To wonder what sort of "child" thinks it is ok to behave like this?

[KimiGaveUpStarbucks4Lent]

Picked DS2 up from school today, popped in to a shop then headed home,saw a group from the local sink high school out side the burger bar (nothing unusual about that often out there cussing and smoking) seemed to be a bit of a debate going on between one of the boys and a girl, the boy and two of his mates walk in to the shop clearly not wanting to talk to the girl and 3 other boys follow them in and beat the shit out of them and threw chairs and anything else they could get hold of at them.
The owner shouting at them to stop it got told to "fuck off pakie" and as I rushed my 9 year old across the road to the safty of my place of work one of the little fuckers sods went to chuck a chair through a plate glass window.

My boss was on the phone to the police as my son watch it all in shock (although he loved the police cars that raced in).

The local sink school has had more money thrown at it then any other school in the area, it has been on report, got a new head x 5 or 6 changed its name 4 times and is now in partnership with a very outstanding school to try and drag it out of the gutter.

I watch these kids and I think why even bother TBH when they behave like animals.

I live in Surrey so it is not as if we are in the bronx. I know one thing it will be a cold day in hell before I ever let DS2 near that school, even if I have to move house for 2011.

What the hell do kids like these learn at home if they think this is a way to live.. hell in a hand cart.

I am sure most of them come from really shit homes, and yes the parents are to blame, however, these kids are representing their school when out in the community in their uniform and they behave like this and it just reinforces the view of the school the local parents have.

But it is all too easy to blame everyone from the parents to the queen mother for the fact these kids behave like feral beast and not decent members of our society.

If the kids can not go from school to home without smashing up a burger bar and each other then what hope is there.

I have seen our local community police woman speak to some of them and get a mouthful of abuse back, no respect nor boundaries from these kids at all.

MrsC i applaud you. what a wonderful teacher you are your posts have moved me. i was luckily that exception that figured it out for myself, but it has taken all of my lifetime thus far and yes you are so so so right when you say it comes down to a lack of self-esteem and confidence. there were many any things bad about my childhood and my "family" but if i could single out one thing it would be this, the lack of confidence. Those of you from loving families could never understand what it means to have no-one love you unconditionally, to feel and be shown you are worthless and hopeless and every day is a struggle. the lack of self-confidence, of any kind of love for yourself, is what held me back so much above all else and is the one thing i wanted for my dc - to embroil them in total unconditional love and security and warmth so they could create that confidence themselves that has taken me a lifetime to achieve for myseelf

mrsC thank you for all you do, keep up the good work woman, i salute you

This subject is so close to my heart as I work with kids who behave the way you describe. However, as a poster above said, when you get to understand their background you begin to see why they may behave in such a way. It always comes back to families which are insecure and chaotic with no sensible boundaries and consistency of care. They feel worthless and vulnerable and develop an aggressive shell in order to protect themselves. They find it hard to control their impulses so behave as they feel and often do not understand the consequences of their actions. Fighting and aggression are part and parcel of their daily existence.

Schools, even the best, can only do so much and where I work a lot of thought and care goes into trying to help the kids get the best start they can. Poverty isn't always the issue as well, some kids I work with come from so called middleclass families.

Much as I hate the word it is inadequate parenting that is the root - probably generations of it.

I love my work but it is exhausting and I often feel it is a drop in the ocean but hopefully some kid may take a sense of being cared about that might, just might make a little change

Notanumber, almost everyone in last years Y6 at DS2s school was given this school, not that any had chosen it, almost without fail the parents appealed.

I have a lovely friend with a lovely child who has gone to this school, as she thought with all the improvements it could be ok, her son is very very bright, and the younger years 7 and 8 are getting better, however it is still a long way from being good.

Beating shit out of each other
Smashing up a shop
calling the owner paki

Not on, not on at all.

you too Harlot - thanks for all you do and keep up the good work. from someone who was once that child, believe me, you will never be forgotten. your kindness and praise may be the only time some of these children have heard this in their lives and they will never forget, no matter what outer agressive shell they put on, inside they will be aglow with this new feelig of pride every time you tell them something good. believe me i was once that child a looooong time ago, i speak from experience and i say to you and all your fellow good teachers it does NOT go unnoticed.

Oh no Gene'sMistress! Your post has brought tears to my eyes, I blame the pregnancy hormones!

In all seriousness, I have days of intense frustration at some of the children I work with, but just have to remind myself constantly that however well they hide it, they are still children, and vulnerable ones at that. I'm on a placement at a completely different school, Outsanding OFSTED, catchment area house price hikes etc etc...and the difference is shocking and really enlightening. It is very sad though, and the difference in treatment, expectations and funding etc is hard to witness. It is an easier ride as a teacher though, but after Easter I'll go back to my normal school, and while it is masochistic of me to say it (in terms of my mental health!) I'm looking forward to it. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss my lot.

Thanks Gene'sMistress although I am not a teacher but a counsellor. It is hard to know if I help at times as the kids I work with don't emotionally engage much - not surprisingly.

MrsC2010 I too am very fond of the kids I work with but I take my hat off to teachers. I work one to one not 20-30 at a time. When I hear what sometimes goes on in a classroom I feel so sorry for the poor teacher.

But for every child that is gotten through to there are 100 more that go from troubled teen to nasty adult to useless parent and the whole cycle starts again.

DS2s school is so over subscribed now that we have a full reception class for 2011 and 80 yes 80 on a waiting list, population growth and immigration (and no I am not having a go at immigrants) means more and more children and less and less resources.

The breakdown of family, unemployment, kids left to fend for them self after school, all of this is adding to the problems we all ready have as a society.

When a school has such a bad reputation that no one wants to send their children to it and it is filled with the kids no other schools want there is going to be trouble. It is sad.
I have two sons and I do every thing I can to keep them safe, teach them right from wrong, show them how to be responsible for their actions and how to treat people, I teach them respect for themselves and others, I know where they are and who they are with, they do not get to "hang out" round burger bars or shopping centers, they have chores to earn their pocket money and they know the only way they will get a nice house/car/holidays is to work hard for them. I do the very best I can and for the life of me can not work out why people have children then let them run wild, (child benefit ain't that much ).)
But bad joke aside I know how I would feel if the police turned up at my home and said one of my children had behaved in the way these kids did today.

Also I have seen a child stabbed to death (outside a school where I grew up) and I strongly feel kids are getting worse not better . When guns gangs and knives are the norm, breakfast is a trip to Greggs (I have been known to have the odd sausage roll) and family is fractured to bits, school can not control pupils and community police officers are treated like some sort of joke It saddens me.

Still off to cook dinner now,
Will find out at work what happened as once the police arrived I headed home with DS2.

Hope the bloke in the burger is ok and also the kids that got beaten.

burger bar

Sorry, but rofl at juxtaposition of 'guns,gangs and knives' and 'breakfast at Greggs', as if the 2 were comparable or even remotely related.

What would you suggest as a solution, Kimi?
Is LeQueen right, bring back the press gangs and send them all to Afghanistan?
It's easy to identify the problems, the resolutions less so.

That's what I struggle with MoreCrack, ( can spot the problems a mile off but am at a loss as to what will help. Some of the nippers in my class break my heart, even though before I knew them I would have crossed the street just in case.

I don't have the answer morecrack, all I can do is raise my children to be better.

Clearly you did not grow up in the same place I did, as knives, guns and gangs were not unknown. When you are a few feet from a child asking for his mum while he bleeds to death on a street out side his school because he is the wrong type of black, then maybe you will see why I see this as a broken society

I have nothing against Greggs sausage rolls, I do however feel they are not a breakfast food .

I do not think you and I will ever agree on anything however, so off you go to report my posts or whatever it is makes you feel better

Mrs.C you do sound like a fab teacher

And whilst I can see the difficulties in finding solutions to the very complex problems of poverty, neglect and feckless parenting, demonising the children and behaviours that result from them is never going to be part of that solution.

But if you do not demonise the behavior does that not send the message its ok to do it, if excuses are made left right and center?

Oh I can get away with it guv it ain't me fault, I got feckless parent and we is poor!!!!

Teaching children to be responsible for themselves their actions and the consequents of their actions is a must, not giving them excuses as to why they behave like it.

I am the child of a unmarried alcoholic father (who died when I was small )a depressed mother who for a lot of my childhood I was the parent to, I grew up on a sink estate on benefits, yet I never even though of behaving badly, although it would seem by the odds I should have

Ok, fair point wrt the behaviour Kimi, it is the demonising of the children I object to.

That is not the same as suggesting there shouldn't be consequences for the actions, but consequences alone will not resolve the issues that cause children to behave in this way.

Good lord. Sink schools, feral children and scum in one fell sweep. Fgs.

These were a few individuals behaving appallingly out of school time. Please don't judge an entire school by their behaviour.

I teach a number of pupils who I know have got up to dreadful things outside of school but I still enjoy teaching them and if I have an impact on even one of them, for a moment, I am hopefully giving them an alternative viewpoint and allowing them to see some sort of a way out out of what they sometimes feel circumstances have led them to.

That doesn't excuse hideous behaviour but it also very, very strongly shows me that if nobody ever gives them chances, they will never have a chance to be better. If people really do 'write off' entire schools/groups then how the hell can we expect any better from some of the individuals within them - you are already condemning them all.

Cannon fodder? ffs - tch.

And yes - absolutely the behaviour must be punished - just don't tar everybody with the same brush.

I HATE the phrase 'sink school' in case you haven't noticed.

The point is that we never give up on a child. No quotation marks. We can't give up on them, and you don;t want us to give up on them, because they won't be 'cannon fodder' (wtf?). They will be coming to a town and a street near you. They will impinge on your ordered, educated, law-abiding life, and those of your children. So we do our best and we don't give up.

And of course there should be consequences for actions, but those consequences shouldn't be the removal of support. Ever.

But what about all the "bad" teachers out there the ones that don't give a sod, and believe me there are a fair few about.
The ones that do nothing, let the kids run riot in the classes??

DS1 was bullied by a child at his primary school who came from a home with violence, dad walked out for another woman, no matter what the child did he got away with it.

The school did not pick up on how damaged the bully was, despite it being pointed out time and time again. In the end (and after having the child, his father and the fathers half brother arrested) I played a tape to the school of a message the boy had left on another friends answer phone pretending to be my son, I had also played it to a friend of mine who works at Great Ormond Street children's hospital (he is a child psychiatrist,) who said he would say the child was psychotic. The look on the heads face said it all, but as the kids were leaving she did nothing, the boy went to the better high school but was chucked out and is now at the sink one, he still shouts abuse when ever he sees me or my kids.

He will grow up to be like his father, a no mark,

If the first school had picked up on it maybe something could have been done, the second school would not put up with him and he is now at the worst school in the area,

If a child is over looked and left to get on with it, and they do not magically become a decent person

Quite, so writing them off as a bunch of animals does no-one any good.

I can't comment on the rubbish teachers as I haven't come across any. That isn't to say that there aren't any, there are crap people in every walk of life.

The blame cannot be placed soley at the feet of schools and teachers though. They work within the guidelines they are given which are very prescriptive, and cannot right the world's wrongs. In many cases social services will be more heavily involved.

'I do not think you and I will ever agree on anything however, so off you go to report my posts or whatever it is makes you feel better'

Eh? Have I offended you in some way, Kimi?
If you are harbouring a grudge wrt another thread it's pretty bad form to drag it around the board.

I was simply making the point that demonising children and dismissing them as having no hope of becoming productive members of society will not solve the underlying causes of such problems.

I am with MrsC. I think you say just what I want to say. Having worked (in the past), with children like this (only younger...), you kind of see that al is not well with them. It's easy to say I had a hard childhood too you know, and didn't choose this, but that doesn't take into account personality type etc. Some kids just do respond this way. They might have an idea of the right choice, but doing it/either wanting to or being able to, is something else. Many might simply feel compelled t enact this behaviour, or even consider the morals to be flexible. I doubt he kids above thought "ok, so decking this guy and beating the crap out of him is wrong, but what the hell"... no, they saw one of their own "dissed" or whatever, and went for them. Without THINKING about right and wrong.

The other poster is right t think. It is not about self esteem etc... (an interesting article in Right Start about some psych who thinks too much self esteem is the cause of al the problems... i.e an over-inflated notion of self importance)... Sometimes these kids LOOK like the exude confidence and self esteem... maybe too much.. but it is all false, and they have even convinced themselves of it... they have to have an over-inflated notion of self worth, bcause, well, no one else will.

I agree that it is very sad when you see behaviour like this from teenagers (or any age). Clearly somebody has failed these children at some points in their lives, whether that be home, school, peers etc. But there comes a point where every person has to start to be responsible for their own actions.

I know people who have had a shit upbringing and continue to behave badly into adulthood, always saying 'it's because of my shit upbringing that I can't hold down a job/remain faithful to my partner' or whatever. Other people, because of their shit upbringing, are determined not to repeat the behaviour pattern.

I don't know what makes one person go one way, and one another. And I also don't know how long one can keep on giving reasons (excuses?) for really inappropriate behaviour before someone has to start being personally responsible for their own behaviour.

Answers on a postcard please.