Stop blaming teachers for your child’s behaviour

[Woolfatthedoor]

I’m so fed up of my partner return home from school exhausted and mentally drained due to the appalling behaviour of some of their year six pupils.
Heaven forbid they are reprimanded. Then a slurry of emails accusing the teacher of ‘shouting’ at their innocent kids.
My Partner and several colleagues are at the point ot resigning.
They are experienced teachers who love teaching yet these kids make teaching intolerable.
If feels like these kids are not set any boundaries at home therefore come to school with a degree of arrogance.
Parents don’t seem to take any accountability for their children’s behaviour siding with them against the teacher who just wants to teach the rest of the class.

Of course you need reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities. But you can't just have a free for all where there's no discipline or boundaries because someone has SEN. That's ridiculous and just feeds into the lawless nature of schools these days.

There's a line between a child who is able to function in a standard school, with reasonable adjustments, and a child who needs to be in a special school. Not being able to discipline a child who does bad things (say for example swear at a teacher or is violent) is one of those lines. It's no wonder standard school teachers are leaving in their droves having to deal with this.

It’s not about ‘switching sides’ as such but you do make a very good point.

The way we parent today is completely out of step with how children are treated at school. They are listened to and believed at home and this causes a huge amount of friction in the relationship between home and school. School is built on compliance and conformity and this hasn’t changed for centuries.

Yes good point. Schools are essentially based on Victorian principles and need a massive over haul to work in 2025. Not sure any government has the nerve though.

So how would you run schools that will work in 2025? Surely the volume of staffing needed would be massive. It would be cheaper to pay parents to home educate instead of having schools if we want the same level of one to one interaction a parent provides.

Yes it’s really sad. We have 5 years of excuses for little Johnny’s behaviour and lack of effort. Then 2 months before the GCSEs the same old parents are in screaming like banshees about what I’m going to do to get them their target grade and how come Oliver over there is sailing through. It must be my teaching. Oliver’s parents smile sympathetically at me as Johnny’s parents have pushed in first and are using their slot and half of the next one. Oliver’s parents thank me for my efforts.

After one of these cases I always console myself by imagining little Johnny still living with them when he’s 40 having his every whim pandered to.

I also think as a society we are very inconsistent in our attitudes to young people and they know it.

We see our babies as our right to have and maybe a bit as our dollies to have and to own to make our lives complete. But really it works better if we have our babies for their sakes.

We like little well behaved kids, but we also don't enjoy the boring work of loving patient discipline. we don't like their sexuality very much so we try to ignore it.

We want them to grow up, move out, get rich, be independent and then stay in loving touch with us reflecting well on us and doing what we want them to do.

Schools are the factories we want to produce these Stepford children.

I just think we need to reflect on all this with much more depth as a community looking at our responsibilities to each other not just what we want to get out of our kids.

There's a curdle between me me me and the potential success of us us us.
Capitalism and good education are slightly in contradiction of each other because the former is results-based on money and the latter is results based on individual development - you can't analyze the latter in a profit based spreadsheet.

Our children's fragility is complex as hell and resilience building is not a one size fits all process. It's unique to the individual.

What a good teacher, well supported, does in an average day is simply building the good society we all want to live in. That's all. Massively indispensable work.

When we don't support our teachers we shoot ourselves in our collective foot as a society; we have everything to gain. We are all in one society so we have to build one which includes and suits everyone. Schools are trying to do this. I feel we need to support them as it's one of the toughest challenges we have as a country.

We also need to like young people more not just when they're easy and cute.

You'll always get people who are aware of all their entitlements. They aren't really worthwhile for most. The costs associated with a child with SEN are absolutely huge and the impact on earning potential is significant. Mums especially are significantly out of pocket and disadvantaged.

I think the real problem is people feel that they don't want to pay in any form for people they don't like ( poor and disabled). I think that's a natural human response for many.

Yes my thoughts exactly. DD was born right in the middle of it and she's a good kid, potty trained, understands routine and listening in class. I must say though that nursery and preschool have helped her with the 'listening to instructions' part as they would prepare them for the school environment.

As to the older kids, I think there are a variety of different reasons that kids misbehave. At primary age, they're wired to push boundaries. It is up to the parents as well as the schools to deal with that effectively. You can't expect to make being in a school environment compulsory and then not have the responsibility or resources to shape how these kids grow.

I do agree that some parents can't control their children's behaviour and it's easier to blame it on the teacher picking on the kid than admitting you have lost control.

We do also have to remember that kids are master manipulators and that they will likely tell their parents that they are being 'picked on' and parents can be fuelled by that.

Personally I think the issue is two fold. Where there is a financial incentive it will be abused and it’s plain that happens in all areas of DLA/PIP and benefits generally. Fraud is rife and this is no exception. That obviously means more people are fighting for the same pot. My own perception is that some children have a lot of resource available to them, specialist schooling, school transport, respite, carers, siblings getting free childcare hours, home improvement grants, whilst other families get diddly squat and do struggle. Like everything there’s those that float around in the middle whose needs aren’t being met.

We like little well behaved kids, but we also don't enjoy the boring work of loving patient discipline. we don't like their sexuality very much so we try to ignore it.

Can you expand?

I'll have to pull out the total cost of benefits unclaimed to those entitled to them. There's a huge amount that people are entitled to and is not claimed. Fraud of course happens. Are you so upset regards the costs associated with the Royal Family. There's a wonderful organisation called Republic. They provide a good overview of losses to the tax payer associated with our Royal Family at present.

You say ' alot'. So I'll let you know this anecdotal story. I'm on a group online which has doubled to 69000 UK members at present. We are predominantly parents across all economic sectors of SEN kids. We are all on our knees.

There are less and less specialist schools available. SEN kids are strategically placed in mainstream schools. ( Teachers know this. They'll have loads of kids in their classes that might seem slightly odd up to absolute nightmares for them). Parents have to fight the Local Authority to get a place in any specialised schools. The process is horrendous and agonising and usually involves going to tribunals to get a place in limited schools.

You only see a view from the outside. Maybe that's fed by the Daily Mail. There are people who have alot of kids and are living on benefits and I myself think, please stop breeding for the love of god. I understand that feeling of frustration and resentment. It just probably isn't the main source of our losses as tax payers.

We desperately need more provision. It's not there. Most people are significantly out of pocket by thousands.

Surely you can understand that in the past it just wasn't understood or diagnosed? Dd has ADHD. So do I but was only diagnosed at age 50. My brother was diagnosed age 45. My mum definitely has it, she's in her 80s and was never diagnosed. So there's not some big conspiracy or something in the air causing it! It's just we have advanced medically and thank God our children can now be treated and understand their condition and how to manage it. I'm Gen X and neurodivergent kids were just labelled naughty or daydreamers or lazy and kept to fend for themselves and many fell by the wayside. Around 20% of the global population are ND by the way. I imagine it's actually far more than that and people just struggle on with their life not realising

I‘m not looking to attack anyone (least of all with my family forming part of the same community we’re discussing). I’m just looking objectively at what’s being said. Yes I think there is an element of truth re some families wanting a diagnosis for the financial benefits.

The amount of children getting PIP has exploded. No society can afford to provide all the support that these children might ideally need.

Generally welfare states and free education systems are designed on the basis of 3 to 5% of the population being disabled enough to need additional support over mainstream services. Amongst children, the number of children with disabilities that used to be more common, has fallen dramatically e.g. downs syndrome, spina bifida, polio syndrome. Instead we have seen a dramatic rise in the number of children and adults with neurodiversity.
We need to as a society decide what level of neurodiversity we are willing to fund to provide additional support/ Because there are financial limits and at the moment any help is spread too thinly to achieve anything much.

I support Joyous on this completely. It’s uncomfortable but then the truth often is.

I do as well. It's become unsustainable

“Instead we have seen a dramatic rise in the number of children and adults with neurodiversity.”

It is not that straightforward. For example, in our small state primary we have several non verbal autistic children with 1:1s who will start stimming and making loud noises in assembly sometimes. The NT DC know how to handle this, even if they are reciting a poem etc. but the ND DC on the milder end absolutely cannot cope sometimes with the sudden noises. In the interests of inclusion, they are all there, but one group of higher needs then interferes with a lesser group of needs. It is the same in the classroom itself. Those with dyslexia and dyspraxia etc - if all of the teachers time is taken up by severe SEND needs, there is then less attention to go around those with milder needs but who absolutely need intervention as well.

But we already do this. Disability payments are based on ability rather than the kind of disability you have.

Ive had four kids go through the education system and two of my dc are SEN. I would say that its a combination of naughty children who's parents are absolutely to blame and shitty teachers who are more interested in what colour shoes a child has on than actually teaching them. Its a perfect storm. My youngest dc had a horrific time in mainstream school caused by incompetent teachers who refused to accept he was anything other than naughty. He eventually went to SEN school when he was 11 but by then it was simply to late to salvage his education and his attitude towards school was awful. All of the fantastic teachers who inspired kids that i met were working in the SEN area and all the shit ones in mainstream.

I know. But already we have 6% of children who get DLA. This has nearly doubled in just five years. It is not sustainable.

I would put money on it that this isn't because of increased payments relating to children with moderate needs, but because we have an increase of children with complex and profound needs.

This is going totally off topic now, sorry OP but isn't this because of huge NHS waiting lists rather than neurodiversity.? Both my DC have a physical condition (that we do not claim disability benefits for). My eldest DC saw a consultant a 2 weeks old and the condition was solved by the time they were 6 months old. 4 years later my younger DC didn't see a consultant until they were 2 and a half. So they have a lifelong condition.

I would say that its a combination of naughty children who's parents are absolutely to blame and shitty teachers who are more interested in what colour shoes a child has on than actually teaching them

Absolutely agree with this. There's a lot of talk about parents not disciplining their children but I think that the schools also need to look at how they discipline and teach pupils. Really disruptive children (thankfully only 1 or 2 in my dds year) seem to have absolutely no consequences for repeated awful behaviour (i.e a boy threw a chair across the classroom that hit another pupil, one of a long line of things) whereas a girl with nail polish on or her skirt rolled up or a bloody bow on her shoe will end up in detention/isolation. What my child describes as happening in daily lessons would just not have happened when I was at school (I'm 50) and my nieces and nephews say it wasn't like that when they were at school (late 20s). A lot of the teachers seem completely disengaged with the class. Just set work then let the kids chatter away while they sit on their phones and the kids pretty much run riot. My dd describes things that have happened in class and I ask where on earth the teacher was and am told they were there, it just blows my mind. I do think, and this is backed up by research, that there has been a decline in children's concentration and behaviour due to tech use but I also do think that there has been a decline in teaching standards as well.

Not one thing you've mentioned is about teaching. Where's your evidence for a decline in teaching standards? Teaching is not just behaviour management.