To think it doesn't always start at home?

[BePoliteOpalQuail]

I have recently been supply teaching in different schools for a month.
Many lovely, hardworking and studious kids, quite a few who try it on with having supply teachers.
Some who spoke to me like I was something they'd stepped in, even at the age of 11 and 12 which is concerning.

I just wonder more and more where this comes from, as it was concerning. I went to seek support from another classroom and a 12 year old girl scowled at me 'Look at you, just stood (standing) there.

I would ask troublemakers to move seats and some would pretty much laugh in my face and say 'erm, nope'.

I asked a 13 year old to put their phone away and they said 'Are you dumb or what? I'm not on it. Are you gonna stop going on at me now?'

Further examples. Or if I gave them a sanction or had them removed some of them would literally shriek at me 'What have I done! I haven't even done anything! What the fuck, you're a joke!

I have been out of teaching for a while but was astonished to hear the complete lack of respect. I know supply teachers are usually regarded as not 'proper teachers' by kids, but I just never remember it being this bad.

There is absolutely zero respect for teachers and adults. A real level of contempt from them if you dare to ask them to do anything, and a lashing of abuse.

Some people will say this starts at home. It may do sometimes, but not for all of them?
What's the solution to behaviour like this?
Each time, I told them firmly to never speak to me, or anyone, in that manner ever again.

I based my YABU vote on your thread title.

Of course this starts at home. The only kids who treat teachers like this are kids who come from homes where parents don't give a shit about parenting, school, or themselves. They are grossly immature people with a massive chip on their shoulders and/ or they parent from a place of immense privilege.

I wouldn't have dared behaved that way at home but i was a real shitbag of a teenager outside the home at points. Especially at my shit school, was has basically been in a failing status since my parents went there 30 years earlier.

I did it because it was a bit of a laugh and the most teachers could do was send you out or to the head of Dept. In the old days (and probably now) teachers are too busy and regularly encountered this stuff to follow up on whether you actually went.

So a lack of discipline in a shit school with no culture of addressing problematic behaviour is partly to blame for its own culture.

I was fine when I left and got a job because it wasn't the culture.

I am genuinely sorry teachers don't have stronger tools though.

Honestly this sounds like some of the idiots I used to go to school with in the 2000’s, it’s not new sadly. Usually these kids don’t give a damn about school and they plan to live on benefits (or so they said). Supply teachers are easy targets sadly and an easy way for them to show off to their mates. With those kind of kids you have to build up a relationship to get any kind of respect (not right, but true) and you don’t have time to do that as a supply teacher. They used to spoil lessons all the time and honestly it’s one of the reasons we are moving house so our kids can go to a good school and hopefully have a better education than I did.

I don’t think “it comes from home”, I think it comes from unhappiness and a lack of hope and purpose. Children behaved like that in the 80s, children great homes and children from less great ones.

They could have sat on their mother's lap which would absolutely have been the norm not that many years ago

Whilst in the main I do think it starts at home, it is also important for rules to be enforced at school. I remember one of my dc (rarely thankfully) getting in trouble at school along with a group of friends. When the teacher rang me I agreed with the punishment and even disciplined at home. A couple of their friends parents rang the school and talked the teacher around so they weren’t punished. Made it really difficult as a parent having to justify to my dc why they were being punished when their friends weren’t for the same behaviour.

You're right.

But kids had a 'healthy fear' of their parents at one time.

Now any kind of 'fear' is seen as something really negative and he sole focus is on the child's feelings and never mind how their behaviour makes others feel.

It starts at home, but not necessarily just in the context of uninterested parents or troubled families, or parents who treat / speak to their children badly at home who then copy that.

Friends and I were talking about this recently and all of us shared the same experience: when we were at school, if the teacher told you off then it wasn’t simply that the teacher gave you a bollocking: when you got home, your parents would also give you a bollocking for having needed a teacher bollocking. Whereas friends who are currently teachers - many in perfectly nice areas - increasingly experience that this isn’t the case, and they’ll discipline a student only to have their parent phone up or march in to demand that nobody ever does that to their to their kid again. And thus all the kid learns is that they can speak to teachers however they want and nothing is ever going to come of it.

I think it does mainly start from home. I have been a bit shocked when dd started school last year at the number of parents who swear around their kids, don’t help them with their reading, not doing the home projects set during the holidays, give them kids meals in front of the tv instead of sitting down at the table as a family to eat a proper dinner, basically not taking much interest in them and the language is awful. It’s sad really.

I was chatting to a science teacher at a local rural comprehensive near by. Ofsted good.
She said some days her lessons are so awful and she is permanently trying to sort behaviour. She said she often has to call parents about behaviour and occasionally calls to congratulate a pupil who has done some great work but unfortunately some of the parents don't give a shit,even if the call is just a well done to Jimmy,he has worked so hard. She said some parents just don't care. I thought that was so sad.

Honestly. I thought I was a bit of a gentle parent, until I was speaking to DS the other day. He was talking about some poor behaviour that happened in class. I asked him if he ever felt tempted to join in. “No way. The punishment wouldn’t be worth it” he said.

I asked him what kind of punishment the poorly behaved kids received. “Dunno. But I’m not talking about school punishments. I’m talking about you. I don’t want to deal with your consequences”.

We aren’t a particularly shouty or strict household. But he’s clearly well aware of my tolerance levels when it comes to good manners and sensible behaviour. I’m proud of the boy he’s turning into.

i think it’s the case that a lot (but not all) poor behaviour is the lack of parental expectation.

My aunt and uncle had my cousins two school aged kids for a week one school holiday whilst they went on holiday. When their parents came home they excitedly told their parents about how their grandparents had been teaching them all about good manners!
I went to a deprived school and I would say that in years 7 and 8 you could tell the family backgrounds by their attitude to teachers. In years 9 and 10 these behaviours were replicated by other students who had seen what the others had got away with. Most of these by year 11 had gone back to being better behaved and giving less cheek and were more polite to staff again.

Agree. And it's why I didn't pursue my PGCE after spending a year working as a TA and Cover Supervisor in secondary schools (and this was 18 years ago). One supply teacher I regularly worked with had grown up and trained in Nigeria. He was absolutely horrified at the total lack of respect he was shown and how 'teaching' was actually just 'crowd control.'

They could sit on their parent's lap, they (okay their parents) are either paying nothing or half the adult ticket price, so yes they should give up the seat

In my world they do. My two always had to sit on my knee or stand next to me if someone needed a seat. It’s how I was brought up. If I had refused to give my seat up to an adult my DM would have dragged me off the bus and we would have walked home. Who on earth thinks their three year old gets a seat and an adult has to stand?

Yes it is standards at home. Im quite happy for my teens to swear around me (not at me). I let the 16 year old have friends over whenever they want and he is allowed to drink as long as he is sensible with it. But they have both always known that it’s absolutely non negotiable that they must treat teachers with respect and politeness. This also goes for staff in cafes/ shops etc. So I don’t think I am strict but respect and politeness to others is a must and they know that and as far as school reports have led me to believe they have always been polite.

An interesting take on this was a chap who worked in a primary school in the SEMH team. He said think back to your own high school experience and I guarantee that you all had that kid in your class, the one who kicked off, back chatted the teacher. Now that child is an adult and a parent. Do you think all of them turn their behaviour around or do you think some of those want to stick to the teachers on behalf of their own children because they hated school and so it is the norm to hate school?

I mentioned this to my sister the other day, we went to Butlins as children 70s and 80s and one of the Butlins's songs was Push Button Click, the chorus? Rule number one, fun, fun, fun, rule number two we don't like school. It was drilled into us that not liking school was the norm. If you worked hard you were called a swot. These children became parents. If I had a £1 for every time I heard a parent say in front of their primary aged child I hated maths I would be very rich indeed. They do it without thinking so the class has a collective groan when they know it is time for maths. I worked in a primary.

I think a lot of unacceptable behaviour is put down to "just being teens" when actually it is rude, entitled, swearing, demanding attitudes that need stopping dead. I could never have spoken to my parent like that. I stopped my own children making sassy remarks at me telling them no one speaks to me like that.

My friend had a hand over your phone rule and her 13 year old DD hid her phone so she didn't have to hand it over. My friend had to ransack her bedroom to find it but happily handed it back to her the next day. Mine would have lost that phone for a week. I think parents parent out of fear sometimes fear of their child not liking them.

I don't think it always starts at home. I do think the problem is that it starts at home more often now.

My kids aren't perfect, and I'm not a perfect parent so that's not what I'm saying at all. It is much harder with my 14 and 12 year old than it was with our 26 and 23 year olds.

The older kids had one or two kids in their class who were rude or played up. The younger ones have way more. There's been an issue in DS1's year group with a group of lads "rating" the girls and female staff on a WhatsApp group. The number of parents complaining about the school "overstepping" and getting involved in an "out of school issue" is staggering.

Schools seem to have far less support from parents than ever. Which I think in part is because of how poorly the government handled education during lockdown. That has had a huge impact.

Totally agree. Our adult DDs have never been verbally abusive to us or sworn at us. In fact, the didn't even swear in front of us until they were at university. But then DH and I very rarely swore in front of them when they were growing up.

Their 'being teenagers' absolutely didn't give them the right to be verbally rude, crude or offensive to us. It simply wasn't tolerated by either me or DH. They knew the sanctions for that type of behaviour would be very harsh, so they were wise enough to not even try it.

I've always been a lead by example person, even when my DC were young.
Grew up and stayed within the area all my life so friendship groups stayed pretty much the same.

It's not really until your DC start school and you meet others out of your own chosen circle that your eyes are opened.
You'd get DC at their schools, both primary and secondary that were carbon copies of their parents, some nice some absolutely awful and I'll admit just weren't who I'd have in my home.

I also spent a few years working in a primary school in the late 90's and behaviour had started swaying towards the I don't give a shite what my kid does way...
TBH the headteacher was so afraid of these parents they'd never pull them up..
It was pretty shameful looking back.

It seems to have continued on that path in areas now due to lack if parenting skills.
I won't use the word society as I'm pretty sure you can't blame all of society.

My GC is now 2 years old and for the last 8 months I've been looking after them on a regular basis while their parents are at work.

Both parents are pretty much on the same page, don't swear, shout, live quite happily together...although one does moan about the others clutter...but no arguing that type of relationship.

My time spent looking after them is literally spent with them.
DGC picks up and copies practically everything I do, always looking, learning and copying, I wipe their high chair they copy, tissue out of the box to wipe their nose, they copy, bashed my elbow on the door frame...(always remember there's a little one' even if there isn't)...
Ouchy...I'll hear "chy"...

It really has shown me exactly just how much behaviour is infact learned from the home and of those that a DC has around them.

I really hope my DGC headteacher will be a better person, and don't envy my DC standing at the school gates in future years waiting to collect DGC ...

I also wonder if well behaved DC will become punch bags for those that only know nasty behaviour caused by those parents that shout the loudest and blind eyes will be turned...I sincerely hope not.

for an elderly person or pregnant woman etc.. definitely needs to move. But for a fit man in his 20s (an adult)? I personally would do with mine, but wouldn't bat an eyelid if another parent allowed their child to use a seat....

I do think certain people are raising children to be entitled so and sos. I say that as someone who has a child with complex needs who others would often mistakenly probably perceive to be “naughty” but I’m not talking about meltdowns etc - I’m talking about properly awful, obviously poor parenting. Like today for example - sat in a restaurant for lunch with my dc (older, 13 and 21) and at the table next to us there were 3 adults with 3 young dc, around 3-4 years old. All of them running around the table in circles, shrieking, in their bare feet (!) and not once did any of the adults either tell them to pipe down, sit down or stop. At all. It was horrendous. Kids having the time of their life, completely oblivious. And this wasn’t a fast food, cheap type place, not that that should make a difference but it was a standard type lunch place in Norwich. What kind of signal does that send to the kids? People have completely forgotten how to teach children to behave.

Yep. My family have worked in developing countries and they would be delighted to receive the chance of a wonderful, free education . But in the West we have grown careless and take our freedom and privilege for granted.

(On a similar note one of my son’s classmates justifies the need to guzzle fizzy drinks constantly by being “allergic to water”. I kid you not. It makes me cringe to think what a person from sub-Saharan Africa would make of that.)

The Nigerian teacher was astounded that every pupil had access to a laptop in most lessons + a huge computer suite + huge HD TV screens in most classrooms. And yet the pupils didn't give a shit about any of it and often trashed the laptops.

Affluenza…