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Tag: parenting

  • Principal views on parenting and schooling

    This has been an issue that I believe is one of the biggest shifts in society in the last 20 years. As parents get so wrapped up in their own lives, their career, their jobs, the things they love to do, children get left by the wayside. They become an afterthought, a burden, even an inconvenience to some parents continuing their self absorbed lives.

    Don’t get me wrong. This is certainly not all parents, and not all children. But increasingly so, there are so many things that schools are picking up the slack on that traditionally have been parents and families roles. This puts additional pressures on schools, teachers, staff, resourcing and funding that are far in a way more than should be expected under the umbrella of ‘education’.

    Parents are the first teachers.

    Unfortunately, there are an increasing number who leave the basics up to the school to do. We’ve heard reports of children turning up to school in nappies and are not toilet trained, let alone know the alphabet or numbers. We’ve heard in the news lately how parents are expecting teachers to teach about social etiquette, social skills, and other things that have traditionally been the role of society.

    Original article: Principal bemoans threats to schools

    A Dunedin school principal is  increasingly  concerned  by the  social expectations imposed on schools,  and says some parents need to take more responsibility for their children’s actions.

    During the recent King’s High School senior prizegiving, rector Dan Reddiex praised his present cohort of pupils for their outstanding achievements  during the year, but went on to express deep concern about the future of education in New Zealand.

    He said the school’s ability to educate boys “in mind and in heart” was under threat.

    “Alarmingly, in my view, we are increasingly becoming as much a social institution as we are an educational one.

    “The expectations imposed upon us now as a school, to attend to and reverse the ills of our society, are completely unrealistic and they are beyond our resource capability.

    “It seems now, the first questions about the inappropriate text message sent by a school-age person in the weekend, or the under-age young person attending a party that goes wrong, are not ‘what were the parents thinking and what will the parents do about it’?

    “The first questions now are ‘what school does the young person go to and what is the school going to do about it’? And we’ve seen that in the national media this year…

    “I believe it’s not our parent body who thrust these expectations upon us. It’s the media and it’s increasingly a broader societal expectation.”

    Mr Reddiex said the lines of demarcation between parental and school responsibility and accountability had been “completely obliterated”.

    Following the prizegiving, he told the Otago Daily Times there was an expectation that schools would, in part, fulfil the function that historically had been the role of a parent.

    “The vast majority of parents are doing a fantastic job, but there are some who need to take more responsibility for their child’s behaviour.”

    Otago Secondary Principals’ Association secretary Gordon Wilson said it was a widespread issue.

    “Schools are under increasing pressure to help the community solve some of its issues, and often schools are seen as the last place where some of these issues can be addressed.

    “That’s not where schools should be. A lot of these issues that schools are being asked to deal with are not internal issues. They are issues that have arisen from outside the school.”

    Read more.

    Source: https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/principal-bemoans-threats-schools

  • Parents want teachers parenting

    Care provider. Call centre operator. Kitchen hand. Negotiator. Detective. Judge. Medic. Counsellor. Social worker. Psychologist. Personal trainer. Caretaker. Cleaner. Don’t get me started on the numerous things that teachers have to do each and every day. That’s even before they have to teach a class full of students some Maths, English, Science, Technology, Music, Art, Dance, Drama, Social Science, and Languages.

    Original article: New Zealand schools need to teach more life skills.

    Kiwi parents want more life skills taught in school, a new survey shows.

    From cyber safety to sex education and manners, two-thirds of parents believed it was the responsibility of teachers to impart lessons traditionally handled at home, according to a survey of 500 New Zealand families.

    Ethnicity played a role in what parents regarded as important in a public education, with Asian parents more likely to want schools to handle the teaching of life skills.

    Parents perceived schools’ responsibilities increased in secondary school.

    But Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) junior vice president Melanie Webber said that while teachers were role models, it would be difficult to fit more life skills into the curriculum.

    The study by the Australian Scholarships Group (ASG) and Melbourne’s Monash University found a “social shift” away from valuing scholastic success towards a more holistic education, ASG chief executive John Velegrinis said.

    “There are increasingly blurred lines as to where (teacher responsibility begins and ends as parents’ perceptions of their traditional roles and responsibilities change.”

    Asian amilies viewed education more traditionally and set higher standards for their children’s academic success than Pākehā parents.

    About 92 per cent believed a degree would help their child achieve their ambitions and 38 per cent did not think their child could be distracted from learning.

    Just 18 per cent of Pākehā families felt that way about distractions and only 66 per cent said they set “high standards” for their child’s education or agreed a degree was important to their success.

    Asian families overwhelmingly supported schools teaching more about social skills and public behaviour (91 and 88 per cent respectively), with about 42 per cent of Pākehā parents on board.

    Christchurch mother Michele Fantham said she wanted daughters Bella, 10, and Neve, 6, to be taught social skills and financial literacy at their school, Fernside.

    “I think the curriculum is pretty cram-packed full of lots of things the school or Ministry (of Education) think are really important that are just not going to benefit them in the real world.”

    She was concerned technology impacted children’s ability to “use manners and communicate properly”. She was among a third of Kiwi parents who believed teaching cyber safety was a school’s responsibility.

    Read more.

    Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/97798269/new-zealand-schools-need-to-teach-more-life-skills-parents-say

     

  • Problem Parenting

    Through the course of my career, I’ve come across them all. I’ve met the over-protective mother, the stern but busy father, the parents who we never see (for various reasons) and the parents who are as flaky as a puff pastry.

    At all times, I try and maintain a professional attitude when dealing with all parents, regardless of which category I might think they fit into, and I certainly endeavour to do the same here in this article. As always, confidentiality is paramount, and no examples in this are intended to identify any particular parent or family.

    Too Soft

    Over the course of the mid 2000’s, the culture of society changed, and the lawmakers began putting child rights to the top of all law making. Domestic violence cases where punishment and beatings to keep children ‘in-line’ were the target, but ultimately covered every kind of physical discipline for children within the home, and outlawed parents who were discouraging certain behaviours through use of smacking (most of whom will have only ever seen and used this form of discipline, as it was how they were disciplined as a child as well). I don’t advocate the use of physical discipline in any way, but when you remove the one strategy that parents use, you completely de-power them. Some parents stepped up their game and use other discipline methods. Many were left with nothing, so did nothing, in fear of being ‘caught’.

    The result of this has lead to two things. 1) Children are now well aware that parents can’t do ‘anything’ to them, and 2) Parents left without any discipline strategies to keep their children in line.

    Ultimately, these kids who rule the roost in every setting they are introduced to, beit school, home, shops, wherever – are immune to boundaries, purely because none have ever been put in place for them.

    However, as soon as they hit school and they are confronted with rules and boundaries, and a teacher who is going to enforce them, then the problems start arising. The child who is “untouchable” and has an ego to go with it constantly challenges the authority, often using “You’re not the boss of me” phrase which we can only come to expect.

    Unfortunately they have been taught, directly or indirectly, that no one is the boss of them. You can do what ever you want in life. Rules don’t matter. People can’t tell you what to do.

    So when someone does try to tell them what to do; like – do your handwriting, this becomes a challenge on their authority and troubles ensue.

    However; instead of the parents (often solo mum’s) coming up and laying down the law for the child and telling them in no uncertain terms that the rules at school are above everything else, that you do as you’re told, and that any consequence is followed through with, they often come in and say okay, okay, and take the child home. After a short talk, maybe a smack because they’re out of strategies, a sending to their room, the child is then back out and about, and rides their bike around the school grounds well into the late stages of daylight, in some sort of reclaiming of their territory. None of the consequence is remembered, acted upon, or even means anything to the child and so the process continues, albeit escalated. Eventually, the school has the “5 stand downs in a term” chat with the parent/s, and the decision is made to jump before they are pushed, and the child moves to a different school, rather than face up to the actual facts, the actual consequences of the behaviour and actually trying to change the child for the better. Restarting at another school (where the same process is likely to be repeated) is the easy way out; less confrontational, and less traumatic for the child. However, the child goes on to learn that they can do whatever they want, and that they can get away with anything because at the end of the day I’ll just change schools. The long term effects of this however, are staggering.

    Fighting every fight for them

    The other worry is of course those parents who treat their darling like the fount of all things true, will go in to bat for their child, and will fight every fight. They enable them through allowing them to stay home rather than face the bully, call meetings with school leadership instead of with the teacher, see their child as blameless in every situation, regardless of the all-too-common phrase “Oh I know he/she’s no angel…”, and encourage the drama of otherwise very small and meaningless situations that other children deal with on their own in the course of a day. Anxiety levels are raised for all involved, until eventually, instead of fighting, they take flight – uprooting that child from one class and finding another school that will take them for a fresh start, where all to often the process is repeated because the child has not learned how to actually deal with the situation. The only thing the child learns from this is not resilience (the one thing that child needs more than anything else), but that it doesn’t matter what happens, I can go to Mummy and it will all be fixed.

    “Celia Lashlie has lashed out at mothers who mollycoddle their sons, saying many teenage boys are killed on the roads because their mums smother them and refuse to let them discover the consequences of their own actions.

    Speaking to a Traffic Institute conference in Hamilton yesterday, the former prison officer turned author admonished wealthy, so-called “helicopter mums”, who “hover” over their sons, refusing to accept they can be blamed for anything.”

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/5981627/Too-soft-mums-put-sons-at-risk

    I’m not suggesting here that these kinds of students are heading down this path. I’m a primary teacher, and driving is a way off for the majority of my students. But if the only way you are going to teach your son or daughter about resilience and perseverance, and standing up for yourself, is by running away from the trouble and going somewhere else; then that is what they will do for the rest of their lives. Come running to mummy.

    The Power of Mothers – Celia Lashlie

     

    The reality is that these parents have no strategies. No ideas about what to do. Many of them have given up because it’s all too hard, purely because they didn’t lay the groundwork back in infancy. When parents give up, the schools suffer. The 29 other students in the class suffer. The teachers suffer. But ultimately society suffers. These kids who don’t have ‘parents’ will become parents and will have no idea of how to be one, because they haven’t actually been parented themselves.

     

    Not all is lost.

    But you have to make an effort. It’s not going to be easy. But nowhere ever worth going is easy to get to. Here are a list of parenting supports in New Zealand that you should get in touch with.

  • How to be the kind of parent teachers like – Nigel Latta

    498571-240882-34

    From: Politically Incorrect Parenting – Nigel Latta

    It’s really easy to be the kind of parent teachers like. And it’s really important. Imagine, for example, just before first class two mums come to drop off their kids for school. The first mum smiles at the teacher, says hello, and then exits. The second mum smiles, says hello, and then traps the teacher in a long, tedious, and accusatory discussion about why her daughter isn’t in the top reading group when she is clearly reading at a level that is far above that of her classmates. Which kid do you think is going to get the broken crayons in art classes?
    Teachers have to put up with a lot of crazy stuff from parents these days, and they mostly do it with great patience and grace. I think that it would be fair to say, though, that there isn’t a teacher in the western world who isn’t at least a bit fed up with some of the nonsense they have to endure at the hands of generally well-meaning, but often ridiculously over-involved parents. Here are just a few examples of the mad stuff teachers have told me they have to deal with now:

    • A mother in tears because her six-year-old daughter didn’t get into the ‘advanced’ art class.
    • A parent who approached a principal wanting the next term’s syllabus so they could get a jump-start on it during the holidays.
    • A father who was outraged because his son was made to sit outside the staff room at lunchtime when ‘all’ the boy had done was tell the teacher to shut up.
    • A parent whose response to repeated angry/disrespectful outbursts from their child in class was that the boy ‘wasn’t being stimulated enough’ by the classroom teacher.
    • A principal had to endure an outraged blast from a parent whose daughter had lost a game of tennis at lunchtime after the other children changed the rules mid-game.
    • A parent complained that their child was being unfairly disadvantaged by having to sit at the back of the class, furthest away from the board.
    • A parent who engaged a lawyer to appeal the decision of a school talent quest which went against his daughter.
    • Complaints from several parents after a teacher told off some boys for yelling. The teacher allegedly ‘raised her voice’ which the parents thought was inappropriate.
    • A parent complained after being ‘told off’ by their child’s teacher for getting to school an hour late every day. The parent didn’t think the teacher had any right to tell them what time their child should be at school.

    Now, I could go on, but you probably get the point from even this brief list of examples. For some reason some parents of today believe that children always tell the truth and teachers always lie, and if anything goes wrong at school it’s the school’s fault.
    Teachers don’t like whiney, anxious parents. They just don’t. They may well act as if they are listening to Sarah’s mother as she angrily points out that Sarah never behaves that way at home because she is always stimulated appropriately, but inside they will simply be thinking unkind thoughts about Sarah’s mum, and making a mental note to give the girl the broken crayons next time.
    Apart from the whole crayons thing, the other reason it’s good to have a strong relationship with your child’s teacher is that if there is a problem they will often be your best ally. You don’t want them to roll their eyes when they see you coming — you want them to look up and smile.
    So how do you be the kind of parent teachers like?

    • Don’t make a fuss about every little thing
    It’s simple thing, but important. Teachers are busy people, and schools can be a bit chaotic at the best of times. Sometimes stuff doesn’t get done, and sometimes things are less than perfect. Be forgiving and understanding and don’t complain about very last little thing. If you don’t, they will be much more likely to take you seriously when you do need to talk to them about something important.

    • Take responsibility for problems with your child
    If your little one has got into trouble for something, make sure you get the message across loud and clear that you are taking the matter seriously, and want to get sorted. It isn’t the school’s problem, after all — it’s yours. We all want our kids to blend in with the school community and get about the business of getting educated. If there are problems, we need to make sure we’re onto it as soon as we can.

    • Work with the school, not against it

    You’d be surprised how many parents end up in fights with their school over things which shouldn’t have been fights at all. If you’re practising the previous step, you’ll find this one much easier as well. Basically, you need to sit down with the teacher if there’s a problem and work with them to get it solved. If you approach any problems with the philosophy that you’re part of a team, and the teacher gets the fact you aren’t out to blame them, then most of the time most problems can be resolved.

    It really is that simple. From time to time there might be things you disagree with, but my advice is pick the big ones and don’t worry about the little stuff. Obviously, if you’re really concerned or upset about something that you feel is important, you absolutely should go in and talk with the school about whatever it is you’re worried about. If, on the other hand, you constantly feel like everything is important and everything necessitates a sit-down meeting with the teacher and/or principal, the odds are you’re probably getting a bit too worked up about things, and should take a breath and a step back.
    After all, who wants their kid to be the one with the broken crayons? Where’s the dignity in that?

    Source: Nigel Latta – Just thought I’d share this from the ‘Politically…