Teachers - are your 6-8 year olds this rude?

[WhaleBlue]

I work in lots of different schools working with small groups of children aged between 6 & 8. More recently I’ve noticed the level of interrupting when I’m speaking, not listening to instructions and generally thinking what they have to say is far more important than what I have to stay really off putting.

I’ve been doing the same role for over 20 years and never had any real issues, but over recent months am becoming more frustrated with this. Is it just my area or is it the same across the UK?

God only knows how their class room teacher copes with about 30 of them at the same time.

This is also something that they have expressed an interest in which their parents are paying for.

Oh if only! Nope. For the most part they're pulling faces at each other, smirking, talking football or Roblox or just generally arsing around. It's nigh on impossible sometimes to utter one sentence without being interrupted.
I do agree that the school structure is wrong with an inappropriately formal and knowledge based curriculum but as a mere class teacher, I have to do my best to implement that. I try to adapt and modify where I can, to make the learning and set up more child friendly but it is frowned upon by SLT who are under pressure from the SIPS and ultimately ofsted.
But the bottom line is, for whatever reasons, children's behaviour has deteriorated and is making teaching, already a hard job, miserable.

I taught for many, many years and an effective behaviour manager, but there were some classes that were just impossible.

Bottom set Option Support in Year 10 and 11. 15 boys, none of whom had any intention of doing work to support their other GCSE options.

I think it’s a combination of COVID, screens, gaming, believing in an entitlement to have/ do what they want.

It is becoming unmanageable in many school though.

Combination of Covid and children never being told no anymore.

There's only so much a professional can do when the parent then collects and moans at you for telling their child off, or rewards their bad behaviour with sweets or screens to make them feel better for being told off, and wanders home to have uninterrupted entitled time.

A couple of years before COVID I was talking to an elementary science teacher at my DC's school who was retiring. I asked why she was retiring and she told me the children and their parents were just getting ruder and ruder and she had just had enough of it. This was an excellent teacher so a real loss to the school, where she had been teaching for nearly 30 years.

I don't think it is all COVID.

There are some wierd attitudes to self discipline in little children. I mentioned on Mumsnet that my DC went to pre-school where they learned to stay sitting for a story and circle time, to not talk when the teacher was talking, and understand that certain things happened at certain times - like it or not - and generally play together without beating each other up. One poster reacted as if I'd enrolled them in Marine boot camp. It was ludicrous.

I was glued to my zx spectrum in the 80s so def not new

It's appalling parenting. Our SLT spend more time explaining dealing with drama creating, attention seeking, entitled divas than they do with the kids.

Kids seem to be considered "grown up" age 8, and parent wrings hands, rolls eyes and gives up until asked to step up, at which point expect hair trigger temper tantrum, letter to governors and immediate recourse to class WhatsApp to publish their victimisation.

I do think that a laudable aversion to previous ideas of 'seen and not heard' etc and a generally positive greater understanding of child development does sometimes shade into some very low expectations. I've seen well meaning and much praised (and shared on MN!) parenting advice that says that you can't expect any self-control or empathy (and therefore consideration of others) at all before age 7...

Kick out the disruptive ones. If the parents get a consistent message from you and school they might actually listen.

Good luck expecting parents to back you up. Lots of them want you to do the parenting for them.

Just this week - a parent asking if I can tell their child what time to go to bed 'because he won't listen to me.'

I've had two complaints. One child wore new shoes that were uncomfortable and her feet were sore. Direct complaint to the Head - I didn't do anything about it. The fact that she didn't tell anyone was also my fault. The other one - a missed playtime for slapping a child. He needs his playtimes. Yes, and the other children need to feel safe. He can have a run around for ten minutes with a supervising TA, by himself.

Haha, this reminds me of a parent of a boy in our school who lets him walk in the middle of the road because "he won't listen to me". A TA saw him walking like that outside of school and said get on the path, you'll get run over. The boy did and the parent retorted with "he won't listen to me" 🤦‍♀️ like it's better to risk your only child (might I add) to get hit by cars than to be firm and insist on a safety rule being followed.

I don’t think we can blame COVID for everything! Yes there was less interaction with others, & more online learning etc but now things are normal again perhaps the
parents need to take them out more/more play dates and interactions with others?! Tbf 6yrs old is a time where they think they’re more grown up than they are…my 6yr old acts 16!

I'm shocked at the amount of teachers on here unable to grasp the effect on social development of Covid, lockdowns, limits on mixing, mask wearing and social distancing on this cohort of children.

Blaming parents is lazy beyond lazy.

Have you people not had any training on this?

Training? Are you joking? That would involve money being spent.

No we haven't. We're just muddling through as best we can.

Yes this basically.

To those saying that they were glued to a screen in the 80s and 90s and they turned out fine, screens today are a very different beast. In the 80s and 90s you were probably watching one or two channels of whatever children’s shows happened to be on - not ideal, but at least learning to sit through ads (no fast forwarding then!) and segments or shows you didn’t like. If you got bored, there weren’t endless other offerings: either you watched what was on or you didn’t. If you were on the computer or a video game, your options were similarly limited, and your attention span/patience/tolerance for boredom was similarly being tested in at least small ways - you had to sit through the computer booting up, play through one level before you could get to the next, etc.

Today, screen time consists of a child watching or playing whatever they want until the instant they get bored, at which point they have the freedom to switch to the next thing. Videos and games are designed to be a lot more addictive (shorter scenes, faster camera changes, lights, noise, etc.). They’re not sitting through ads or really anything that doesn’t actively hold their interest.

It’s not difficult to see why kids raised on this kind of screen time have no tolerance for boredom, no concept of waiting their turn, no idea that their desires aren’t everyone’s top priority, etc.

I always find it really interesting about people saying “overprotective parenting” and yet never have parents been held more responsible for how children behave. It’s similar to the thing about schools not being able to let children fail because they are judged on it. What do you expect?

maybe we should blame the parents of today’s parents, for raising such shit parents.

I think it’s a combination of three things…

1. Too much time on screens, they have no ability to be bored for even a millisecond. They have grown up with flashing lights and loud noises in their face so why would an adult speaking be of any interest to them? They’ve probably never even sat through a meal and had to have enough manners to not interrupt as we would all have done when growing up.

2. Covid just amplified the problem, causing more time on screens and these year groups will be some of the youngest ones for it to have an effect on.

3. The whole dynamic has changed now. It used to be if a teacher or adult as school asked you to do something you’d do it without question. I would never have got into trouble for fear of my teacher telling my mum, I would have been mortified by the idea. Now it seems to go the opposite way and if the teacher was to tell the mum anything it would be twisted back on the teacher as their kid can do no wrong. The child is also aware of this new dynamic so there are effectively no boundaries whatsoever. The teacher (and school in general) have to walk on egg shells not to be plastered all over social media or reported to someone higher up if they dare tell a child off for doing wrong.

Ive just given up teaching as it got to the ridiculous stage. Children were walking all over us, nothing was actually being taught because the behaviour was so bad, we were being physically assaulted daily, the whole thing was massively underfunded and it was just an impossible job. I ended up on anxiety medication before I left as it had completely ruined my mental health. Six months later and I’m back to myself again, haven’t felt this stress-free in years! I dread my own child starting school now because of it but I will send a bottle of wine and thank you card at every holiday in the hope the teacher doesn’t quit!

Yes, we've had loads of training on how to identify the academic and developmental gaps, interventions to support, tutoring to support.

The increase in lazy parenting is also evident - anecdotally corroborated by NHS colleagues responsible for assessing for ND etc - but not as easy to address that.

Actually I used lazy as that was your term but I don't think it's lazy. It's overprotective, fear of upsetting their child. It isn't lazy because it must be exhausting.

Yep, because parents are being held responsible for every negative feeling their child encounters, it’s made out that if your child has MH problems in future or as an adult then it’s because you personally failed. It’s hardly surprising.

Yup but no allowance made to the timetable or routines expected at school. On the contrary, bigger class sizes, less TA support and increased pressure to stuff the children full of 'learning' to plug the Covid gaps. No allowance whatsoever in what we're allowed to deliver in terms of social emotional learning. Golden time and play opportunities frowned upon or downright forbidden by SLT. You tell me how I'm meant to support these children when I'm being judged and monitored on how well I'm delivering the curriculum. I try my best but it's almost impossible. It's killing me mentally because I know I'm not doing the children justice as well as the daily frustration of enduring bad behaviour in the classroom. I'm leaving the profession at the end of this term. Something I never thought I'd do.
Buy hey, @Fandabedodgy, there's a dire shortage of teachers right now. Why don't you give it a go and see how you get on?

I commented on a thread here that I sometimes just say 'no not today' to my kids and other posters were horrified that I don't give them a full explanation as to why we can't go to the park or McDonald's or whatever. The teacher hasn't got time to give every child the full 'how to talk so kids listen' treatment, sometimes no just means no.

I agree with this. My younger daughter is in Reception. I don't think covid has affected her at all - she started preschool at 3 (later than she would have otherwise) but this isn't a big deal and she has transitioned well into school whereas my daughter in year 3 missed some of reception and year 1 - it has taken a while to catch up her reading and confidence.