I think causes division and makes people not want to listen or change their mind.

An example I’ve seen in this thread is the discussion of gentle parenting. As a mother of a toddler I only recently came across this and despite what I would call my more ‘no nonsense approach’ I found a lot of the tenants of gentle parenting to be sound and based on scientific evidence (particularly stuff around intrinsic and extrinsic motivation) and it has impacted how I parent for the better. Tbh, I would never have consider this if I wasn’t potty training and looking for a book to guide the process. I’m glad I took the time to look at a different approach and learn something.

My point is, society as a whole could learn to try to listen to one another more and to understand better rather than constantly bashing and blaming. Also, may not thinking our way is the only way or the right way.

Yes.

I like to think of myself as someone who has respect for teachers. I do see parents getting a bit of an attitude around teaching staff and think, thank god I don’t teach….. I couldn’t put up with that sense of entitlement.

Social media usage should be banned in under 16’s. Has no place in schools, mobiles should be banned and confiscated if they are used in classrooms.

Yip.
Snowflake parents.
Parents who spend too little time with their child or too much on organised activities so the children are never bored.
Parents who try to blame their child's bad behaviour on external factors. Eg - "Did you kick off because you couldn't do your maths?" 🙄

It's the fallout from the Snowflake Generation having children.

Behold the Era of the Child!! (Never being at fault!)

@Guis you have no idea what teachers actually do.
I have taught, worked in private and public sector professional roles. I can assure you that teaching is much more difficult.

I think technology means neither kids nor their parents have the attention span needed for learning.
So the parents don't role model behaviours you need to succeed at school.
I see kids with iPads built into their pushchairs. How can that do anything but make kids unable to manage their own minds?
Also once children have phones - it's all over - they belong to apple/google/YouTube etc They're taken like in science fiction, I'm sort of kidding and not.

For normal run of the mill bad behaviour, a lot of it comes down to kids not being hit anymore. I’m not advocating hitting children at all btw, but back in the day you didn’t really have to apply any kind of parenting strategies as kids were ruled by the fear of getting hit. In some cultures, this is still the norm and the kids in those cultures are generally much more respectful as they know the consequence of behaving badly at school and in the home. Of course, you can successfully parent a well-rounded child without hitting them, but it’s harder work and you have to follow through, be consistent with consequences etc, in a way you didn’t when fear was the motivator for behaving yourself.

Also, too much screen use definitely has an effect on behaviour.

I think good parenting is really incredibly hard. I think I'm a pretty poor parent. I wanted to be a great parent but was too lazy and chaotic to achieve it.
If I could do it again I think I would beca really fantastic parent.

Snowflake parents.
Parents who spend too little time with their child or too much on organised activities so the children are never bored.
Parents who try to blame their child's bad behaviour on external factors. Eg - "Did you kick off because you couldn't do your maths?"

Who raised these parents though?

Lack of accountability and a feeling of entitlement I think is a massive issue. And as a parent of good kids, with no behavioural issues and no learning issues, at school they are practically invisible, and they notice it. they recognise that their consistent effort isn't noticed.

With 3 kids of different ages and school years they have all been impacted by the past few years. My 6 year old has needed speech therapy, which we're lucky to have been able to afford to pay privately, as NHS waiting lists are so long. My 11 year old has some anxiety and trouble sleeping and my 13 year old went through lockdown year 6 & 7, which led to anxiety and some school refusal. I know so many kids with MH, anxiety, school refusal and other issues on top of parents who haven't had a break for years due to the lockdowns. On top of babies born who found socialising difficult and are behind and students leaving 1st year uni and they're not emotionally ready for it. I'm sorry for teachers having to cope with children with these issues as well but please don't blame exhausted parents who have barely survived the past few years home schooling, working and trying to keep normally in the most difficult of circumstances.

I've found some of the teachers are just as bad. My youngest is Autistic and struggles academically, but you wouldn't think it at parents evening. They focus on how well she is doing and what great progress she is making. They seem shocked when I ask about how far she is behind and what more we can do to support with functional skills. If I wasn't a realistic parent the only indication that DD was so far behind would be the end of year reports when she's marked as no where near meeting expectations.

Are the teachers scared of telling the truth in parents evenings. I don't want a sanitised version of how my children are doing I want the truth. I also want to know about any bad behaviour so I can also ensure that lessons are learned and appropriate apologies to anyone effected are made.

Parents treat their kids as friends, they are scared to say no.

I know of someone who has 2 children,one aged 15, one aged 9. They have NEVER done a full week at school.

Mother says she can't get them out of bed, or they're ill, or they're too tired (from gaming all night) They are currently being seen by welfare officers, but it's too little too late. The eldest leaves this year!

Mother isn't worried atall . It means she gets a lay in if they don't want to go to school. I despair!
And I couldn't do your job for all the tea in China! And I'm a nurse which seems easy compared to teaching !

I‘m a former primary teacher, current school governor and have a 5-year-old DD in Reception. I agree with many of the reasons cited by PPs above - things like excessive screen time/social media, lack of firm boundaries and Covid all play into the narrative of increasingly poor behaviour. But I think the full picture is extremely nuanced and much more complicated than straightforward ‘poor parenting’.

When I was teaching a few years ago there was always a sizeable group of challenging children who needed additional support with behaviour, communication etc. This group was largely made up of those who were socially or economically vulnerable, and whose parents themselves lacked the education or resources to parent effectively - your classic ‘deprived kids’.

What I see around me now, though, - in the school at which I’m a governor, my own child’s school year and my peer/friendship group of mums - is that this group has been joined by another group of challenging children, who are materially much better off and more ‘middle class’, but whose issues with behaviour etc seem to stem from lack of parental time/input. They often have two full-time working parents who are run ragged trying to juggle everything, have been in full-time nursery from a very young age, spend much of their time outside actual school hours in a ever-changing mish-mash of breakfast clubs, after school clubs and holiday clubs, and are given no boundaries in the time they do spend with their parents, because said parents are exhausted, suffering from parental guilt and are desperate to spend ‘quality time’ with them. It’s really noticeable that all of the most challenging children in DD’s school fall into one of these two categories.

This is by no means a criticism of working mothers/parents; most of my own friends have no choice but to work full-time, and I’m aware that many people manage to parent perfectly well while also holding down a demanding job. But something seems to be going on whereby a growing tranche of middle-class society is now so chronically stressed, exhausted and time poor that they are unable to parent effectively, and prepare their children for school and to participate in wider society.

A teacher I knew who worked in a rural US community had classes of 15 and he was a star teacher leading from the classroom so to speak and paid to stay teaching rather than get promoted out of the classroom. He said that what you can do with 15 is very different to what you can do with 30. He said 30 is always going to be some kind of crowd control for a significant part of the day.
Also the kids in the middle can get so lost despite the rubrics of all progressing. My ds totally languished in the forgotten middle. The challenging and clever kids took all the energies of the over stretched teacher. I think a smaller class would have been hugely advantageous- which is why so many people choose private schools. I didn't but I get why people do.

I'm 40 and remember massive issues with anxiety and self harm when I was at school in the 90s. The only difference I can see is that it wasn't really acknowledged back then, whereas now parents and teachers are much more aware and open about it. I can remember telling my own mum that I was struggling and needed help only to have her dismissively ask if this (self harm) was a new trend and then never mention it again. Fortunately, although I still struggle with anxiety at times it's nowhere near as bad as it was, but four people from my year group went on to kill themselves in their 20s / early 30s. This is not a new thing caused by 'snowflake parents'.

Spot on!

I was born in the 80s and finished school in 2004. For many years I viewed my peers with a great deal of contempt. It's only as an adult that I've been able to understand how lucky I was to have the upbringing I did. At school I was frequently in trouble, often suspended and seen as a trouble maker. Another friend of mine was also a 'trouble maker' - he's since gone on to revolutionise certain scientific fields, his genuine genius took a destructive form as a teen. I was always encouraged to question everything, to take an interest in the world around me, to read, to be confident about my desire for knowledge and understanding. This was at odds with my education. I have strong memories of bejng told by teachers not to ask questions 'that won't be in your exam'. It got worse at A level, with the pressure to go to university. When I told teachers I had no intention of going to university this was met with shock, but I don't have any formal qualifications and I'm much better off than my peers who did go to university. The current education system does little but enforce the class system. What is the general consensus now regarding education? We tell children 'you can be anything you set your mind to' but what do they learn at school? Memorise something to pass an exam. Pass an exam to get a job. What is school nowadays but a holding pen?

Time poor and entitled parents.

Children need to experience failure, disappointment and yes even a small amount of shame when they’ve done the wrong thing.

Each of my sons have lots of lovely friends but also they know the kids who storm off a football field and refuse to keep playing if they are losing, who never say please and thank you, who are unkind to other kids. In almost all cases the parents are so soft!

It’s a tough balance but your kid can’t be happy the whole time. And one of these days they will be at fault in a squabble. Much better to acknowledge it and deal with it.

This is interesting. We relocated and I have kept in touch with a friend from DS’s old school. There is one big who frequently has a hissy fit (rolling on the pitch and refusing to start play again) but then my friend said he won the cricket prize at the end of the year. He is a teacher’s kid. At our current school: the Head Girl is the Head’s daughter, all the prefect awards, prizes, accolades go to the teacher’s kids in a shameless mutual back-slapping exercise. These kids are put on a pedestal too high for them to climb on their own and most of them are pretty entitled actually.

Not saying that this is the root cause but SLTs should perhaps look more into a meritocracy if they want these nepo babies to bring up their own children in a way that they are teachable.

Quote from a book I read recently about events that occurred in 1993:

’What about poverty, the sinking life raft of the Welfare State and the consistent underfunding of education?’

Land of milk and honey indeed. It never was.

The balance has shifted so much and parents are not allowed to be human anymore. My dd is on the waiting list (2 years) for asd assessment and in the meantime we are required to just crack on. Our family support worker said we would not be able to join the waiting list for support until we had attended parenting courses. My dd has violent meltdowns and is extremely demanding and verbally abusive. Instead of feeling helped I just came out of the 2 hour course feeling guilty because I hadn’t given textbook responses everytime she’d kicked off. I felt horrible because of all the times I’d shouted or said things in retaliation because I was exhausted and pushed to my limits. There were other mums on the course who clearly had children with possible additional needs but the focus was on how to be this model parent rather than providing tangible help.

So the odds are very much stacked against parents- there seems to be only one right way to parent regardless of individual circumstances and this is resulting in parents lacking confidence with discipline. Today I will have another difficult day and when I go on social media I will see half a dozen memes lecturing me on how my child needs to feel. Yes of course we need to be thoughtful, caring parents but we should also be allowed to be human. We have given control to children and schools are seeing the fallout.