Why is behaviour so hard to manage in schools? Could single child syndrome be a possible cause? Homeschooling to help?

[Paperbear]

It occurred to me today that in school today there are so many only children. In a particular class I was thinking about - almost every single one of the boys are only children. It made me wonder whether this might connect to some of the challenges schools are facing today.

After all, a classroom made up mostly of only children is very different from the classrooms our grandparents experienced, when families were larger and siblings provided natural social and learning dynamics.

Perhaps this is one reason homeschooling can offer a more natural learning curve allowing lessons to move at a child’s own pace, providing one-on-one attention, and creating opportunities for learning that feel integrated with real life, much like the learning that once happened among siblings.

Wow, really! Had no idea it was so high.

I guess genuine curiosity is rage bait.

What age were they? If it's a reception class then that's less statistically unlikely than a year 11 class, both because average family size is going down year on year but also because a much larger percentage of five year olds who don't have siblings will end up with them compared to 16 year olds.

Well I'm an only child and, whilst I wasn't the brightest, I was always extremely studious, very quiet and diligent and never got into any trouble.

So in answer to your question, no, it's nothing to do with being an only child.

Bad behaviour is usually down to parents having checked out (if no Sen involved). I have seen no link to children without siblings but a clear link to children without two involved parents.

I’d say rage bait was rage bait.

It’s completely obvious you aren’t posting in good faith.

@Paperbearyour post is just so ignorant, I honestly don’t know were to start.

FWIW, poor behaviour in schools has nothing to do with the rise of only children. A large part of it will gentle/permissive parenting styles and people mistakenly believing their children are the centre of the universe - whether they have siblings or not.

HTH.

The 44% figure is a bit misleading - it is the percentage of households who have children who have one child. The thing is every household with more than one child spent some time as a household with only one child, unless birth no. 1 was multiples, so that number is bigger than the percentage of children who will reach adulthood as an only child.

You could have satisfied your "genuine curiosity" by reading the available research that shows there is no difference in the outcomes for only children and those with siblings. cls.ucl.ac.uk/being-an-only-child-doesnt-affect-childrens-development/

Same here. 🙄

I posted in good faith because I am genuinely curious.

Do people have any clue the kind of hypothesis studied and funded by the tax payer at universities around the globe? I think people would be very surprised.

Wouldn't home schooling only children perpetuate any social problems that the child has? Isolation delays the need to learn social interaction and consideration for others etc.

Only children often don't naturally experience conditions to incidentally learn empathy, as do children from larger families.
Schoolp peers might be pretty important to only children.

And then that child gets out into the work place or university and discovers that the world is not tailored to them....what then?

Poor behaviour issues are mostly caused by

• parents having no respect for teachers
• parents setting poor examples of work ethic
• parents under-valuing education
• parents not raising their children to discuss areas of discontent calmly and agree a compromise
• poor communication

It looks like 50% of households will have only children in them soon, please don't get offended if parents are genuinely interested in dynamics. We are all here for each other.

Behaviour is nothing to do with how many siblings there are, it’s to do with some parents are just crap parents and there are some parents who should just never have had a child.

NRTFT but - how dare you blame my inability to have more than one child for bad behaviour at school? My child was an ‘only’ because having them nearly killed me, and having a second child would have.

Child was socialised with friends and cousins and. - crucially - respected the teaching staff at their school. And that’s the crux. Teaching staff are not respected. If the parents don’t respect the staff, the children certainly will not. And no amount of homeschooling will change that. In fact, in some cases it will seriously fail the child.

Homeschooling can work - when the parent(s) put the work in, ensure the child is actually taught and is learning but in too many cases there is absolutely no ‘schooling’ taking place.

You have no way of knowing why any child is an only. How they are parented plays a far bigger role in behaviour than whether they have siblings, and even perfect parents can have children who are absolute terrors in a classroom environment. Blaming it all on ‘onlys’ is reductive at best and downright offensive otherwise.

My aunt and uncle had eight kids and they were all perfectly behaved angels with spotless academic records because they'd learned good behaviour and teamwork.

Oh actually, no they weren't because they were the children of a mother who was obsessed with babies and had lost interest in them by the age of three and were barely supervised, had no focused parental support or adequate time with their mum and dad (who also had a few more kids on the side it turns out).

Most only kids I know are very well behaved because of time spent with adults and parental focus.

I agree that school is an example of real life, but also, in real life if a company is toxic, we can leave.

The reason? Too many parents who don't want to parent or are too afraid of challenging their children, so the only people willing to do so are the teachers. And too many parents who don't respect their children's teacher and are happy to bad mouth them infront of their kids.

The problem I see with kids behaviour in school is to do with the teachers.
They seem to have totally unrealistic expectations of children’s behaviour and to not even be aware of what they are emotionally capable of, what is normal for their developmental stage or how to interact with them.
They don’t want to punish any bad behaviour, or deal with it whatsoever. They want to hand out stickers and sweets and little bits of junk/ toys for good behaviour and when that doesn’t work there is something wrong with the child/ they must have SEN/ it’s on the parents to magically fix it.
They use screens to babysit the children when it suits them.
Every week the kids are to dress up in some costume or other or do some crazy, random thing for homework or something out of the ordinary. There is no reliable routine or consistency. Then they are dysregulated and the teachers can’t think why. In the month of December they seemed to learn next to nothing but came home with Smyths toy catalogues having been given them as an “activity” to draw circles around the toys they wanted.
When they are pulled up on any of this, they get defensive and refuse to accept it. Then the parents are the problem. There is no accountability at all.
That is my experience.

In my experience only children are better behaved in most environments, particularly schools, nursery, restaurants - any environment that is more formal with adult rules.

I wouldn't get too upset @bookworm14

My ds is an only too, and is a kind, decent, perceptive, hard working young man with 10 GCSEs, on track for three stem a'levels and a degree in engineering.

Silly rage-bait nonsense won't change the value of your dc or mine. 😊

@Paperbear why are you so determined to blame only children for toxic behaviour?

You imply that you’re just curious, but you aren’t engaging with any of the sensible replies you’re getting. You’re being disingenuous here.

This 100%.
Bullshit that the issues in schools are because he and others like him don’t have siblings.

It is a combination of poor parenting and a lack of consequences for misbehaving and a lack of drive to support themselves.

Dreadful parenting, combined with an utter lack of respect for teachers and this weird belief that teachers are responsible for everything. You see it on here a lot: one parent has a dust-up with another and the advice is "talk to your child's teacher". Why on earth? When I was a teacher, I didn't give a shiny shit if one parent had a row with another. My job was to teach your kids. Your job is to ensure that they know how to behave decently outside the home.