Is this rude from a child? Age 6, furious reaction from teacher

[partytimed]

My DS was at school today and his teacher addressed the class saying “I don’t want to hear from you unless you need the toilet, you’re in pain or injured.” My DS raised his hand and said “I’m pain and injured is kind of the same thing.” Another teacher overheard and shouted at him so much he was crying and still crying about it at bedtime.

obviously I only have his account of the incident so this is all the detail I have. He didn’t think he had said anything wrong. I’ve noticed this year he’s complained of strict scary teachers and he’s becoming anxious about going to school. Would appreciate opinions on whether this apparently very big telling off was justified. He said his friends were comforting afterwards and he was crying and apologising whilst the teacher continued to shout.

Even from 6, plenty of children have a constant low level of pain. This is especially true for ND children. They wouldn’t be reporting that though. So a level of pain that needs reporting is different than the normal pain of every day existence. It’s different than the pain of your clothing. It’s different than the pain in your joints from hyper mobility. It’s different than the pain in your stomach from chronic constipation. It’s different from the headache you get every single day just from being at school. Reportable pain is more akin to an injury for some children. It doesn’t mean the simple existence of pain, it means a deviation from the norm.

I know some non-teachers on here find it hard to understand why the little boy’s backchat is a problem. What he said was fairly irrelevant - as you say children will make comments which in themselves are perfectly reasonable, as with your son.

But the over-arching point is: the teacher had requested that the children work quietly and his immediate reaction was to disobey. The classroom is not like home - activities have to be carefully structured and time for quiet individual work is crucial. If his comment had been answered by the teacher, another child would then interject, then another, and the set task for the lesson would never get done. Teachers have to do what’s right for all the children, not just a few confident individuals who are used to getting lots of attention at home (nothing wrong with that, but school isn’t home and they need to toe the line and comply with requests promptly ).

Hopefully you've spoken to the teacher by now and had clarification OP, but I'm a TA and wanted to say I had a child absolutely sob her heart out because the teacher "was really angry and shouted at me" when the teacher actually just said "[name], you've been asked to stop talking on the carpet already, if you can't concentrate on our learning sitting there we'll have to swap your space". Her voice was firm, but in no way raised!
Some children really do think any sort if reprimand is a big telling off! Hopefully it was more like that 🤞🏼

There are lots of people saying he made a smart arse comment. Seriously? He's six. For a 6-year old, he probably was just being factual and saying what he understood. A simple "no, it's not the same, because..." from the teacher would have sufficed.

I would have a different opinion if this was a 9 year old. They understand cheekiness a bit more.

OP, I 'd ask the teacher what happened and take it from there.

The teacher told the class that she expected silence from them and his first reaction was to speak out to correct her sounds incredibly rude.

I am inclined to think that this was either an expectation for some quiet time for a piece of work or that they were being incredibly fussy and the teacher was at the end of her tether and instructing them 'right, no more fussing for at least the next 10 minutes unless it is an emergency!'

Your child needs to learn what is and isn't appropriate. The chances are, also, that the teacher did not 'shout' (I have heard this accusation soooo many times) she probably used a firm voice and he wasn't used to it or didn't like it and is describing it as shouting.

We had a supply teacher once, the class were being incredibly rude, ignoring her instructions, not listening, up and down out of seats etc, everything they knew they shouldn't/wouldn't do if the teacher was in. I raised my voice to get their attention and told them I was incredibly disappointed that they chose to behave this way in front of this lady who was a visitor to our school, and that they would not be behaving this way if the teacher was in so shouldn't be doing it now. The class all quietened down apart from 2 boys who got up out of their seats to do some strange hand gesture to each other right in front of me(?!) so I gave them both a behaviour point. Cue one of the boys parents complained and wanted to speak to me. I told them what had happened. They didn't like that he'd had his first behaviour point and it was my fault. Then they complained to the class teacher. THEN they followed it up with an email complaint to the school! All because the boy couldn't listen to a straight forward instruction and had to have the last act of defiance, so to speak.

Please just correct your child and move on from this. Don't make the teacher's job any harder. Accept that if your child has done wrong, he WILL be told.

Oh no, a teacher raised their voice. Oh dear. Oh my.

Boohoo

Except he wasn't reporting any pain, he was challenging her on what she said, despite having been told clearly that they were to sit quietly.

⬆️100%

Some of the replies on this thread are a fabulous indication of why behaviour in schools is in such a mess and why they are struggling to keep teachers in the industry.

The amount of people excusing rude behaviour in a child is shocking. If this is how kids are allowed to behave at home, it’s no wonder teachers have not a hope in hell of doing their jobs properly.

But he is 6. This is what they do. I do think op should speak to teacher and get her version of events though because 6 year olds can often misinterpret things. I would say as an primary teacher myself that if you do snap at a child that is common and does happen but if you see you have upset them to the point of tears you should apologise for shouting and explain your boundary again calmly and gently. That is just my opinion though 🤷

The bit you’ve missed though is “ I don’t want to hear from anyone unless…”. He ignored that and thought it didn’t apply to him. I imagine that’s why the teacher was “shouty”, not because it was rude (which it was). Also young children often say they were being shouted at when people are being stern with them. Imagine if the 29 other kids all thought they could question every instruction like this too…

As an EYT, you probably already know that the 'shouting' didn't happen and that a firm voice after repeated reminders is enough to be accused of 'shouting'.

What would you say, out of interest, to get children to sit quietly? I know an absolutely amazing teacher with 30 years experience, who would say something like 'is this an emergency?' if a child carried on putting their hand up after expectations have been set, questions have been answered etc.

We all know what it's like 'miss, can I have a drink...miss can I have a drink too...miss can I have a drink too....miss I need the toilet....I can't find my pencil (it's on the floor where they dropped it a minute ago) can I have a rubber...he's just elbowed me...STOP COPYING ME....miss, did you know it's my birthday in October?'
How do you stop the endless questions/statements AFTER you've set them off on task and asked for quiet time so that they can concentrate?

I’ve seen my fair share of teachers genuinely shouting at the children so I don’t really think we should assume it didn’t happen.

I don’t expect my children to be silent 100% of the time. They’re 3-5 years old (teach a mix of nursery and reception children). They have very little impulse control. I just don’t give them a big reaction. “Miss my birthday was last week” = “That’s nice Susan” or “Miss I need a drink” = “You know where they are”. I am also very lucky to have incredible TA’s that can also manage behaviour whilst I teach so there aren’t too many distractions overall. I have a set time in the day (changes depending on timetable) where the children can just chat about things so the random bits of info that may be told during a lesson are saved for that time.

I do have a good group of children at the moment who listen well but if I didn’t, I definitely wouldn’t be making children cry to the point they’re sobbing hours later.

Gosh. Some of these comments . He is 6. Speak to the teacher on Monday and just mention that he was really really upset after school and that you just wanted to know what had happened so that you can talk to him about it .

Don't shout at my child, he's only 6
Don't take my boy's knife away, he's only 12
Who would be a teacher?

To be fair he needs to learn not to backchat when being asked to do something it’s a part of growing up. If it happens on a regular basis then I’d be concerned, teachers have a difficult time these days with now some kids are brought up.

A literal exploration of what the teacher said is unnecessary when the teacher has asked bit to be interrupted. It doesn’t sound like he was asking for clarification, more that the wanted to point out what he perceived was a mistake.

As a former teacher and also experienced with 6 year olds in general, they do know when they’re being cheeky. They also are aware of the behaviour that’s expected of them in the classroom, and that this type of thing isn’t ok. Imagine all 30 kids did this- it would be so disruptive. It would be helpful for you to try and reinforce this with your son at home. In my experience the kids that are happiest at school are the ones whose parents work together with teachers to achieve expected standards of behaviour, not those that enable kids to challenge/make jokes etc in this way. I’m not saying there isn’t a place to challenge teachers, there is and it’s a skill you can teach him.

All that being said, it’s his teacher’s job to also teach him this, and if you have Vincent’s about how it was handled absolutely speak to the school. But remember you can agree your son perhaps should work on appropriate responses in class, whilst also raising concerns about the method of discipline.

Completely agree. When I taught, I found lots of parents enabled terrible behaviour. Not only enabled, but actively would argue with teachers for attempting to use any kind of discipline.

In a classroom not doing as you have been instructed by the teacher is rude because it’s antisocial.

It is a demand for attention that is not in the best interest of the class community at that moment.

Tell your son that. Be disappointed and get him to promise not to do that again.

I suspect that if he was shouted at/ firmly corrected while he apologised it was more a case of thinking what he has to say is more important that what he is being told to do, I.e. button it so the teacher can interact with another individual/small group.

He does not sound like a child short of confidence.

Did you speak with the teacher today?
As you say at 6 years old, if I say something to my little girl and she doesn’t understand she will sometimes ask me to explain.

it is more the continued shouting while he was crying and being consoled by his friends that would be the concern for me x

Thank you for your balanced response. Possibly a different set up for 3-5year olds than for a yr1 / 2 child where the day is more structured and they are sat for periods of time to do maths, literacy, phonics etc.

Added to that, we seem to be in a period of time where gentle parenting/lack of parenting/children who've never heard the word 'no', seems to be leading us down a path of disruptive children, unruly children, poor listening skills etc. Sometimes firm boundaries and a firm voice are what's needed as some just simply don't listen.

Neither us have any way of really knowing what happened but I really doubt that the teacher went on a 2 minute tirade or that the child cried for hours. If this was the case, I'm sure the teacher really would have mentioned that the child's behaviour had warranted a good telling off, or the parent would have noticed at home time that their child had been crying for hours.

Incidentally, a parent alleged last year that their child had cried all night long and it was my fault. All I'd done was be in the same room (library) as her and a few others whilst they'd collected books. Nothing more. Apparently she felt under pressure 🤷‍♀️

Shocking isn’t it?
What on earth are future generations going to look like if this is the way things are going.

I quite agree. Teachers being told off by parents for telling the child that they need to work on their handwriting 🙄

It's not the same thing, although there is some overlap. Someone could clearly have an injury but NOT currently be in any pain, and they should tell the teacher so that they can go and have it checked out just in case. And someone may be in pain without being injured, like for example a severe stomach ache, in which case they also need to tell the teacher. I'd point out the difference to your child and once he understands, suggest that maybe next time he could approach the teacher after class to ask for an explanation of the difference, rather than interrupting when he is incorrect or not sure that he's correct.

Or it means the pain in your stomach or the head or any other body part that isn't chronic.