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.

You can’t carry an elderly or disabled adult.

Letting a toddler walk downstairs others are rushing to board a train is probably dangerous to them and also inconvenient to everyone around you.

It’s the same as small children taking up an entire seat on a train vs an elderly person. One can sit on mummy or daddy’s lap, one can’t.

And if that doesn’t work giving them a biscuit usually does!

Social media is helping shit parents remain shit parents. It has to occur to people sometimes that gadgets for small kids and violent games and chips for breakfast and lunch and dinner and your child beating the crap out of another are not good things. But all you need to do is find the right influencer who will say the right things: nothing wrong with this, doing no harm, they can’t regulate, they’re only small, be kind, you’re doing your best mama, self care and schools are shite.

Watch it once and the algorithm will serve you much more of the same, without end.

Then you suddenly encounter people IRL who are shocked that your in-laws are minding your child for 3 days while your put them in pre-school for the remaining 2 for “a bit of me time, things like going to the gym etc” (yesterday’s thread). (Love the ‘etc’.)

So anyway, you’re a bit taken aback by the reaction of real people so you post on MN to try and get some strangers to tell you to be kind to yourself and approve your me time.

When they don’t, you abruptly leave the thread and find a more agreeable SM channel that will tell you exactly what you want to hear, so you can put your doubts aside and feel like a good parent again.

Get them out.
Sing Twinkle Twinkle.
Point at a bird.
See if they want to walk.
Give them a toy to distract them.

If No hasn’t worked my kids get an Absolutely Not! 🤣

All of those things are when the buggy isn’t essential, then.

My DD in particular would settle fine then but then scream and resist and you’d end up wrestling her into it. For the most part, I didn’t ever have to do that because I was never in a position where I had to rely on walking around, waiting at bus stops, and on buses. So I can quite see the dilemma of a parent then. If I get her out and sing to her great but then when I have to get her back in it all hell will break loose.

So in that moment a lot of parents do what works. I don’t like it; I think phones and tablets are the devils own work for young children. But I do understand it. And I do think those gloating about hitting children and then berating other parents maybe need to have a think.

It’s the parents.
I say this as a (hopefully good!) parent who works in schools.
I personally know of parents who have more kids or push for additional needs diagnoses for their kids because of the extra financial benefits it can bring.
And schools are on the receiving end of these delightful species.

You dome do all of them at once, if you are walking along, you point to a dog. You tip the buggy back and play peekaboo. You go fast and shout ‘whhhheeeeeeeee’. Obviously you don’t get them out if you are in a hurry and are going somewhere. But you do get them out when you are on the bus and they cry.

WTAF?

Shocking though this is, it absolutely happens. I’ve had parents push and push to try and get their child a diagnosis when at school they do not display and worrying behaviours. And they do it for the money so they don’t have to work.

In fact, my teenage dd has a friend and she disclosed to me that her mother makes her lie in doctors appointments so she can get PIP. This was after their GCSEs and the mother was starting to ramp things up because she didn’t want to lose money when her dd became an adult.

It absolutely does. Some are quite open about the school's refusal to get them the ECHP they want costing them money.

So, teachers should have to deal with bad behaviour from children who might have autism as part of their job but nurses shouldn’t have to deal with these same children as adults with bad behaviour/possibly autism (diagnosed or undiagnosed)?
See where I’m going here….

Yes I know somebody who hobbled into their PIP tribunal on crutches, who otherwise has no mobility problems at all. She’s also ‘homeschooling’ her DD who also gets DLA for autism/adhd. Nothing at all to do with the poor kid’s chaotic home life (various ‘stepdads’ one of whom molested her, moving house constantly, her mum treating her like same age best friend).

PIP is definitely massively abused.

Is this actually new? When I was a kid I remember other kids throwing rocks at passing buses for fun, setting fire to bins and some serious bullying.

I never understand why people make out bad behaviour is new

I think the way technology is used in some families is terrible for kids but not because of behaviour.
I think being sat on the iPad for hours will definitely cause lower cognitive ability and down the line potentially depression.

I don’t agree with the way people act like kids are way more badly behaved now though. I remember back when I was a kid seeing other kids throwing rocks at buses for fun and setting fire to bins. Bad behaviour is nothing new…

It happens

Absolutely nothing wrong with how the school is run, it's just had an outstanding inspection. They are working from the rules from the local authority.

Of course it happens. Only on MN does it never happen. We all know cases in real life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them, but they’ve grafted to get a MH or ND diagnosis and then claim they can’t leave the house without a panic attack. Fuck knows how they don’t get caught, they don’t even try to hide it. I assumed if you were on the take you’d keep it quiet but they don’t even do that

I just get annoyed by the blanket ‘screens are bad’ when mine had screens all of the time but he is really smart, got great grades, goes to uni. He is really well rounded.

Screens all day with no parental involvement and control is the problem. Parents with their own faces in screens is the problem. Random nonsense on screens instead of educational stuff is the problem.

But nobody seems to be able to distinguish between the two. 🤷‍♀️

The demise of special schools has contributed to this problem.
Adding SEN children to the general school population is a policy failure.
Some schools use every trick in the book to minimise their allocation of these children.
I feel sorry for teachers having to achieve differentiated learning goals across such a wide spectrum of ability.
Every SEN child draws focus away from the rest of the class, and the endless paperwork is not done consistently or with depth of understanding whereas in special schools the expertise was concentrated.
This is not a SEN bashing comment, it’s just my observation as someone with decades of experience in education.
The current hotch potch of ‘solutions’ fails every child.

All the above

I do love a nursery bashing thread! Whilst shocked at some of the observations here you can see why modern mums can't win! My son was at nursery because poverty would be a really really poor outcome for him. It would mean that he'd have only cheap junk food and less experiences available to him - you know, trips out ability to buy resources to help him learn.
And equally, isn't it the SAHMs molly coddling, gentle parenting and taking their toddlers to soft play and not making them share?
I don't see how having a young child at nursery doesn't expose them early to listening to adults, sharing, following routines and rules so I really disagree with this as a contribution to the decline a lot of posters have mentioned.

yeah this thread, and all of the threads like this, are just ignorant people bemoaning social ills like it's some kind of alien invasion that could be set right if only we could smack/have SAHMs/ vanquish screens/ stop diagnosing ADHD etc etc

As if all of us furiously typing away on our own little screens aren't part of the very same problem!!

Nobody is saying that there hasn't always been naughty kids. However, I have been teaching for 20 years, as have a lot of my colleagues, and we all agree that the amount and severity of behaviour issues, particularly in younger children, is like nothing we have ever experienced before.

Didn't you read the message I responded to? It said that the kids misbehaving were those with sahp who left their kids on devices whereas kids in nursery were stimulated. I found that offensive because that's def not how I raised my kids. Nothing to do with nursery bashing- where did you get that from? Nurseries are great for socialisation and I visited plenty of regular play groups so my children wouldn't miss out on that.

As for gentle parenting- I'm a gentle parent with very firm boundaries on behaviour. I think you are referring to laxist/lazy parenting.

Staying at home to raise your kids or working and sending them to nursery doesn't define if you're a good parent or not. I went to nursery and I thrived there. I think my children thrived at home with me because we were outside most of the time socialising with other kids and parents. There is no right or wrong here.