Is it normal for 'challenging' children to receive rewards when they are just doing what is normal and expected behaviour of the rest of the class?

[SafeAsHouses]

Hope my question doesnt offend anyone....but it just seems to be happening alot recently in my sons class, and its tricky trying to explain to him why the kids that are disruptive and muck around in class (as per my DS, I know not everything kids say is strictly true!), seem to run out of school each week with stickers / rewards / child of the day etc, because they managed to do something that is expected of the rest of the class 100% of the time.

Surely there is a better, more fairer way to reward?

And wiltingfast..sensible words.

Maybe you should get some ideas there Kaekae.on how to explain things to your child.

I am a teacher and it is all the middle of the road kids who work hard, get on with others and behave well who keep our school on an even keel. I try really hard to reward their efforts. At the end of a lesson I'll often give house points to all those students. It may be different because I teach older children. We need to prepare them for the real world and as such I don't like rewarding poor behaviour.

I do see some some teachers do this. Things such as giving the disruptive children extra privileges or special jobs to do. Often this backfires as it simply alienates all the middling, we'll behaved kids. The incentive to "be good" is gone and the teacher introduces an incentive to misbehave.

wiltingfast if that post is aimed at me then that is what I do say and do! my daughter does understand its me that gets wound up SOMETIMES in private like today for instance when ive had a bad day! not in front of her! but privately! I sometimes think I wish my daughter did not have to worry at 4 about getting or not getting certificates at school. so shoot me.

Wont shoot you. But it could be worse.

Thankyou yorkshirepuddings - a real life teacher who is essentially supporting the notion that middle of the road kids should and can be rewarded.

Cue fanjo telling yet again that we're all prejudice, ignorant parents who have no idea.

I will admit that this thread has made me realise I need to be more understanding of my sons ASD friend who is rewarded regularly.

It still doesnt change my view about wanting rewards for middle of the road kids. Call me selfish, but that's how I feel.

I do not think ASD = bad behaviour...

But little children don't understand the difference. They have years of sitting in classrooms with children with challenging, often frightening violent behaviour (well my DS did) and seeing these children be rewarded.

I don't have any better ideas. I think managing a high proportion of children with additional needs in a classroom is hugely difficult and have seen my DS's teachers almost on their knees, burnt out.

I have a middle, average (ignored) child, a gifted academic child and a child with suspected Asperger's (on the road to diagnosis).

I have seen primary school from lots of different angles and still find it wrong.

Safeas. So you admit you were wrong and have changed your thinking on your friends son.great.

Then why berate me for criticising you hefore you changed your thinking?

What a horrible thread. I don't think my children's primary school has the best reward system. But it's obvious, surely, that you reward small children for achievements in areas where they struggle?

All this nonsense about "none of them are SEN (or whatever)". Out of the dark ages. How do you know? It's possible the child defies diagnosis. It's possible the diagnosis is late. One of my children wasn't diagnosed as ASD until he was ten! And boy in another class who struggled from the beginning wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until he was seven. Fortunately I could see he was struggling and talked to my DS2 about how this child wasn't "horrid" or "nasty" but discussed how he found certain things harder than other people. There are always children who are in the hands of social services and you will not know who these children are. Some children have really, really shit lives.

I agree with the posters who say most children are pretty empathetic about this. They understand they are all different and have different needs. I do get pissed off when the kids who have always known how to behave, are academic and sporty get so many more rewards than the children who find all these things harder. It's very demoralising for the struggling child.

I think ds is currently one of those children getting more rewards than are strictly merited. I would give anything for it not to be so.

However he is currently having to deal with huge upheaval in his life caused by me (single mother) being very seriously ill. I am sure there are parents at the school like the OP who don't think it is fair but wouldn't be able to understand quite what life is like for ds at the moment. I would give anything for him to be one of those children who is in the middle of the road and gets overlooked.

Tricky isn't it? I don't know what the answer is. I feel sorry for the teachers and the children involved.

I will say that I think it is a big ask to expect infants to have the perspective and emotional maturity to understand why perceived "naughty" children seem to be held to different standards. This is in some ways exacerbated by the fact that it doesn't seem to be possible to be frank and open with them about why the double standards are taking place.

I have noticed that by juniors the children have figured out that certain children are "different" in some way and therefore are treated differently. By then they accept it with a shrug. It's never openly acknowledged by the adults. I don't know that it even should be openly acknowledged, but I do know that the fact that it is not creates a confusing environment for young children trying to figure out how the world works. They do eventually figure out, though. And at the same time they internalise the implied lesson about this subject being taboo.

My eldest is the easiest most straight forward child. He hasn't ever given his teachers any aggravation & I must confess at one stage in reception feeling he was being unfairly left out for rewards against a couple of 'naughty children'. Thankfully I kept my irrational feelings to myself.

Then came DS2.

He has a chromosome abnormality and after a couple of years in mainstream now goes to a SN unit attached to a MS school. In MS he got plenty of extra stickers, rewards etc for perfectly straightforward things like putting on his shoes & not wetting himself. He also got a sticker after each extra speech therapy session so he racked up certificates very quickly. I truly couldn't give a shite whether or not other parents felt their child was being left out. Their child could get their shoes on quickly to go out & play. Their child didn't have to miss art to go and practise the same letter sound for two years, & they didn't have to stand in the playground every day whilst a TA came out & gave a blow by blow account of their child's day.

Now DS3 is about to start school in September and I hope that he will understand fairly quickly that life isn't always fair, but that he is at a far greater advantage in life than children like his older brother.

To the poster who said her son had told her that 'J' would get a reward for knowing 2x2 - I would beyond furious with my son for that statement and consider I had gone wrong somewhere. I am rather smug though that I am safe in the knowledge he would be cheering that child on for getting it right.

And again, it is not you son's Asd friend, it is your son's friend who has Asd .

Most small children (not all) are able to empathise with those in their class who have difficulties they don't share. IME of course children want their own good behaviour, kindness, hard work to be recognised but they also can be very proud of classmates who manage to do something they find difficult.

Most teachers try very hard to encourage this sort of empathy, but backup from parents is needed too. And parents don't need to know about the SN, emotional or social circs of other children in the class, but do need to help their own children to understand that we are all different, all find different things difficult, and all need different levels of support and external motivation.

I can see this from both sides - both as the parent of a child who said - at 4 - 'I know what to do to get in the gold book. You are bad normally, then you are good for a day and you get in the book. I want to be good, so I wll never be in the book [and he never was, except for the 'oops' entry on the day he left the school in mid year 1]' - and the teacher who has to try to find ways to motivate everty child, every day.

In the cases of specifically disruptive children, for whom 'normal' school behaviour is hard, we have specific personalised reward schemes, because simply by the nature of these children, lots of 'little' rewards are often needed, and it has never seemed right that those rewards are in the same 'currency' as the rewards that other children work terms for. So all children in the class will get roughly the same numbeer of 'certificates' and 'house point type things', but one or two may also be on personalised reward schemes that lead up to e.g. going to see the bird box with a teacher at break time, or permission to play a specific game at wet play or whatever is valable to that child.

My son is 6 and in year 1 and has ASD. He is only motivated by his special interests, at the moment that is lego. So we gave the school a big box of generic lego bricks and everytime he does something he is meant to he gets to put a brick in his box. At home he has a model he is building and he gets to swop the generic bricks he earned that day for bricks to build the next bit of his model.

A lot of his classmates have spoken to me about the system and why he gets lego and I try to explain honestly. They seem to understand his struggles and some excitedly tell me how many he got that day as they rush out the door. They know he loves lego and a few of them have bought him little lego gifts, keyrings etc because they know he will like them. At no point have I ever picked up from the kids in his class that they are upset because he gets something they don't. Its all in how it is managed and communicated.

have read the whole thread firsty not sure where the op got the 50/50 support from that's certainly not the impression i had.

one point i am not sure who made it i think is worth repeating was that rewards were given for things a child struggled with things that were hard for them,such as sitting nicely not losing their temper.

if your child finds it easy to do the work and behave ie a dream to teach. then they are not having to try hard why do they need a reward

thats not to say that good behaviour and hard work shouldn't be rewarded in some way. but that something that can be done at home.

from a very early age my children have understood some children struggle more than others. that they need more encouragement and rewards because they have had to try harder.

the little shits as described by a couple of posters or children of chavs. the ones who have nothing wrong with them who are just horrible.
my children understand how horrible it must be to be that child, to have parent who for whatever reason doesn't do their best for you, that either dont care enough or who are incapable or teaching their children right from wrong.

my kids if i asked them would much prefer to live with me knowing that i love them and value them, think they are wonderful that to me they are the most important thing. than be a child who gets a sticker because they didnt act out.

well i dont think i even answer that do i

research has shown that having one positive influence in your life someone who believes in you, be that your parent your teacher or even your social worker directly influences the person you become.

so if a child who has had nothing else, has a better life for a teacher recognising when they do try by giving them a sticker then i cant really see the bad in that

bjs that sounds great, and I can just see how the other children would understand and support your ds.

This thread highlights all that is wrong with any reward system
Parents are watching nastily in case another child gets something their precious darling doesn't, children wonder why they are not rewarded for doing a simple task like sitting still (simple to most children) and children who have extra needs need understanding and the environment adapted to cause less stress not a bloody sticker
It is a simplistic and lazy system
It is not healthy though IMO to encourage children to expect the same as the next child, they will never be satisfied in life as somebody will always get more

The lego idea is great
My friends son has a tent to escape to when it all gets too much
Much more valid and original that stickers

Sorry to go off on a tangent but I'm a ta in a mainstream school I've had no ASD training so I'll hold my hand up that I'm ignorant but I care a hell of a lot about all the kids I work with and I'd love to have access to something that would make the children with ASD in a bog standard mainstream junior school be able to cope better but I don't know what that thing is

bjs2310 that so lovely that his peers can get behind your son and root for him rather than being jealous and not understanding why.

teacherwith2kids the independent scheme sounds really sensible and should preempt any resentment from the other children.

I'm going to jump off this thread because my kids are older now and have reached the level of understanding where they aren't confused about what is going on but can wish their classmates well. And, I really don't have any bright ideas of my own about it all.

There is a very real issue in schools with the quiet, doesn't attract attention (positive or negative) child. They do get overlooked.

I've been quietly amused by this thread.

After years of disasters the bigots will be happy to hear that my SN (but looks totally normal to the untrained eye!) boy is now home schooled.
Normal rewards and punishments hold no meaning for him. I never understood WHY his last school gave him periodic gold certificates when he honestly doesn't think they are more than a piece of paper, ditto stickers. Being sent out of the room or an exclusion was a reward as it gets's him out of an environment he genuinely can't tolerate due to sensory problems - yet the fight I've had for proper professional therapy to address this makes the mind boggle to non-SN parents.

Chair throwing would deffo have eventually been on the horizon had I not done so however A few stickers were not gonna sort the problem, but are a helluva lot cheaper for the LA than employing more than the one poor OT with 500 children on her caseload.

In my view secondaries often wind up just trying to contain the mistakes and lack of genuine evidence based behavioral and academic support in primary school. It's too late by the time they are 6 foot, and society and the youth criminal justice system all too often pick up a totally avoidable and preventable slack.

We need proper evidence based behavioral practice incorporated into mainstream education, yet it's only a few SN parents who are truly aware of how resistant to this idea the educational establishment really is.

I can see where parents of middlies are coming from. It's a very similar situation to those 100% attendance certificates, which are SO unfair to children who have no choice but to attend regular important hospital appointments, or who have chronic illnesses. This group of kids will NEVER get this "reward" through no fault of their own, and in the age group under discussion in this thread can often be left feeling quite disheartened because of it.

Children with disabilities sadly learn one of life's golden rules far too young the hard way "life isn't fair". I'd like to suggest that ALL children eventually have to learn this, and that not getting a sticker isn't the worst way, provided their parents are also teaching consideration towards others, kindness etc as positive values to aspire to.

Nkf for all I said only earlier post about rewards etc I do believe the quiet average child can get overlooked. I'm not talking about rewards though, I mean academically & that's probably a whole other thread.