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?

These are kids that have been completely institutionalized, and parents who have been taught to feel they aren't up to the job.

^

So what's the solution??? Cos whatever we're doing now, ain't working

I live abroad and I can tell you now, no child aged five wasn't toilet trained when starting school. I'd even say aged 4, at the subsided daycare.

Works in Norway etc too.

At some point, we need to be accountable

Well, it's not popular, but I think we need to have parents more directly responsible for their kids for longer. And really make it more possible for families to manage with one income, or one ft and one pt - just allow families to have more time really together.

There are probably cultural changes that might have to happen as well, but practically, I think it would be better for many many people in society if we made more room for home and care duties in people's lives.

I am in my 60's and so was in school when teachers were allowed to administer physical punishment. While I agree that some teachers went too far, in my school, the cane was only ever administered in front of the whole school, so there was no chance of it going too far, and showed all of us what we would happen if we misbehaved badly enough, making sure that the vast majority of kids behaved themselves.

These days, as some posters have said, kids know that there is no real punishment, and nothing that a teacher can do to make them behave, so if they're that type of kid, then they simply do as they like, and get away with it. I'm not a great believer in physical punishment, because too many people have taken their own frustrations out on their children, and have gone too far, but I do think that some form of punishment is needed to show children that there are limits, and the punishments given today are simply not harsh enough to work on stronger willed kids.

I have also observed over my life time, that the end of physical punishment in schools, signalled the beginning of the extremely poor, and out of control behaviour, that we see in our youngsters today.

People say that children should never be afraid, and yet isn't fear the very basis of our legal system, as most of us are AFRAID of being sent to jail, and that's what stops us breaking the law, or killing each other. However, yet again the 'do gooders' became involved in the prisons over more recent years, and now prisons don't act as the deterrent that they used to do, which is clear by the fact that they're all over crowded, and we actually need to build more of them.

I don't know what the answer actually is, but I do think that behind it all, there needs to be something that we fear, otherwise, what deterrent is there?

I'd hope the reason most people don't commit offences which might land them in prison isn't mainly because they are afraid of prison.

I don't know about you, but I am pretty sure I wouldn't be out robbing houses and dealing drugs if all the prisons closed down tomorrow.

Corporal punishment for prisoners, incidentally, was stopped in the 60s. It never ceases to amaze me that we stopped lashing grown men who had committed terrible crimes, but didn't legally call a halt to caning children until 1986.

It was always 'too far' to beat a child with a stick.

This in spades! The bully gets nice things thrown at them in the hope they get nicer. The victim has to move school or move class if they want to escape daily violence. It’s a disgusting way to treat innocent victims and teaches the other children a perverse lesson. Oh but I forget, the bully is a ‘victim’ too! We can’t go calling them a bully!

Well for me none of it makes sense...

You are meant to parent their whole life in communicative way, not punish..then overnight they turn 18 and all of a sudden expect them to accept consequences in adult life and baffled they don't get it..

I don't get the issue with NO. I was advised not to use that word with professionals. Why is a word bad? Who decided that No is negative? Why can't we use it as its meant to be...a word opposite to yes that is neutral and just to express things not to do to avoid consequences that aren't as favourable to us. They say children are a blank slate with no preconceived assumptions, so it's us adults projecting negative emotions on certain terms from a dictionary. I just don't quite understand :/
In the heat of the moment when they're about to bungee jump out a window it's far quicker and more succinct then in a split second working out how to phrase the right statement In a positive way to stop them going flying..

There is so much extreme judgement on parenting at the moment. If you don't do xyz your awful..I think many parents are in flight or fright 😂 i mean hell the amount of posts I've seen where people go to call social services because they disagreed with something they perceived in a snippet with no context. Or a kid cried. The automatic assumption is always awful and jumping to extreme measures. Everyone goes from 0-100 in a few seconds. Everything feels extremist this day and age, that's in everything. (I'm thinking here the womans rights, 50/50 for equality to mean suddenly flinging into woman doing everything, the trans equality to a rapist in womans prison, like everything is going to complete extremes even parenting and expectations)

Also to add..things are rubbish for kids. They have nowhere to go to be "kids" there are very few parks, many with "no playing ball games" "keep off grass" even if you are lucky to have a garden to run in, they can't for fear of disturbing neighbours. Where i live..there is absolutely nowhere for running kids fun..and a lot of flats. So they're probably wound up on top.

What an interesting thread, thanks OP and others for offering interesting thoughts about where we are.

One thing that strikes me about the permissive parenting is that it doesn't make children happy, even in the short-term. An illustration:
I am an ex-teacher and have worked in early years for a decade. A few years ago, around the time the gentle parenting fad came in, we had a child who was a real runner. I have two boys with ADHD, so am not inexperienced with toddlers who run, but this child was at the extreme end of being a runner. My approach at home was old-fashioned: you can hold mummy's hand, or the push-chair, or you wear reins. Those are the options. When we are at the park, then we can do running. But this mum would let her kid run off everywhere, and I mean everywhere.
One time on my day off, I was at a big bookshop in our nearby city up on the top floor. Well, who should come belting up the stairs but this child - shouting "Mummy? Mummy! Where are you?". The look of terror in his eyes - it was awful. His world was in the middle of collapsing, he had felt the need to run and, as far as he was concerned, mummy had disappeared off the face of the earth. I was walking over to block him from running off again, but fortunately mum then came up.
It has stayed with me - this kid was being permissively parented, and he wasn't even happy about it in the moment. Never mind later, never mind instilling good habits - right there, right then, he was absolutely terrified. What a horrible horrible way to feel, I felt so sorry for him.

One thought about how we have arrived here as a society: I very much agree with what other posters have said about parents' use of screens and disengaging with their children (and of course, we're guilty too, sitting tapping away on Mumsnet!). But I think that, alongside this, there's the problem of Sure Start children's centres closing. Sure Start and children's centres were fantastic at teaching early parenting skills; running early intervention parenting groups where there were very clear instructions about how to parent. You cannot learn parenting from your phone; it takes a village to raise a child, and that village involves elders helping you learn how to parent and seeing other parents model good (and bad!) habits. Phones weren't as much of a problem fifteen to twenty years ago, but Sure Start family workers then would think nothing of telling parents to get off their phones and talk to their children.

Having said glowing things about Sure Start, I do also think that the Labour government with Blunkett as education secretary went too far on inclusion in mainstream schools and that impacts the issues we see today. We used to have a number of such fantastic little special schools in my area, where kids did amazingly well with the resources they needed - all gone. Now the children who needed that extra level of support are nearly all into mainstream, and no-one wins. Similarly, I suspect the loss of the old pupil referral units hasn't helped but that's something I know less about.

One interesting thing you see on these kinds of posts is quite a large number of people who automatically assume that parents are useless, lazy and wet and don’t really want to parent their children. Of course there are some abusive parents but I think most are doing their best with what they know.
I admit that I didn’t have a clue when I had my first child 11 years ago. My own upbringing was awful and I didn’t have a lot of help. I had a non-sleeping, clingy, refluxy baby. I asked for help and mostly received judgement. My HV was lovely but other people assumed my baby wasn’t sleeping because I was clearly doing something wrong. I did feel like a complete failure.
That judgment doesn’t stop. We assume that parents should naturally know how to raise children but not all do.
I have some friends who I trust now but mostly had to try and figure it all out with my DH, who also didn’t really know what to do.
I personally feel we need more non judgmental support for parents, especially as we live in a society where we don’t always have family help. I see people now, tutting and parents whose toddlers are having a tantrum, giving the side eye when a child is being a complete pain in a shop. I agree that it takes a village but there isn’t one. Only an assumption that you are a terrible parent if your child isn’t impeccably behaved in public.

But that’s not what anyone here is talking about and many have said they aren’t perfect parents. But everyone knows for example on the screens point that a baby shouldn’t be given a screen for hours on end I mean come on people have to take some personal responsibility at some point.
and this isn’t aimed at you but I do find it odd that someone would have a child and not do any forward thinking or planning whatsoever. And don’t say ‘oh the disadvantaged parents the young mothers’ etc because to be quite honest it’s middle class parents I see who’s children have the worst behaviour. Many who have lots of resources at their disposal.

There’s a distinction between consequence and punishment, and how those things are applied. There’s also a spectrum of what individuals find shaming and frightening. I like to look at the bigger picture 🙂

Of course I did forward planning and deciding on how to parent beforehand and I wasn’t a young or disadvantaged mother. I was the perfect parent before I actually had a child 😂 But then you’re faced with a baby that doesn’t respond in the way all the advice has told you they would and you’re sleep deprived and made to feel like it’s all your fault.

I’m not saying that it’s ok to give your baby screens and ignore them or have no boundaries. I’ve met a lot of very defensive parents because all they are met with is derision when they just don’t know what’s best. If you’re constantly being attacked for something then it’s unlikely you’re ever going to accept any advice.

Also, my children aren’t badly behaved but I had to figure out what works for them. I don’t just assume that parents with disruptive children aren’t trying and should just do the same as I did with mine. It’s not always obvious to everyone.

It’s particularly hard parenting when you haven’t had a healthy example. It sounds like you’re doing a great job.

When my adult son was a teenager he was one of many on the top of the school bus running riot / doing stupid stuff trying
not particularly smart as the bus was parked in front of the staff room so it was easy for the staff to know who it was

when I found out about I made him walk to school for the rest of the term

he was oh I’ll ride my bike ( not with the wheel taken off you won’t I thought 😂)

a long 3 mile walk to school in the winter for the rest of the term soon made him appreciate the nice warm bus for the following term.

When I spoke to his teacher at a parents evening she said she really appreciated that I had “punished “ him appropriately as so many parents do nothing

Another thing I would add is that there seems to be a lack of empathy among the young. There have been regular incidents in my hometown where primary-aged kids and teenagers have kicked pigeons to death or tried to shoot them with catapults. My partner started keeping his cat in after overhearing some youths discussing whether to strap fireworks to her and set them off. Some of the things that cross their minds are horrific. When I was young, my friends and I would never have wanted to hurt any living thing yet now it’s becoming more frequent.

Is it social media/ video games/ witnessing violence in the home that’s causing this behaviour? I don’t know but it’s very worrying.

Is there evidence it’s becoming more frequent?

I think so. I see reports about it in the local news regularly.

I do think the solution to this is on the teachers and teaching unions. Until they turn around as a profession and say that the current situation isn’t working things will drift on and children will go on being failed.

You suggesting industrial action ? But are teachers in broad agreement about what should / must change ?

There is a group of parents about to complain to the HT because one of the teachers apparently shouts sometimes (we are talking upper primary) and the kids feel stressed.... Ffs!!!

DD' is in year 5 and her teacher is one I've known for years because I have an older child who had her as well and DS also did a few extra things over the years where she was the lead and as a family she is, hands down, our favourite teacher who single handedly made it so that DS could start high school nowhere near as far behind as he'd been expeted to.

However, in a strange coincidence, as far as I can tell only two children in DD's class have an older sibling so the class is heavily biased towards families who are going through upper primary for the first time. Made wose by the fact that for some reason our year 2 teacher was then also our year 3 and year 4 teacher.

Oh. My. Word. The first half term was a NIGHTMARE. Basically, the new teacher, who has been teaching year 5 and 6 for 20 years or so, wasn't as soft and cuddly. She's firmer. Has higher expectations. Tells the children No sometimes.... The parents were outraged.

It does seem to have settled down as far as I can tell. Certainly, DD and her bestie are both doing notably better academically even just after one term so me and BFF's parents are happy!

What nonsense. Most of us don't lead a moral life for fear of being sent to prison!

If you ever feel that children need to be beaten, or witness another beating, in order to behave well you have utterly failed as a parent, teacher, gran, general member of society, whatever.

I completely agree with all you have said. I used to work with Sure start and found that they were a wonderful service. We had so much training on lots of different aspects. Everyone in the company was clued up. I left to have a baby but was sad to hear that a lot of their centres had closed. It was definitely needed in the area I lived.

With reference to your story, sadly people think you are treating your child like they are a dog if you put reigns on them these days. You get disgusted looks from people and are made to feel guilty. Which is ridiculous as it is the safest way to have your child walking alongside you without then getting lost or hurt. There are definitely far more parents these days who just let their children "get on with it" and it's probably because they were left to do the same as children.

There are very little specialists schools or nurseries in our area and so a lot of ASN Children are placed in mainstream. There needs are not being met fully but children who are not ASN are also struggling. I find that I can be reading to a group of children and they're engaging in the story but an ASN child has climbed onto a unit and has started throwing toys in the direction of other children. I obviously have to stop my story to safely remove the child from the furniture and check to make sure the children who were hit are ok. This can happen 5 times or more in the space of a single story. There is never enough staff for this not be an issue. Obviously all children deserve the same level of care but I fear it's not being evenly distributed.

I'd agree with @AliceInSwitzerland. I have no evidence of this but I do feel kids are exposed to witnessing more violence from a young age and I mean through gaming or tv, watching things on their phones, I think some kids have become desensitised to it. I was shocked to hear of accounts of bullying at school amongst 4 and 5 year olds. Has it always been like this? But then every time I visit soft play or the park it's the same thing happening. Parent sat on bench on their phone or chatting to someone, oblivious to their child hitting other kids, name calling etc. There's no consequence for these kids at home and seemingly neither at school.

I will also add my own experience as food for thought. When my son was 3 we moved him from creche (we are overseas) to a bilingual montessori pre school, 30 kids, 2 teachers, 1 assistant. After 3 months they invited us to a parents evening and told us they thought there was "something very wrong" with our son and that his behaviour was not normal. We were very concerned because we had no earlier reports of this. We agreed to do as the school proposed to reduce his hours. They told us he was very disruptive, aggressive - incidents of hitting, biting, pulling hair, refusing to do as he was told, throwing things, destroying the classroom. They had been restraining him and felt that they could not cope anymore. We were mortified but not entirely surprised as we experienced behavioural problems at home and since starting that school he had become very withdrawn, we experienced school refusal. He has since been diagnosed with ASD. The school flip flopped between telling us they thought he was autistic to telling us we were doing a bad job of parenting. Anyway we decided to remove him from that school and moved him to a private international preschool, with small classes (18 kids 2 teachers and an assistant), lots of space, lots of outdoor time, with English speakers and it was an overnight transformation. No issues whatsoever. He is very happy. They tell us he is one of the easiest kids, follows instructions, the first to help, happy and content. I'm glad we found a solution and that we didn't leave him struggling in a school where he was written off as a naughty kid.
I know it's somewhat skewed as my son has ASD but how much does the school environment impact children's behaviour?

Oh my days!! I had a teacher for a year. She shouted so loud. We were terrified of her. However, the next year, we asked for her to be our teacher again and she accepted. She was a fantastic teacher. Scary but great.