To think we have gone wrong with kids as a nation?

[ABigBarofChocolate]

I've been working with kids for a long time and through the years, forms of "punishment" have changed so much.

You hear the whole " when I was at school we got the belt/ruler/??" I don't condone that all.

When I was at school, you got a punishment exercise (writing the same sentence 100 times) or you just didn't get any rewards at the end of the week because your merit chart wasn't full. Very badly behaved kids would either get sent to the HT office or be suspended with work to do.

My DCs school are having a hard time just now. You're basically not allowed to say No to kids these days. It's all positive reinforcement. Don't punish, distract. Etc.

So when the same 2 kids are physically hurting other people's kids or are giving others verbal abuse daily...how are they supposed to handle it?

Did we go wrong when we were told by education big wigs that we were no longer able to make a child feel bad for what they've done to another? No more naughty corner or punishment exercises or being sent out of class or raised voices.

What are your thoughts?

The children I have mentioned on my OP don't have SEN or ADHD or anything. They just like to push boundaries and don't have to deal with the consequences. I know the parents and their parenting styles. They just fob it off.

Kids scared and anxious to come to school with all the bad behaviour from other pupils making it an intimidating environment

Totally agree! This is so often overlooked!

And it becomes a downward spiral when pupils are bullied for studying, particularly in the teen years when DC look to their peers more than parents and teachers sometimes.

In the 60s my dad went out all day with his mates down the river and no adults were around to tell them no. You’re deluded 😂

Exactly this.

Children do well when they can IMO.

@NattyHazelFinch I agree a little.

I definitely agree with holding off screens for as long as possible etc definitely.

But please don't judge parents who do. Yes a lot of the time's it's totally unnecessary but... Having had two completely different dc myself I thought I was an amazing parent to begin with, my first dc was so good and yes we could talk and I could entertain her.

Second dc.
Absolutely different story.

@OhBling
It is generally considered to be a fake quote - the origins seems to be a 1907 book by K J Freeman.

Freeman tries to paraphrase from Plato but the original quotation from Plato shows the older and younger generations as respecting each other, and trying to imitate the other for the greater good.

It certainly isn't a direct quote. If you translated it from Latin, then someone else put it into Latin in the first place for you to translate.

The same quote has also been attributed to Socrates and to eighth-century BC Greek hexameter poet Hesiodos of Askre. Socrates as presumably you know was sentenced to death for corrupting young people so seems unlikely, and there is also in all Hesiodos' writings no evidence of this quote.

@macap and personally we need to embed this in education but we need back up of professional to help.

However I'm sick of the constant blaming of dc for being born with sen or problem families

I used to be a teacher and left partly because of the behaviour. Your hands are completely tied if you try to address behaviour.

One boy in my class constantly disrupted and shouted out while I was teaching. He was emboldened because his dad was head of the governors so thought he could behave how he liked. He lost some of his golden time after repeated warnings and the following week, I had both his parents in complaining and telling me I was ruining their son’s enjoyment of school. Never mind the other children who couldn’t learn because of him.

Then there are the children who escalate their behaviour more and more until sometimes the class has to be evacuated because they are throwing chairs etc. Instead of any consequence, they are given special treatment and taken in with the senior leaders for chats and biscuits. No wonder behaviour is getting worse with such lack of behaviour management.

A lot of it is down to ineffective parenting or the parents who excuse their child’s misbehaviour. I had one mum screaming down the phone at me because I called her to talk about her son throttling another boy in the playground completely unprovoked.

@AliceInSwitzerland how odd my dd had governers dc in the class and they were beautifully behaved

Yeah, according to ChatGBT, it is more likely that I translated Cicero, in which he references things Socrates supposedly says. I had updated that in a subsequent post for @MerryMaker Also entirely likely that my memory has merged a whole bunch of stuff as I also remember this supposed plato quote in the context of Pompeii for some reason!

Old school discipline didn't work for DC with SEN either though (ie in mainstream classrooms - Im not talking about severe and complex SEN who would have been recognised even 40 years ago). Perhaps some benefitted from very clear rules and strict teaching routines making classrooms more predictable and quieter?

It's like this in Prisons now with all the young staff...."please Mr Baddy, will you go to your cell now?" 20 years ago you would be shoving the wanker in the cell whether they liked it or not!

Haha no I got drunk in fields and just didn’t get caught 🤷🏻‍♀️😂 I’m a responsible adult now with a great job/dh/dc.

Do you believe that personality is innate - that children are born with their own personalities?
Or do you believe in the "blank slate" theory, that children are born with no personality?

If the former, it follows that some children are born with undesirable personality traits: an innate tendency e.g. to bully, cheat, lie, show-off, etc. ?

In which case they won't have any internal regulation or motivation to "do the right thing" in certain situations - they need external motivation, i.e. punishment or consequences.

Given that each generation is less equipped for adult life than the last and young adults entering the workplace now have the resilience of a rich tea biscuit, I think we definitely have it wrong.

Thank you for confirming my understanding that it was a hoax.
Anyone who had studied Socrates would have been aware that it really does not sound like his voice.

"All behaviour is communication" is trotted out constantly in a TA group I'm in. Mostly by LSAs with their own children with exceptional needs, to shame other LSAs into staying in a thankless job with incredibly difficult cases. ("if everyone left, who would perform these tasks for the child?? I would be so upset if no one did that for my child" etc. Look, just because we are LSAs, doesn't mean we are always contracted to do everything under the sun. If it's not in the contract and I'm unwilling to perform the task, yes I suppose you as a parent need to do it. And no, I'm not saying I've done this; thankfully, the sort of behaviour being spoken about isn't really an issue at my school. But I deeply sympathise with these women who are being made to feel guilty for having very acceptable boundaries. It's a job, not indentured servitude)

For whatever reason, some children are not learning necessary skills. From more and more children turning up at school unable to use cutlery, zip up their coat, use the toilet independently...to children who have not learned to regulate their emotions, to think of other children's needs, and to care what others think of their behaviour.

Whilst its true that some children who come from abusive homes go on to express their feelings around that at school, I think this is only part of the issue. I grew up in the seventies in a very poor area, and I highly doubt there are more children being abused than there were back then.

We need early intervention for children. What are nurseries doing to teach these skills? Could nurseries be distributing age appropriate milestones your child should be hitting? Maybe a public awareness campaign of good parenting tips for young children. Because this starts young and needs to be tackled when they are young.

This happened to me. I liked to study and learn and I got bullied for it in year 7 - 8. It was horrible, they left nasty messages on our phone saying they were going to kill me. Mum was clueless and I was so ashamed I said it was friends who were joking.
I put my youngest son in private for this reason even though I'm against it in theory. I just didn't see my sweet, intelligent hypersensitive boy being able to cope with bullies and just the way some boys have to push each other around. In elementary I was present before, after and often helped out with outings etc so I knew the students. He was safe because they were younger and also because I talked to all the students and their parents so they would have thought twice about attacking him. In secondary you are on your own. My older son is way tougher even though ASD. If someone says something mean to him he will answer back and not think about it. My youngest take things to heart like any hypersensitive so he would not have survived. Also I want the norm in school to be that it's positive having good grades which unfortunately is not the case everywhere...

The education system in the UK, in particular, reflects ideas from the era of Charles Dickens. This approach can be seen as outdated and ineffective. Furthermore, there is a tendency towards micromanagement in administering discipline, which often leads to a one-size-fits-all method of motivation with regressive punishment used as a tool for motivation. It assumes that all children have the same IQ levels and personality traits, which is simply not true.

The system is typically rigid and serious, creating an atmosphere that lacks warmth and dynamism. The image and performance of educational institutions often mirror the characteristics and leadership styles of their heads. Overall, UK education suffers from a lack of vibrant progress and innovation.

We need early intervention for children. What are nurseries doing to teach these skills? Could nurseries be distributing age appropriate milestones your child should be hitting? Maybe a public awareness campaign of good parenting tips for young children. Because this starts young and needs to be tackled when they are young.

^

Another vote for subsided daycare if ever I saw one. It would even things out with regard to literacy too.

(Apart from the fact that it really should come from the parents, supported by nurseries)

@coxesorangepippin I know it should come from parents. But if too many have lost their way or don't understand what they need to do, then we need to look at how to change this.
I agree with another commenter that some parents have unrealistically low expectations of what a child can be expected to achieve at a particular age. They may have had little contact with young children before they became parents, and so genuinely do not realise what their child should be capable of. We need to tell them.

We have gone wrong in so many, more fundamental ways than not saying "no" enough to children. What is the point of teaching your kids how to use cutlery if you've been living off pot noodles in temporary accommodation for 8 months without a fridge?

Nurseries have milestones for children but as every child is an individual, they have different ages and stages of development. They have parents evenings and discuss next steps of learning but some parents don't engage at home. Some don't even show up to the meetings. Don't look at their child's online learning where they can see all of the achievements and art work etc.

They literally are used as a babysitting service for some. They're not bothered about what they're learning. It's very sad.