What is going on with (some) kids?!

[Purpleturtle45]

I have been a primary school teacher for 20 years and I just cannot believe the decline in behaviour and attainment In that time!

Yesterday I witnessed a 6 year old kick, spit at, punch and threaten to kill the DHT and ultimately trash the room and the staff are powerless to stop it as they aren't allowed to touch a child. This is a daily occurrence.

So many children are disrespectful and will argue back to your face now and a lot of the parents are just accepting of this! I honestly fear for the world if this is what the kids are like!

Every teacher I know is looking to leave, they are being driven to breaking point every day! It's all so worrying.

What are "nursery outcomes"? And most children in the UK start school while they're still tiny and much too young to be left with strangers all day.

Far from flaming you, you are absolutely right.
Its a shame that we have to apologise on MN for having a perfectly sensible response.
Therein lies one of the problems.

He can. Walk as slowly as he likes .. but that doesn't mean the parent can knowingly hold people up.

She could have lifted him, moved them both to one side, let him do his slow steps somewhere else etc...

I think you are being argumentative here on purpose.
Can you not see that many people are in a rush, don't think a toddler is adorable because it's holding up a crowd and just need to get moving.
You are making an issue here over nothing.
Ps. I would have asked the mother to move aside.

Or drive at 5 mph on the motorway because I can.
There are 68 or thereabouts million reasons in the UK why other people's needs also matter.

Some of it is also due to lack of support. As a parent of an child with SEN needs in mainstream school, I've seen the other side of things, the years of fighting for support, hours of form filling in, meetings, attending parenting classes, working with professionals.
Believe me it's not a lack of parenting skills, effort.
So yes you might see my child on an screen out in public, but you haven't seen the hour's of crying and meltdowns to get her to said family meal out, if being on a screen helps her and gives me some breathing room, I guess I'm lazy. I get no restbite, little day to day support, in 11 years me and DH never had a night away from DD.
Its easy to judge from the outside, however until I went through the system I wouldn't have believed how hard it is to get genuine support.
So yes there is an element of lack of parenting skills, poor behaviour but this has allways been there, but there are a lot of parents trying there best.

yes exactly this. To me, creating a culture, even an online one, that bemoans the state of other people's children is just part of the problem!

All of this 'I saw a mum do this, I saw a mum not do that' as opposed to what we would have done 25 years ago - say something to the individual or STFU. Instead we come online to moan and accuse and bicker and talk about how bad it all is - bonkers behavior!

It's all part of the same social illness in my view. We need to look at our own behavior first (me included, I'll be late to work because of this post😁)

I know several primary school teachers working in different areas of the country and across the board they are finding it worse and worse with each new intake at reception. It has been significantly worse year on year since around 2015 and very bad the last few years. They had hoped it was a covid blip, but now it seems much more likely to be attached to screen use.
When I had my kids (youngest 16) already people were using screens a lot but nothing compared to now.
They are reporting a huge decline in ability to speak in proper sentences and poor vocab. Inability to sit still. Poor toilet training. So many can't hold a book or knife and fork properly. Worse behaviour in violence. And the bigger drop has been in more middle class areas in terms of attention span and behaviour.

The toddler ar station discussion demonstrates the problem at its core i think- as a society there has been a decline in understanding the need to not always put the self first. 20 years ago, it would have been inconceivable that a child would cause commuters a delay when the toddler can practice his step walking anywhere, anytime and the mass of commuters genuinely are in a time crunch. Now its all "why does an adults right to rush trump a child's right to practise stairs right now?"

Its the view that school or homework dont have to be done if the child doesn't want to, but the school must offer same level of support.

There used to be an unwritten contract that we were all in it together. It was sliding away anyway but I think Covid accelerated this because so many people were let down so badly. Trying to do the right thing led to terrible outcomes while people in power and those with options just did what they liked.

I have teens. All teens are entitled i think 😆 but I find i have to actively push back because the messages they are getting is they can do what they like. If i wasnt actively pushing back on the attitude - which many aren't- i could see my lovely children becoming the same selfish self absorbed people so many others are. But I am fighting not just normal teenage hormones and attitudes but what they see and hear out there.

It’s the babies not at nursery that seem to get the junk food and screen time.

hmm. suppose it's a case of us all having different anecdata then. I live rurally in an area with high levels of deprivation/ under employment. I don't see that in my son's school

Do you teach at the school?

I don't. I work as a specialist teacher in an FE college

@DiNozzoComingBack- you're absolutely right about the toddler; there is no notion of the parent being aware of the pressures on passengers at a railway station, it's totally self absorbed.

There was also a thread where the OP complained about her 10yr old being bullied on WhatsApp. She wouldn't countenance the idea that he shouldn't be on WhatsApp and shouldn't have a smartphone.
It was for the school to sort out. Of course.

Was it different in the 80s and 90s? I know personally I would get home from school while my
parents were at work and sit and watch children’s telly, then the Aussie soaps, hollyoaks etc. At the weekend we spent a lot of time amusing ourselves. My experience wasn’t unique.

The same could be said about biting, lots of children do that, are they seeing their parents biting one another?

I do think that there's a range of reasons already highlighted but women having to return to work, babies in crèche. Then of course parents feel guilty so allow behaviour at home that would not have been tolerated in previous generations. You can read posts here of primary age children literally calling all the shots at home. These children then attend school and suddenly find that they are not the centre of the universe. I suppose it's a general breakdown of discipline. Doesn't bode well for the future.

A common parental phrase now is "we pick our battles". In other words choosing to avoid challenging situations.

I also think that some children exhibit quite early challenging behaviours and because of the way the world is now, instead of their parents looking after them and making sure they are around someone who understands them, making sure they get lots of outdoor play for example, they are put into before school and after school club and expected to behave. I think if a child is exhibiting early difficult behaviours then the best person to look after that child most (not all) of the time is the parents.

I agree.

It’s not true they can’t touch a child.

That's not really accurate. The OP in that thread repeatedly explained that bullying took place in school and then carried over online. The threats to her daughters life had been made AT SCHOOL (there just hadn't been evidence before the ipad message, so the school did nothing), the alleged attempted murder was planned to take place AT SCHOOL. It's absolutely nothing to do with screen time and everything to do with violent bullying shits that school's either cannot or will not do anything about.

I'm sure there are lots of reasons why behaviours have changed, but possibly one is the less formal society we live in, combined with a 'collaborative' approach that neither parents nor schools really want. You can't remove discipline and expectations on the one hand, whilst decrying the impact of their removal on the other.

I think it's a decline in society as a whole. People just lack basic manners.

I volunteer with children and we are continually having to reinforce basics e.g. don't shout out, if you've been asked to stop doing something, stop doing it we shouldn't need to ask you three times, don't answer back, don't talk with your mouth full.

I don't feel valued or respected by many of the parents, an occasional thank you might be nice. If the parents treat us this way it filters down to the children and becomes the norm.

No. She allowed her 10 year old son to have a smartphone.
She allowed him to have WhatsApp.
She wouldn't agree that either was harmful.

In my experience (early years educator) it is the use of phones/tablets to control or calm behaviour that hinders a child's ability to self regulate their emotions. From a very young age (sometimes even infancy) more and more parents rely on youtube, Miss Rachel, CoCoMelon etc as a way to stop children fussing or to distract from their behaviour.

The knock on effect of this is when children do not have access to this "soother" at school or nursery they become unable to cope with the frustration or negative emotions and, for lack of a better word, explode.