To say the behaviour crisis in schools can't just be blamed on parenting

[Sendcrisis2025]

I speak as a mum of two children with EHCPs and someone who is a SENDIASS officer, name changed to protect my identity/job.

There is a strong rhetoric from the teaching unions this week about behaviour in schools and poor parenting. No mention of the bigger picture, just poor parenting.

My DC are 10 and 8, just two years behind them. When DC1 was a toddler there was a huge range of groups, support, targeted interventions through the local sure start centre. These were already being cut by the time my DC2 was a toddler. Then covid happened and the services and groups have just not returned. There is no early support anymore.

One of my DC is a challenge in school, fortuantly she is predominantly a flight risk rather than violent but still a behavioural challenge. We have had one physical incident where she shoved a teacher. Pure combination of factors that had led to DC being enclosed within a corner by several children and with nowhere to escape to she shoved to escape. Unacceptable but that was the reasoning of why and she was suspended for two days etc. She struggles to cope with the sensory demands of mainstream. Too many children, too much going on. They fly through the content whereas she likes to master things in depth before moving on. Too many low level behavioural issues like children who just don't ever stop talking. She can't navigate social dynamics. None of this DC can cope with. There is a lack of consistency in the school day and the routines. None of this is the school's fault but realistically how it is in every mainstream school. We are struggling to get her moved to a specialist setting. She has no learning needs and generally with the one exception, she isnt violent so the SEMH schools are not appropriate either.

My other DC would never dream of acting out, is not a behavioural issue at all despite his needs.

Based on the unions DC is entirely due to my poor parenting. It doesnt matter that DC2 is a behavioural dream. It doesnt matter that I have no behavioural issues with DC1 at home where it is quiet, the same rigid routine for the past 6 years and less social demands. It doesnt matter that she is in a completely wrong setting.

In my LA there are over 400 children like my DC1 who have specialist agreed but are stuck in mainstream with no setting to go to. There is nowhere for them to go. These are the children with specialist agreed by the LA. This doesn't include the many hundreds more who don't have specialist agreed or don't even have EHCPs yet.

Our health trust is on 3+ years for an initial appointment. CAMHs are almost non-existent. You are only considered for medication if you are already a behavioural problem in school, it doesn't matter if a child has severe ADHD until they are at the point they can no longer cope and it is at crisis point.

Early help, if accepted, offers 6 weeks of support. There is a huge gap between early help and child in need.

I speak to parents day in day out at work who are desperate for help as their children can not cope at school.

There will always be poorly behaved children due to poor parents but the majority? The majority are children who simply cannot cope in the setting they are in with nowhere to go to.

Over 400 children in my LA with specialist agreed but stuck in mainstream. That is an incredible number.

I know my DC spends 8.45am-2pm in a small cupboard with a 1-1 TA. She joins a much younger year group for the last hour a day. She does 95% of her schoolwork with me at home.

It’s still cheaper to send 5 children to independent settings and keep the rest mainstream than it is to open a SEN school which would have to commit to hundreds of pupils and stay open indefinitely.

There just isn’t money. Angela Raynor is a SEN parent and has said explicitly there is no more money for SEN, it has more than its fair share.

Admittedly DS has too much junk food, as he's moderately restricted in what he will eat - and believe me I didn't start out giving him junk. He he rarely drinks anything except water.

But when he was younger and we did take him out after school everyday and it made no difference to his behaviour. We had to stop going to the playground as we saw how the other children were treating him (which matched his complaints about being bullied in school), so instead we took him elsewhere and played basketball, football, tennis and badminton.

The problem with school though was that his behaviours were winding up the other children, with a couple of them working out what buttons to press to get DS to react. Some of his annoying behaviours were a reaction to the stress caused by the school environment. He'd always struggled, but COVID/lockdowns and the move to Juniors was too much - I am thankful in a way, as if it hasn't happened then it probably would have happened with the move to Secondary School and that would have been a lot worse.

They need to bring back special schools for less disabled children. Mainstream isn’t working for many kids.

Agree. My kids are 5 and 2 and honestly their energy, particularly my son’s, is crazy. We don’t have a garden so spend hours in all weather at the park, beach, farm, moor etc. Probably 3 hours a day if no school/nursery. No tablets, some CBeebies but I expect them to entertain themselves with toys the rest of the time (which according to this website is negligent as I should be actively engaging them at all times)

Yes I understand. I certainly don't think it's the solution for all children...and I certainly agree certain conditions do exist.

I think COVID was a disaster for many children..

It's certainly very complex...lots of factors at play

My DC behaviour at school is a reflection of how he is treated by his teachers.

All issues raised in school isn't what I see at home or when out and about with DC.
Sometimes it is the inability of the teacher to connect with pupils & subject matter in an interesting and engaging way. This will result in challenging behaviour from DC, then DC gets removed from class, missing out on teaching and understanding, by nextlesson they are behind and don't understand what the teacher is talking about... and so the cycle has started.

But it's easier to blame parents instead of looking at how to improve the way one teaches.

We have. There was 90,000 SEN school places in 2005 and 150,000 now with huge waiting lists.

There is a whole host of reasons for poor behaviour in school, not just parenting, although it plays it's part.

Some other reasons are 'inclusion' which means many children who would have been taught in small classes in a specialist school are now in with everyone else, budget cuts mean no in class provision for those children.

'All behaviour is communication', 'when the adult changes everything changes', 'school has to be ready for the child, not the child ready for school' are all phases which have become the norm over the last few years. Little to no consequences, punishments are exclusions any more.

Pupils are running a mock around school and staff are powerless to stop it. The more this happens, the he more other children join in. There is no respect for positions of authority.

There have always been bad parents in society. Children in childcare rather than with family is ever increasing. Maybe it's linked to that. The expectations on students are also increasing, lots of homework and my children were learning things in primary school that I didn't learn until secondary school.

Lack of sleep, poor diet, screens, social media, permissive parenting, no boundaries. All of these should be explored on depth for children who need support, prior to any referral for SEND assessment. It's insane that the first assumption is a child has special needs and should be referred for diagnosis, before all of the above factors are ruled out. Some will of course have special needs, but unless environmental factors are ruled out how can you be sure?

What challenging behaviour is your child presenting at school that is soley the fault of the teacher?

It’s a mixture of everything put together op, I don’t think your example is what they mean x

Personally I think if devices didn’t exist for kids (and possibly parents!) and every parent spent quality one on one time with their kids there’d be a huge impact on behaviour. Am laughing even thinking this as I work in retail and will get home tonight and possibly have a ten minute conversation with the younger kids and then just watch tv with the older ones, so I am definitely not one to preach!!!

We will go for a big walk tomorrow and then do board games tomorrow which keeps them off screens and we all get something out of it.

Hmm maybe you should be working with the teachers instead of assuming it's due to poor teaching.... Seems to be one of the issues with society, assume your kids can do no wrong, etc. Symptomatic of the wider issue right here.

Because the reasons behind suicide rates are complicated, and the decision to attempt it is often a spur of the moment decision. So did example, reducing access to methods can reduce numbers without mental health services having to do anything.

Reducing paracetamol pack sizes reduced paracetamol overdose as a method.

How suicides are reported has changed - or should have if the Samaritans guidelines are followed, I certainly know of a spate of suicides that happened locally, all using the same method, all by people who would have known of at least one of the others, that was never reported on to prevent it being copied more widely.

But it's easier to blame parents instead of looking at how to improve the way one teaches.

It really isn't. If I 'improve' my teaching, things are better for everyone in the room including me. However sometimes what parents expect as an "improvement" is a list of unrealistic expectations when I have 28 other children in the room.

There is too much emphasis on achieving milestones in the early years when it should all be about play, attachment and socialisation. You see it on MN where parents pride themselves that a 3 year old can read or write letters. And so the competition begins…

Let them be children first, no screens, and build imagination, curiosity and empathy.

I think behavioural issues with SEN children is completely different from children who aren't. Children are being brought up with soft to no boundaries, consequences to poor behaviour or respect for adults. You have parents who have the attitude that their child is always right and the school aren't. You have parents who undermine teaching staff, school policies, with the attitude that these don't apply to their child. I work in a First school (non-teaching role) and frequently see children who throw tantrums because they can't have their own way, refuse/can't share, expect the universe to revolve around them only, want staff to 'negotiate' with them when they are asked to do something they aren't keen on...I could go on.These children struggle massively, especially socially, because of the lack of parenting. They simply don't have the skills to navigate school life. It's always sad to see, especially as they become older, and their peers decide they don't want to play with a child, who wants their own way, becomes nasty or cries every time it doesn't happen.

We also need to accept that some children with SEN are poorly parented and this doesn't help children when it comes to behaving. Some SEN children don't get their needs met in school and need more support, some children with SEN are badly behaved on top of their SEN.

That's mad isn't it: 400 children is enough for a whole new school.

When I was applying for my DC's EHCP I discovered that my LA was "exporting" 20% of their EHCP kids to schools outside the Borough - a large and relatively well off Borough! Quite where they thought this sick game of musical chairs was going to end, I do not know.

Blaming the teacher 🙄.

I think it is everyone really. Schools don't understand the change in family dynamics, both parents working FT, poor housing/cost of living, and staff aren't trained in SEN or given enough resources to cope with it. Parents are permissive, but think this has been gradual over the decades,not just a recent thing. Local authorities don't do their job well because of funding and have a short termist view of tackling these issues.

Governments have a punitive attitude to disabilities and see money spent on SEND as not productive and a nuisance. They won't tackle child mental health or actually have the balls to sort out housing, as they know it will piss off homeowners who are more likely to vote.

It is easy to blame parenting rather than see the big picture. You can only solve the issue looking at it holistically. Decent housing and giving parents more time to spend with their children in the early years would make a difference. 33% of children living in poverty is going to have an impact on education and the way they are parented.

I say this as a parent with a child with severe SEND and grew up in poverty and work FT all the way through as a parent, and live in an area with high housing costs. I think most of these issues stem from social and economic problems.

At one of my children’s schools they appointed a chronic alcoholic as an interim Head, the Assistant Head was shagging several TAs and a sixth former.The pupils had no respect for either of them, and rightly so.
I think we need to to look at who is being employed by Academy Trusts to teach our children before pointing the blame at parents again.

I think authoritarian/permissive is a false dichotomy. There's room for both, and indeed should be both. This model suggests that authoritative parenting is the ideal https://www.lovediscovery.org/post/discover-the-4-types-of-parenting-styles. Quite often I read posts here by parents who seem reluctant to acknowledge that they're in charge. By that, I don't mean 'Do this because I say so' but being clear about how things are to be done and sticking with it. Every parent knows that children are really persistent and that sticking to your guns is hard but it matters because if parents don't get it right, they put out into the world a child who is a burden to themselves and others. In other words, short-term pain for long-term gain.

Cars have a lot of the blame. Kids used to be able to play outdoors. We gave that up for parking spaces.

Where did you hear all of that 🙄