Parents to blame for unruly children

[speedymama]

I totally agree with this .

My DT are only 19 months old but I am responsible for the way they develop. It is my responsibility to discipline them, teach them right from wrong, to have respect for authority figures,teach them that every action has consequences, teach them that if they want respect, they have to show respect and teach them that in life, one has responsibilities, not just rights.

I have friends and family who are teachers and in their opinion,it is the feckless parents of unruly children who are the cause of so much angst. Too many parents think that their darlings can do what they like without facing up to the consequences and this is undermining the authority in schools. I would also like to add, that in my opinion, too many do-gooders have undermined the role of parents in disciplining their off-spring and are therefore partly responsible for the degeneration in children's behaviour at school because kids know that teachers can do very little to discipline them.

Right, that's me off my soapbox. Must go and tend to my chores now that DTs are bed.

It makes me laugh how excited kids get by stickers, even 15 year old boys sometimes like stickers.

I used to run an extra class after school for my CGSE RE students, my head of department was amazed that I could get some of the worst behaves Year 11 lads to come back after school to read Mark's Gospel. My secret was cookies and orange juice!

I also used to run extra coursework classes , if they turned up they could work in my office and have crisps, cookies and hot chocolate in there. At one point all my Year 11 bottom set were turning up for extra help, all one by one making me promise not to tell anyone that they were turning up for extra RE!

Twinsetandpearls. I can see in that situation it would be a great benefit.

Back to the unruly children thing, though. As I said ds is picking up detention after detention. It has now reached the point where he has to do a day in removal room. Students are sent there as an alternative to temp. exclusion. I am struggling to see how his behaviour merits this. I have always backed up schools decisions and explained to my children about consequences. However, ds is asking me why he is being sent to removal room and I have no answers. So many things just don't make sense or add up and if I'm this confused I can only imagine his confusion. After asking for deferral of this punishment to discuss what is going on, we have been given the impression that we are obstructive parents and ds is unmanageable.
I dread to think what the state of his school record will be come June and if he passes any GCSEs at any level I'll be amazed.
We are waiting for an appointment.

Just read this back and if I was reading it from someone else then I would be thinking hmmm must be more to this than meets the eye. There isn't. As far as we are aware it is the way it looks and it just doesn't add up.

I am not a bad parent but I sometimes think my choldren are out of control. They have been taught right from wrong etc etc etc and just now, Ds2 was smacked, hard {OK shoot me down non smacking brigade!} because he told my DH to F off. Not acceptable, whatever the reasons or how cross he was. The reason? He has been told that unless he tidies his room, he will be grounded all weekend. It's a tip, lots of plates around and dirty. I know this is slightly off topic but it's relevant IMHO.He flatly refused to go upstairs and demanded an explanation as to why he should He was told, at least 15 times to go and do as he was told. Bearing in mind, 15, 10 and 6 yr olds are now the same, it's soul destroying. Three good at school, one of them, at private school, dreadful. Small classes, rich kids and teachers who shout a lot. No discipline in the class room, phone calls taken etc and scraping through GSCE's. Same thing as Custy, too little too late. Should have been stamped on in Yr 7, wasn't and now he thinks he wons the world and it owes him a living.

Have my standards dropped/changed? NO, I still tell the 6 yr old the same as the others, but he's picked up the attitude and sometimes I just want them to go away so I can stop worrying, stressing and stop being a Mum, just for a while.

Agree with so many people on here, circumstances make for different children, parents and I do feel sorry for teachers that want to teach not exercise crowd control.

Mn I salute you, brilliant discussion.

Standards have dropped in schools though. Was at Harvest Festival the other day and believe me, when youngest was there, 10 years ago, no-one would have dared to talk whilst the others were singing/saying their bit. Head Teacher was glaring at children throughout and when Vicar was asking questions, it turned into a riot of shouting. I've worked in the Nursery Dept too and staff there say the same. Children are asked to come and sit on the carpet, OK they're only little, but an awful lot of them don't do as they are asked and demand to know why! Some flatly refuse because they're playing and "don't want to.." That would never have happened years ago and it's not the staff, because they are the same teachers. Children are getting more cheeky and self centred and INHO it's a bad thing. Expressive yes, cheeky or downright disobedient, no!

It also worries me the way children talk to each other, mine are downright nasty sometimes and it upsets me. They do love each other but I can't stand spitefulness and it gets up my nose!

Thre trouble is, that if you do jump on bad behaviour early (and btw I fully agree that we should), then parents complain saying 'they are too young'. You only have to read MN to see that the 'right' age for stict control is wildly contested!

I went to a new parents evening for our soon to be year 7s in the syummer term of last year. When the head was taking to the assembly not only were some children allowed to wander at will, but some parents where having conversations with each other....very rude, and what a dreadful exampl to the children.

juuule, I've been having a think about your ds's situation. Have you had a chance to have a look at his school file? THis should document all the problems (as well as good things) that have happened since he started in the school. If you look at that you can see if there is any pattern to the incidents, any trigger points, or specific probelms with particular members of staff.

THis might give you the big picture as to what exactly is happeneing in the school and where your son is finding problems.

Do you think you could ask for an interview with the deputy gead, following a chance to see his file? Do you think that would be helpful?

It is a complex issue with many interrelated factors . I am sure that most people have seen this BBC news article - but just in case here is the link

I sometimes wonder if the increasing size of schools has anything to do with the problem too - its much harder to discipline children if you don't know them eg when doing a cover lesson or on duty at break etc.

Thanks for the suggestion MB. Will ask when we get the appt we are waiting for.

Interesting about the sticker things even working for 15 year olds. But thinking about it, I'm sure lots of workplaces use sticker equivalents don't they - employees/ teams who've surpassed their targets that week - so it works for adults too!

In Fridays BBC online Education:

Another experiment, conducted by Dr Alex Richardson of Oxford University, involved young children, aged from six to 11, in Durham.

All these children had specific difficulties in motor coordination, over 30% had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD), and 40% had specific learning difficulties and were more than two years behind in reading and spelling.

The experiment provided the children with supplements containing Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids and vitamin E.

Again, the results were very clear. Compared with the expected progress for normal children, the recipients of the supplements improved their reading ability at more than three times the normal rate, and more than twice the rate in spelling, over three months of treatment.

There were also significant improvements in their ADHD symptoms.

Mr Gesch also referred to research in schools in the US, where a new regime of banning vending machines, providing nutritional education, better food and low dose vitamin-mineral tablets had improved both behaviour and academic standards.

In this experiment with five to 10 year olds, after one year, exclusions had fallen by 80%, violent acts were down by 97%, and the school's test scores in maths and English had shot up, taking it from being the lowest in the school district to first and second in maths and English respectively.

So, compared with the hundreds of millions being spent on reducing exclusions and truancy, and raising standards, the government might do better to channel more funds into school children's diets.

There HAS to be something in this whole diet/behaviour malarky?

I think that diet is part of a very complex issue.

Dysfunctional families, drugs and alcohol, inconsistant parenting, falling standards of behavior in society, schools being denied the ability to exclude, poor management in schools, poor teacher training, inconsistant teachers all play a part.

But in the end they are out of school for longer than they are in, so what we can do is far less than family and society IYSWIM

Caligula, I have 18 year olds clamoring for stickers!

Diet is always an issue, but being the mother of a child with a highly controlled diet (I'm not precious about it, I just have a very allergic son). I can say that even when you cook all food in site, organic and free from chemicals and preservatives, you still get lots of challenging behaviour that need to be sorted immediatly to avoid it from scalating.

I strongly agree that the government should invest more in feeding children correctly. But the fact that they have a healthy meal or 2 in the school it's not going to solve the problem if the food at home is not well planned or full of preservatives (and believe me, most frozen, tinned, or ready made food it is, even when the companies keep insisting they don't play with our food!)

Obvio

...ously the food by itself it's not the problem, unless we sedate with eucaliptus-only diet children will continue to misbehave if they have no limits in terms of behaviour.

And all the good food in the world isn't going to help the kid that much if they still see dad knocking seven bells out of mum on a Friday night.