Reply to I'm an MCPS elementary school teacher...AMA

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's insane. I cannot believe what kids can get away with. Serious behavior issues have no consequences. 99 percent of the behavior issues I see are boys. Constant and blatant disrespect to teachers and fellow students. Clearly their parents do not follow up about their behavior at home....no parenting or consequences. Many hire au pairs and nannies so their kids never actually are parented. The kids are entitled shits at the age of 9. Imagine when they're in high school. I cringe. [/quote]

I cringe at this comment, OP. Contrary to the narrative that we are just constantly giving our kids screens instead of parenting (or using ::gasp:: child care), parents today spend more time than ever engaging with our kids - playing with them, helping with homework, etc. Parental stress is a known public health issue. Parents are not okay and bashing them for using child care is really low.

You have no idea what goes on in their homes or why they are behaving in such an entitled way, but it strikes me you are relying solely on parents to address discipline issues at school. That's really hard for a couple of reasons, the main one being that consequences work best when they are in the setting where they occurred. Certainly, if a child behaves disrespectfully, their parents should punish them too, but the total lack of consequences at school is a real problem. On top of that, a common theme among parents at my kid's school is that we get very little information about our children from the teachers, and certainly not sufficient timely information to implement consequences at home for behavior during the school day.[/quote]

OP here...

This was not directed only at parents. I should have been more clear. MCPS is largely to blame. I agree consequences should happen in school. Unfortunately my hands are tied with what consequences I am allowed to give. Same with our admin. I think students should lose privileges at school (ex: not go on a field trip. Not be allowed to participate in SGA. Not be a patrol. Not be allowed to attend fun after school activities like talent shows, etc.) Parents would freak out and raise hell if we had any consequences like that...which is frustrating and enabling. If you don't give them a meaningful consequence, the behaviors just continue.

Parents should take away privileges at home for repeated behaviors in school. 
I know why the kids behave in entitled ways....they see entitled behaviors modeled for them by their parents. Parents are responsible for their child and their behavior. Full stop. 
If my own child is an entitled shit...that is on me. Accept responsibility!

I don't have problems with parents using childcare, I am sharing an observation that many times the kids that have nannies and au pairs (or have parents that otherwise care more about their careers than parenting), are the ones I am emailing home about for behavior. Hard truth.

Also...many others here have posted about screens and judging parents for using them. I'm not one of them. I am a parent and a teacher. I hear you about parental stress loud and clear. I do have my own theories about children using social media at this age and having unlimited access to YouTube...but I won't go into it.

Not getting timely information about your child's behavior is concerning. I would talk to your school about that. I email parents the same day...usually right when the behavior happens. [/quote]

What you call a "hard truth" I call a pretty obvious bias against working parents (and we all know you mean women). No, you don't know why the behavior  occurs - you have an opinion about why it occurs, and the truth may include what you believe and other issues. The fact that to you, the headline is "Parents are so bad these days" that is not even worth mentioning the complete and total lack of consequences at school until you are called out, tells us everything about why you are posting here today.[/quote]

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