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 will start by saying not all kids are like this but I work in a supermarket and you see it all the time, the worst 11 - 16 just don’t care are out drinking till all times of the night, threatening staff with knives, carrying on, they don’t care at all. The head of the local secondary school doesn’t care. To a point most of the police don’t care, it’s always poor so and so he/she has had a hard life , so have a lot of people, they don’t threaten anyone though. When I was at school , when we were in uniform , we were told not to bring the school into disrepute , that we would be embarrassing ourselves , the school and our families.

you can also see where it’s starting, loads of parents appeasing their toddler’s

I don’t live in an inner city but the Lake District

Agree so much with this. I think respecting your elders (even if its not always deserved) actually counts for alot.

🤨🙄 surely the child can sit on the parents lap
Good lord 🤦🏼‍♀️

When their sitting on their parent’s lap?

Kids may pick up all sorts of shitty attitudes from school, from the media, from the Internet or from other sources, but I firmly believe that the extent to which they will be susceptible to those influences depends primarily on what they have been taught at home.

With the exception of kids with certain special needs that may impair their understanding and judgement, I think this is primarily an issue of poor parenting.

And to wade in on the ‘child giving up their seat’ debate…I am disabled and having my young child on my lap for a journey would be uncomfortable for me but I would still encourage them to give up their seat to anyone older. I think it’s an important lesson in respect just like taking them to remembrance services and letting elderly people go in front of me in queues. My 10 year old DS has watched me do these things all of his life and now does the same. People are so shocked and always tell him what a lovely young man he is which makes him proud. I also tell him how proud I am of him when he does these things which again raises his self esteem and his want to do ‘the right thing’.

He has been very naughty at school precisely once (joined in with jumping on a piece of school property and broke it). I was livid and he still remembers the fallout of it to this day. I was so ashamed of him and told him so…..a lot. He lost everything he owned for a week and had to write apology letters to the teachers involved. It was never repeated.

My DC used to go to a school that had become full of very entitled middle class kids who had no respect for each other or the teachers. The parents just didn’t model kindness or community or respect - they were always right, things had to be their way, their kids were the most important special people in the world, all very self-centred etc. Nothing was ever the parents responsibility and certainly never the child’s. No wonder the children didn’t know how to behave and felt it was optional to follow school rules or listen to school staff.

Overall, behaviour that would maybe be excusable for a three year old but not on 8/9/10 year olds. Absolutely horrible culture. I took my DC out in the end as I couldn’t bear it - and they were suffering from following the rules and being kind and being fair, just always trampled on.

We were always taught to give up our seat for an adult. Basic respect. I was born in 1970 and although we were dirt poor , we had impeccable manners.

I am not for a moment equating the fact that a parent does not put their small child on a lap while sitting in a crowded train with the behaviour described in the OP, and I am pretty sure you know that I am not.
However the title of this thread is about what has driven change in attitudes among children to teachers, and I am suggesting there are broad cultural shifts in the positioning of children in society - which I also described as for better and for worse - that are part of this. One small manifestation is that it has become increasingly common for parents not to put their small child on their lap but to let them have their own seat. Perhaps they all have issues which make it impossible for them to place their child on their lap but it seems unlikely. I was saying that this was different to when I was a child.
Of course it is not a reflection on the child, but generally the conversation before putting that child on your lap might be something like “come and sit up here so this lady/gentleman/someone on this crowded train” can sit down - and that is making a child think about being thoughtful and respectful of those around them. Yes I think we have lost some of that - I don’t think it shows breathtaking entitlement to suggest so.

There’s a difference between being tired after an afternoon frolicking at Grandma’s and being tired after a day at work

Yuk. This is exactly the kind of attitude towards children that modern parenting philosophies are trying to challenge.

All this stuff about sitting on the lap is besides the point imv. I’m sure the 3 yr old has no problem sitting on their mother’s lap- most small kids prefer it. Presumably the person who needs the space/ her own seat, is the mother. Plus it’s probably also safer and more sustainable to have the kid on the seat- it’s got nothing to do with teaching a small child respect.

Same! I realised DH and I were considered ‘strict’ when we had DS friends round.

One set tried to repeatedly jump off the sofa / use it as a launch pad and trampoline , the other came for lunch and couldn’t sit at the table to eat without getting up and running around between bites, tried to throw food, spilled stuff everywhere because he couldn’t eat properly, and they were 7. I also won’t tolerate screaming-(the high pitched kind done continuously which seems to be a trend atm - they’re in yr 4 ffs!

DH and I are older and a lot of the time I feel like a dinosaur with our expectations.

basic respect

how is it “basic respect”? What’s it got to do with respect to teach someone that their needs are less important than someone else’s just because they are a small person?

@Lostcat you have been ratioed here. I hope this makes you rethink your stance on this. And I wonder in what other areas you are unwittingly encouraging your child to be rude/disrespectful ?

My school was the total opposite in the 90s. I never once heard anyone swear at a teacher and the only time I ever got detention or litter duty was for forgetting my hymn book once and my protractor another time! Teachers had rulers to measure girls heels! We even had to wear hair bands in certain colours only.

Children need to learn their place in society. They are not the “top dogs”. You are there to teach them. I really cannot believe you do not understand this 🙄

A three year old child doesn’t need a seat on the bus they can sit on their parent’s lap. In fact it’s probably safer for them to do so than to situ restrained on abuse at that doesn’t have a seatbelt.

just to say, a child can sit on their parents lap, they free up a seat for someone who presumably can’t sit on anyone’s lap, and they learn that it’s nice to exist in a community where you do considerate things for other people.

viewing it through a lens of the child’s rights, the mothers rights not have a child on her lap, a small persons needs are as important as a big persons needs etc etc is just a bit irrelevant surely? Why be so hyper vigilant about rights and needs when it comes to something that has such a simple solution? I think that’s where “modern parenting philosophies” cause a bit of a problem - they encourage people to centre everything on themselves as parents/their small person …. Maybe sometimes we just need to think of the whole carriage, as it were?

This 100%

I think it often does start at home but not always. Some of it can be the school environment and what they’ve picked up on as acceptable/cool from their peers too. As a PP mentioned, some of it is social media memes/skits too. But, more often than not, I think it’s the home.

You obviously don’t teach in wales then 🤣 yes kids did use to treat teachers like shit, I’ve seen it with my own eyes going back 30+ years.

I don't recognise much of the stuff on mumsnet tbh. I've no doubt this behaviour occurs, just as it did back when I was at school in the 80s and 90s. I went to an inner city comp with an eclectic range of pupils, and there were always a few who behaved like this and were rightly punished. As a pp said though, in some ways rules are stricter now. Behaviour points for all manner of minor indiscretions and inconsistent, arbitrary rules. All the teenagers I know who attend bog standard comps say the experiences we hear on mumsnet just don't happen at their schools on a more than occasional basis.

I do however think that when it does happen it almost always starts at home. And I do think that unlike back in the 80s and 90s, parents challenge school's authority more, which is unhelpful. Calling or emailing for everything that happens. I've always said to ds that I may disagree with some of the rules, and he may do too. But if he doesn't like them he must still abide by them. And if the rule really is that ridiculous then do something (politely) about working to get it changed. I've disagreed with a couple of sanctions he's had, but told him I expect him to do them anyway and won't be going into battle for him because the teacher obviously had their reasons. Invariably we'll reinforce the sanction at home, too. I don't know many parents who take this approach though.

This is my DS1 at just 14months 🤣 he definitely wouldn't fit on our knee at 3 years old. I wish haha

What is “children’s place in society”? Beneath adults?
Do you consider children a lesser category of human than adults?
Absolutely bonkers that people are still spouting this shit in 2025 as if it’s ok and normal.

It comes from other kids who are setting the examples and maybe getting it from home or the internet.

I have an autistic son who’s been unable to access mainstream school. After years fighting the LA he gets two half days a week forest school with other kids. he’s not been allowed the internet or Roblox no online games where I don’t know the people etc. He’s challenging due to his SEN but always loving and respectful. Since spending time with other kids he’s picked up such a horrible disrespectful attitude outright refusing to do things he’s always done easily. “You can’t make me” “I will take my plate out if you give me cake” all that skibidy toilet slang. He doesn’t get this from home it’s from other kids and how the other kids are treating adults in front of him and not facing consequences. When I have pulled him up for speaking to his 1:1 badly in front of me the 1:1 says oh don’t worry not his fault he’s SEN and doesn’t mean to be horrible. I’ve had the feedback multiple times that I’m too strict by people who think kids taking to adults like shit is acceptable. I honestly don’t know what to do as my kids need social interaction but the negative influence they get from it is more than I alone can counter

What does “being ratioed” mean?
I’m certainly not uncomfortable with holding a minority view. sometimes people’s opinions are the whole problem. Look at who’s in office in the US atm. 😂
I have to say I am shocked , however, that so many mums-netters think that children need to be taught that they are of lesser importance and value than older people in 2025, and that this has something to do with “manners” and “respect”.