Year1 teacher yelled at daughter

[saltpeanuts]

Dear mumsnetters, I really need your advice.

Today DD (5, year1) told me her teacher had yelled at her in front of the class. DD is usually a very quiet and sensitive child, so she felt confused and sad. She recognised she was being a bit noisy when the teacher yelled at her (her words), but not behaving intentionally badly. Still, do you think it's OK to yell at children, especially when they're that young? Should I speak with the her (the teacher) and try to find out what happened?

Just a note, I think it's ok to tell children off and speak things, but I don't agree with yelling/screaming at them. At the same time, I understand grown ups aren't perfect all the time and that working with children can be very stressful, but I don't want this to repeat.

What would you do in my place? Thanks for your advice

[CaterpillarCara]

I once saw a teacher shout really loudly at a class of upset and scared children.

Sounds terrible, right?

A wasp had flown into the class and they were all running round and panicking loudly. She shouted over their hysteria to get them to sit down so she could shoo it out the window.

A child could have told you the first half, which is the truth, but would have left some vital information out.

If it were me, I'd make a mental note to keep an eye on similar stories and see if a pattern emerged. Then I would talk to the teacher if things were still not going well in a short time.

[tinytalker]

Oh dear, I feel sorry for the teacher. I bet you'd be the first parent in the school if another children was noisy and disrupting your dd's learning. Your child has got another 12yrs of teachers raising their voice and calming a disruptive class to deal with, she needs to get used to it or she will be a nervous wreck by the end of her school life!

[BlackMogul]

This type of problem is why there was a letter from 100 educationalists in the Daily Telegraph today! 30 children in a class and some not ready to be quiet when expected to be!

[babyboomersrock]

Oh dear, I feel sorry for the teacher

Why? Because the occasional parent might just ask her why she was shouting?

What a prospect for the 5-year-old. Get used to it, kid, or you'll be a nervous wreck by the end of your school years. Why should she get used to it? Is that really the best that teachers can do?

I know it isn't, because I know teachers who'd regard themselves as failures if they had to shout to control a class, let alone one small child.

Why is it all right for adults to shout at children, but not at each other? Why do we accept this for our children when we wouldn't tolerate it ourselves? What lesson are we teaching them?

[babyboomersrock]

I didn't see that letter BlackMogul. Could you link to it?

[Prambo]

Tell me why, exactly, a recalcitrant five year-old should not be shouted at.

[BlackMogul]

Telegraph.co.uk. Google it. Comes up immediately. Sorry, not sure about a link. It has been discussed a lot today on Radio 5 . These experts are talking about the benefits children can gain by starting formal teaching later. I am surprised that anyone thinks it is ok for a ks1 teacher to shout. Of course, this may not have happened, but it does suggest the child or children did not settle.

[babyboomersrock]

Stop rolling your eyes, Prambo, and tell me why she should. I believe children have the right to feel safe and unthreatened at school (and at home, obviously).

As an aside, shouting doesn't work. If it did, there would be a bit of it at the beginning, and then none as the children began to "learn" from it. But actually, teachers (and parents) who shout tend to go on shouting.

I bet we've all known teachers who shout, and other teachers who manage the same class without shouting. Why is that?

[mrz]

Sometimes shouting does work - when my son was small he went to pick up a broken glass and a shout quickly stopped him from possibly cutting himself badly. I've also shouted at children about to dash into the road ...wrong? would you prefer I try to reason with them after they are hit by a car.
Without knowing the circumstances it's not possible to judge why the teacher "shouted" on this occasion or how loudly.

[Morgause]

How close was she to the teacher? If she was the other side of the room then the teacher would have to raise her voice to make herself heard.

Projection of voice and shouting are 2 different things.

If you do go and complain I'm sure the staff will have a good laugh about it in the staffroom at playtime.

[exoticfruits]

You were not there- you can't know. What is 'yelling' to one child wouldn't even register with another.
As a parent you need to help your child to cope- explain that if she is being noisy the teacher might have to yell to be heard. If she doesn't want to be shouted at she needs to do the 'right' thing.
She will meet all sorts of people, they won't all be like you.
Parents cannot control their child's whole environment.

[Galena]

I think one problem on this thread is that people are assuming children either tell a complete lie or tell the complete truth.

She said the teacher screamed at her. People seem to be assuming that either the teacher did scream, or that she barely raised her voice. I would say the truth is somewhere between the two. Yes, maybe the teacher shouted loudly at her for a minor misdemeanour, which would have been an overreaction on her part. Or maybe she didn't shout and the child's perception is skewed. Or maybe it's somewhere in the middle. Maybe she had been asked to stop a few times, maybe the whole class was making silly noises and had been asked to stop... at the moment you don't know because you weren't there.

The best thing to do, if it upset the child is firstly to say 'I will speak to the teacher tomorrow, but you mustn't make silly noises in class' so she knows you don't approve of her behaviour. Then go into class. Don't accuse the teacher of screaming, but tell her DD was upset and ask what happened.

Then you need to trust. You need to trust the teacher to give you a true report - or something close. At this stage in the year to believe a 5 year old over an established teacher (once the teacher has given her view) would be poor judgement, in my opinion. I'm not saying that you discount your child's story completely, but that you apply a little caution. Reinforce that you believe that she feels that the teacher screamed at her, but that maybe the 'scream' was simply a raised voice. Reinforce that she can tell you when she is worried about something. But remember that children's perceptions and memories of incidents are not generally as accurate as an adult's

[kelda]

I'm not assuming the child is lying at all. I'm sure she did think that the teacher screamed at her.

But her perception of the differences between 'raised voice', shouting, yelling, screaming, might be skewed becase she is just five years old and because she comes from a household where there is no shouting (and how many of us can say that? With three children, I certainly can't say there is never any shouting in my house!)

[Galena]

Absolutely. I understand what you are saying. But those posters who have expressed outrage about your stance seem to be saying that you are implying that the child has lied.

It really isn't a 'them' and 'us' situation. it is 2 different perceptions of the same incident which cannot both be completely accurate and is probably partway between the two.

[babyboomersrock]

If you do go and complain I'm sure the staff will have a good laugh about it in the staffroom at playtime

Nice. But yes, you're probably right. I guess that's why I find this thread so depressing.

As for comparing this to "one-off shouts" where a child is about to cut himself on broken glass or dash into the road, or there's a wasp in the room panicking everyone - well, that's hardly the same, is it? There are times when it's appropriate to react with a raised voice to get someone's attention in an emergency, and most of us do not need that pointed out. My gripe is with the teacher who consistently uses shouting. It's lazy and sets a very bad example, but it is far from unusual.

I do think it's a slippery slope - the assumption that a child's interpretation of things is not as valid as an adult's (you could, after all, say the same thing about any two adults' versions of a story). We've all heard of cases where that sort of belief has had tragic consequences.

We owe it to our children to take them seriously - not to go in, all guns blazing, accusing teachers of verbal abuse, but to let the child know that what she feels and says does matter, that you will approach the teacher and get her side of the story. With my own child, naturally I'd have said first that she must keep quiet in class and listen to the teacher. That doesn't mean I'm going to expose her to constant yelling - and as I said earlier, not all teachers shout.

However, I give up. Sorry, OP - seems that many people will defend shouting at all costs. Apparently their way is right, and your child has to adapt.

[anotetofollowso]

I'd bring it up, but don't expect too much as a result. For me, the main point of bringing it up would be to make it clear that you hear what your DD says, and that your DD does tell you what goes on in the classroom. The teacher will be less likely to shout, knowing those those things. Sadly, I think that's the best outcome you can hope for.

Having said that, it is true that for sensitive children especially a firm tone can feel like a yelled reprimand. It is possible that the teacher did not shout at all. Either way, I would mention it.

[Galena]

The child will need to adapt if her child is a shouty teacher, whether that is right or wrong, unless the op decides to take the child out of school either to another school or not.

I would shout occasionally in class, particularly at the start of the year. I'm not apologising for it, nor am I saying every teacher should shout. It was my style, and I didn't traumatise children for life and parents still come up to me now and tell me their child loved being in my class. Yes, even the timid and quiet ones.

I would however say that, whilst 2 adults' descriptions of an incident may differ, the reports are likely to be more similar than 2 children's reports of the same incident.

[OrmirianResurgam]

Define 'being a bit noisy'.
Define 'yelling'

I think that unless you know exactly what each means you will get nowhere. It might be that as your child is usually well-behaved being told off at all upsets her.

My kids always told me about the 'shouty teachers' and but took it in their stride. There's a difference between a habitual shouter who does it because they can't get control of the class, and someone who shouts when they really have HAD ENOUGH and it works because it's unusual.

[AlfalfaMum]

I'm surprised and a bit sad at the amount of people who think it's fine for a teacher to scream at a child, or that dd must be lying. So it's ok to terrify children, and they should automatically not be believed anyway, without even asking the teacher what happened?
I've got three dc and none of them have ever made up a story about a teacher (I don't think it's that common!), none of them are shy but if they were screamed at they would be really upset, and scared of that teacher from then on.

I would definitely talk to the teacher, find out what happened.

[tobiasfunke]

I have a 5 year old DS in P1 who is way too sensitive. He told me this week he got told off by the teacher who was really really cross with him because his friend told the teacher DS had tried to give him a kiss and a hug.
Turns out after all the tears and the upset that the teacher hadn't actually said anything she just looked cross. DS had said sorry straight away and that was that. Said teacher had given him a sticker 5 minutes later for good work. But he was so horrified he'd nearly got into trouble he'd blown the whole thing out of proportion.
Even though I completely understand why Ds was upset because I was the same highly sensitive child I told him he was too old for that sort of thing and if he didn't want to be told off then don't do it.
You need to get your DD to toughen up a little bit. That is my aim for DS so that he doesn't suffer the agonies of worrying about stuff that I did and takes things like this in his stride.

[Oceansurf]

The best teachers don't shout. I sometimes shout,very rarely, but I am not a trained professional

Written by someone who is not a teacher, and has never set foot in a classroom....

I have been known to shout, on occasion. Short, sharp, effective. Anyone who says that a fantastic teacher never shouts has clearly never spent the entire year with one (or the 'fantastic teacher' has never had a truly challenging class, or a situation which demanded a louder voice than normal)

One shout is not damaging, and is not going to have any lasting effect.

By all means, definitely go into school and ask for clarification off the teacher as to what happened.

No one on this thread knows exactly what happened. It could be that the child in question was being seriously naughty. It could have been the third time that the child had been told to stop doing something. The teacher may not have shouted at all. He/she may simply have raised their voice a little.

Complete overreaction.

[OrmirianResurgam]

DH was a non-shouty teacher. Funny that cos he shouts at our kids . However in all areas he was thought of as a really good teacher by his colleagues and even his head. But he just got knocked back to HLTA because he couldn't keep up with the paperwork and the reporting. Hey ho. Three cheers for Ofsted!

[LookingForwardToSalmon]

Lord there are going to be a lot of wet 5 children running about.

Because some of the replies on this thread translate like this to me

'Oh no, no one can shout at my darling. No, they never do anything wrong ever ever and if a teacher raises an eyebrow at them they will faint dead away. Traumatise them for life if anyone tells them off it will! How will you ever tell the difference between real abuse and being told off!'

[LookingForwardToSalmon]

5 *year old

[exoticfruits]

Well said Oceansurf- it is a complete overreaction.