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Post by monklady123 on Dec 28, 2019 17:00:48 GMT
My basic question is, do you teachers -- especially those of you who have been teaching a long time -- think that kids' behavior has changed over the years? Changed for the worse, I mean. The teachers who I sub for have said that they've seen behavior deteriorate over the years. I sub for one 3rd grade teacher who had both of my kids back when they were in 3rd grade. She says that my son was one of those wiggly boys who like to mess around with his friends if given a chance... But, when she would say "G. please move away from Billy and focus on your work" he'd say "okay" and he'd move. Now she has kids who say "no I don't want to". Or kids who continue chatting with their friends two seconds after she's asked them to stop. There are many kids in every class who are basically out of control with talking, jumping up out of their seats, total inattention, rudeness such as interrupting or poking the teacher for attention, etc. The long-time teachers say that over the years this has gotten worse and worse.
Most of them say it's a combination of too many screens, too many parents who have given up trying to be parents and/or who don't teach their kids basic manners, kids who stay up too late (we know being tired makes kids difficult)...etc.
My son and his fiancée are here for Christmas and we've been discussing it this morning. The fiancée is a family counselor who sees the results of all this, whatever "this" is exactly...(she agrees with much of what the teachers have said). What do you long-time teachers think? (or even if you haven't been teaching a long time I'd still be interested in what you think...)
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Post by smannes on Dec 28, 2019 17:09:09 GMT
Yes. In my opinion, there are many factors... screens and instant gratification, working parents (less time with kids to teach manners and basics), larger class sizes, administrators afraid of parents, no consequences... just to name a few.
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Post by librarylady on Dec 28, 2019 17:16:41 GMT
Yes. I blame lack of parenting skills--parents who have never set boundaries, nor said no to the children, nor enforced any structure to the family or society dynamics.
I know it is the function of the older generation to say the younger generation is dragging down society, but.......
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kibblesandbits
Pearl Clutcher
At the corner of Awesome and Bombdiggity
Posts: 3,305
Aug 13, 2016 13:47:39 GMT
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Post by kibblesandbits on Dec 28, 2019 17:18:56 GMT
Yes, and it's part of why I left the classroom. When a natural consequence for a behavior (5 pt. deduction on a paper with no name on it) became a threat to go straight to the media? Yeah, bye.
The behaviors required for a classroom to run like an effective community are patience, consideration, and critical thinking are absolutely not what are being focused on in today's world. My heart dies a little bit every time I see a small child being placated by a video screen.
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pilcas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,147
Aug 14, 2015 21:47:17 GMT
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Post by pilcas on Dec 28, 2019 17:25:07 GMT
Yes, a lot of kids are hooked to their phones and are more concerned with it than with paying attention or taking notes in class. Schools don’t have the manpower to enforce the No using phones in class rule. School systems are driven by passing numbers which equal success so standards are being lowered. The middle school in my neighborhood is considering a no penalty rule for late work. So any kid can hand in an assignment any time they want with no point loss, making deadlines absolete.
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Post by Skellinton on Dec 28, 2019 17:28:13 GMT
Totally. I have been teaching for over 20 years. I am not super old, so I don’t think that I am just cranky and over it either. I have fellow teachers tell me that I am extremely patient and I still love teaching and being around kids, so I don’t think it is due to burnout.
Kids are just less focused, as are their parents. I know we have discussed this before, but parents are so involved with their phones at pick up and drop off that they barely acknowledge their kids. They are always in a hurry to get from school to place B. At sports practice, kids museums, and restaurants I see parents on their phones and not paying a bit of attention to their kids, at restaurants and grocery stores I see kids on tablets and phones. They talk about how they watch shows in the car. I didn’t grow up like that at all, and neither did anyone else teaching. This is the first generation that will never know what it was like to not have internet, phones and computers they can carry around with them. It is absolutely not a change for the better. People in general are less engaged with each other.
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ashley
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,400
Jun 17, 2016 12:36:53 GMT
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Post by ashley on Dec 28, 2019 17:34:29 GMT
My mom is a teaching assistant at the university here and says that she and the instructors and course co-ordinators have seen a change in students in the past 12-15 years. Everyone expects/ demands accommodations, no one wants to actually do the work or put in effort (like not reading assignment instructions), things are often “not fair”.
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Post by freecharlie on Dec 28, 2019 17:48:33 GMT
Yes and I blame the parents for most of it and permissive administrators for a small part.
There are no consequences for students who don't listen in many cases and they learn that quickly.
I am blessed to work in a great district, in a great school, with a supportive administration. It also helps that I teach hs. If I write a kid up or kick them out of class, admin follows through. FWIW, in 6 years I have written a kid up 3, maybe 4 times and two of those times I was told to.
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Post by Merge on Dec 28, 2019 17:49:44 GMT
Yes, to some extent, but - school days are also much longer than they used to be, with fewer breaks. There is more time spent on heavy academic content (teaching to whichever high-stakes test is upcoming) and less on thing that are less mentally taxing. Kids take fewer fun/creative electives in an effort to cram in every AP class or the “right” tech and language classes or remedial classes or whatever else will get them into the college of choice or make them “career ready.”
None of us would tolerate being cooped up in a room or a series of rooms for 8 hours a day, with one 30 minute lunch break, and expected to focus diligently on mentally taxing work all that time. Imagine if all day every day for you as an adult were sitting in meetings where you were expected not to talk to anyone except in the context of the work being done, and required to produce a specific work product at the end of each meeting. Now imagine you’re 8, or 10, or 15.
It’s not surprising to me that kids act out, and while some of it has to do with permissive parenting or no parenting, a lot has to do with the fact that what we ask of kids in school is something that we could and would not do ourselves as adults. We’d go crazy. Kids even more so. Ask yourself: how often do you lost focus in a long work meeting? Daydream? Text a friend? Secretly work on something else? Why would we expect kids to be any different? (And I bet a lot of you roll your eyes, at least inwardly, at managers who insist that everyone be “fully present and engaged” in those meetings. I bet some of you even make disrespectful comments about them just out of hearing - I know I do. 😉)
We need more recess, shorter academic days, more creative electives, and more unstructured time. We ALL need this. Adults, too. This idea that because a financially “successful” adult makes himself miserable by working 80 hours a week (hustle culture), we must make successful kids by starting them off with a 40-hour/week academic grind is ridiculous. Treat kids in school like kids, with age-appropriate expectations, and behavior problems will be greatly reduced.
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Post by freecharlie on Dec 28, 2019 17:57:05 GMT
I agree with Merge, especially when it comes to our younger students. More recess. More music, art and PE. Read aloud time. Quiet reading time...
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Post by christine58 on Dec 28, 2019 18:18:26 GMT
parents who have never set boundaries, nor said no to the children, nor enforced any structure to the family or society dynamics. this ETA: I retired in 2017 after 36 years of teaching. Behaviors have not changed BUT the fact that teachers are not supported by parents as much as they were has changed. We were always (well not always) wrong, their snowflake was right (again not always but more so than when I started teaching) and everything now gets blown up on social media. It's a double standard most times. We have to tow the line, not be seen drinking etc anywhere, not have a social life because God forbid we be seen out somewhere. I could go on...LOL
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Post by Basket1lady on Dec 28, 2019 18:38:48 GMT
Yes, to some extent, but - school days are also much longer than they used to be, with fewer breaks. There is more time spent on heavy academic content (teaching to whichever high-stakes test is upcoming) and less on thing that are less mentally taxing. Kids take fewer fun/creative electives in an effort to cram in every AP class or the “right” tech and language classes or remedial classes or whatever else will get them into the college of choice or make them “career ready.” None of us would tolerate being cooped up in a room or a series of rooms for 8 hours a day, with one 30 minute lunch break, and expected to focus diligently on mentally taxing work all that time. Imagine if all day every day for you as an adult were sitting in meetings where you were expected not to talk to anyone except in the context of the work being done, and required to produce a specific work product at the end of each meeting. Now imagine you’re 8, or 10, or 15. It’s not surprising to me that kids act out, and while some of it has to do with permissive parenting or no parenting, a lot has to do with the fact that what we ask of kids in school is something that we could and would not do ourselves as adults. We’d go crazy. Kids even more so. Ask yourself: how often do you lost focus in a long work meeting? Daydream? Text a friend? Secretly work on something else? Why would we expect kids to be any different? (And I bet a lot of you roll your eyes, at least inwardly, at managers who insist that everyone be “fully present and engaged” in those meetings. I bet some of you even make disrespectful comments about them just out of hearing - I know I do. 😉) We need more recess, shorter academic days, more creative electives, and more unstructured time. We ALL need this. Adults, too. This idea that because a financially “successful” adult makes himself miserable by working 80 hours a week (hustle culture), we must make successful kids by starting them off with a 40-hour/week academic grind is ridiculous. Treat kids in school like kids, with age-appropriate expectations, and behavior problems will be greatly reduced. I really agree with this. Both of my kids had all day kindergarten and I hated it. It’s just too much for a 5 year old. I tried to pull them early, but then they missed out on fun activities. DD didn’t turn 6 until mid April, but I didn’t keep her home another year because she was so obviously ready. But why do we make little kids sit all day? I taught kindergarten back in the dark ages before I got married. Our goal was for the kids to learn their ABCs, count to 10, and write their name. Skills such as cutting with scissors and standing in line without touching the walls were part of the curriculum. When the kids were squirrelly, I took them outside for extra recess IN ADDITION to the 30 minute recess already built into the three (yes, 3!) hour day.
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Post by Merge on Dec 28, 2019 18:41:34 GMT
There's also an aspect of flogging along kids who would have been allowed to quietly fade into vo-tech classes in past years. We require every kid in every school to perform at an arbitrarily-set "grade level" without regard to their aptitude and interests. Not every kid is going to make it through the kind of literary analysis we require even of middle schoolers these days, and some kids understandably check out and stop trying, or develop an attitude because they're frustrated.
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Post by nlwilkins on Dec 28, 2019 18:47:16 GMT
A major difference I see is the self importance children seem to have. I have noticed it grow through the years to the point where children feel the world revolves around them and the world has to accept them the way they are and treat them special. It used to be children were taught not to interrupt. Children were supposed to go outside and play and not sit around and be part of adult conversation. Children were educated in the way of the world that does not revolve around them.
But, what really stands out to me is children did not make decisions that had impact on their lives --decisions such as spending the night with friends, going to movies that were really not child appropriate, doing homework or not, how to spend big amounts of money, wearing night club clothes to school. I always saw it as the role of the parent to step in and enforce the right answer to those decisions and teach them how to make good decisions. Childhood is about learning to make good decisions not just throwing them into the deep end to swim or drown. I see parents allow children to make these kinds of decisions and allow them to do whatever they want to do. They are worried about the hassle of enforcing rules, about children getting mad a them or even children not loving them if they don't allow them to do what they want.
Children who get to make all the decisions in their lives without guidance become self important and don't learn to listen to rules or follow directions. They feel they make their own rules or rather rules don't apply to them. Some refuse to listen to teachers when the teacher needs for them to be quiet and does not allow them to do what they want.
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Post by mustlovecats on Dec 28, 2019 18:52:37 GMT
I don’t really. Not as dramatically as some people think. I am the most senior teacher in upper elementary in my school. And I was a kid once too. I think some of the particulars are different (example: recent post about a child taking a phone pic of another child in the bathroom) but I remember tons and tons of bad behavior when I was a kid and I’ve seen the same respectful and disrespectful behavior in the classroom now as I did when I was new. I think kids fancy themselves real creative when they do stuff, but I say you gotta get up pretty early in the morning to come up with something truly unique to get into.
I do think parents’ attitudes about school have changed in some ways. I think parents expect more success for less effort sometimes. But at the same time, while I could say they don’t police their kids’ online Behavior the way they should, but let’s be honest, did our parents patrol us very well when we were running the neighborhood with the neighbor kids? I will say we got into all kinds of mischief back in my day. But kids are kids and I don’t think they are that different.
School has changed a lot, though. We doubled recess this year for elementary and that sure helped. The demand is so so so so high now starting in Kindergarten. So even where there are changes in student behavior or attitude. Let’s also look at how high our expectations are now!
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caangel
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,675
Location: So Cal
Jun 26, 2014 16:42:12 GMT
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Post by caangel on Dec 28, 2019 18:56:31 GMT
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." Socrates
Kids' behavior has been "getting" worse for as long as there have been kids. 😜
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Post by iteach3rdgrade on Dec 28, 2019 18:57:06 GMT
Yes, to some extent, but - school days are also much longer than they used to be, with fewer breaks. There is more time spent on heavy academic content (teaching to whichever high-stakes test is upcoming) and less on thing that are less mentally taxing. Kids take fewer fun/creative electives in an effort to cram in every AP class or the “right” tech and language classes or remedial classes or whatever else will get them into the college of choice or make them “career ready.” None of us would tolerate being cooped up in a room or a series of rooms for 8 hours a day, with one 30 minute lunch break, and expected to focus diligently on mentally taxing work all that time. Imagine if all day every day for you as an adult were sitting in meetings where you were expected not to talk to anyone except in the context of the work being done, and required to produce a specific work product at the end of each meeting. Now imagine you’re 8, or 10, or 15. It’s not surprising to me that kids act out, and while some of it has to do with permissive parenting or no parenting, a lot has to do with the fact that what we ask of kids in school is something that we could and would not do ourselves as adults. We’d go crazy. Kids even more so. Ask yourself: how often do you lost focus in a long work meeting? Daydream? Text a friend? Secretly work on something else? Why would we expect kids to be any different? (And I bet a lot of you roll your eyes, at least inwardly, at managers who insist that everyone be “fully present and engaged” in those meetings. I bet some of you even make disrespectful comments about them just out of hearing - I know I do. 😉) We need more recess, shorter academic days, more creative electives, and more unstructured time. We ALL need this. Adults, too. This idea that because a financially “successful” adult makes himself miserable by working 80 hours a week (hustle culture), we must make successful kids by starting them off with a 40-hour/week academic grind is ridiculous. Treat kids in school like kids, with age-appropriate expectations, and behavior problems will be greatly reduced. Well said! Add all of the outside of school factors with this and that's what we see. I started teaching in 93 and I remember a soon to be retired teacher commenting on behavior changing, maybe due to no more paddling, but society certainly changed since he had started.
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Post by cristelina on Dec 28, 2019 19:12:29 GMT
Yes, to some extent, but - school days are also much longer than they used to be, with fewer breaks. There is more time spent on heavy academic content (teaching to whichever high-stakes test is upcoming) and less on thing that are less mentally taxing. Kids take fewer fun/creative electives in an effort to cram in every AP class or the “right” tech and language classes or remedial classes or whatever else will get them into the college of choice or make them “career ready.” None of us would tolerate being cooped up in a room or a series of rooms for 8 hours a day, with one 30 minute lunch break, and expected to focus diligently on mentally taxing work all that time. Imagine if all day every day for you as an adult were sitting in meetings where you were expected not to talk to anyone except in the context of the work being done, and required to produce a specific work product at the end of each meeting. Now imagine you’re 8, or 10, or 15. It’s not surprising to me that kids act out, and while some of it has to do with permissive parenting or no parenting, a lot has to do with the fact that what we ask of kids in school is something that we could and would not do ourselves as adults. We’d go crazy. Kids even more so. Ask yourself: how often do you lost focus in a long work meeting? Daydream? Text a friend? Secretly work on something else? Why would we expect kids to be any different? (And I bet a lot of you roll your eyes, at least inwardly, at managers who insist that everyone be “fully present and engaged” in those meetings. I bet some of you even make disrespectful comments about them just out of hearing - I know I do. 😉) We need more recess, shorter academic days, more creative electives, and more unstructured time. We ALL need this. Adults, too. This idea that because a financially “successful” adult makes himself miserable by working 80 hours a week (hustle culture), we must make successful kids by starting them off with a 40-hour/week academic grind is ridiculous. Treat kids in school like kids, with age-appropriate expectations, and behavior problems will be greatly reduced. This. A million times this.
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Post by cristelina on Dec 28, 2019 19:15:13 GMT
But why do we make little kids sit all day? I taught kindergarten back in the dark ages before I got married. Our goal was for the kids to learn their ABCs, count to 10, and write their name. Skills such as cutting with scissors and standing in line without touching the walls were part of the curriculum. When the kids were squirrelly, I took them outside for extra recess IN ADDITION to the 30 minute recess already built into the three (yes, 3!) hour day. Two answers: No Child Left Behind and Common Core
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Post by crazy4scraps on Dec 28, 2019 19:34:58 GMT
I think another part of it is that so many kids today have virtually no unstructured time to do what they want to do and to learn how to entertain themselves without a screen. Many kids today have no downtime like we did when we were kids in the 70’s. I can’t tell you how many of my kid’s friends have so many activities after school that there is no time to set up times for my kid to get together with any of them outside of school. They are shuffled from one thing to another practically every day of the week and have stuff going on on the weekends too, and when there are multiple kids in the family it’s insane how much the parents are running kids around. And this is elementary school! I don’t do that because I want my kid to have the time to explore the things she is interested in.
Back in the stone ages when I was a kid, my mom would tell us to go play outside or hand me a bunch of stuff and tell me to make something out of it. We had to be creative, we had to amuse ourselves. I didn’t watch a lot of tv but I did read a lot of books. I learned to make things, I learned to sew, how to bake and how to clean a house and do laundry (the consequence of telling my mom I was bored, LOL). Those are things kids today just don’t do anymore for the most part.
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caangel
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,675
Location: So Cal
Jun 26, 2014 16:42:12 GMT
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Post by caangel on Dec 28, 2019 19:49:29 GMT
But why do we make little kids sit all day? I taught kindergarten back in the dark ages before I got married. Our goal was for the kids to learn their ABCs, count to 10, and write their name. Skills such as cutting with scissors and standing in line without touching the walls were part of the curriculum. When the kids were squirrelly, I took them outside for extra recess IN ADDITION to the 30 minute recess already built into the three (yes, 3!) hour day. Two answers: No Child Left Behind and Common Core I actually find that students are moving and out of their seat more (in a good way) with common core. Students are asked to collaborate and work in groups many times throughout the day. Our district is also revamping our classrooms to facilitate this through flexible furniture (different seat and work surfaces, low/high, standing/sitting, independent/group).
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johnnysmom
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,684
Jun 25, 2014 21:16:33 GMT
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Post by johnnysmom on Dec 28, 2019 20:12:33 GMT
I don't know much about the older grades but from talking to the preschool/young K teachers (some who have been doing it 20 years) while the kids' behavior has changed it's the parent's responses that have really changed. When I was a kid the worst threat a teacher could make was "do you want me to call your parents?". Now? Kids say yes, call mom/dad because there's no real consequence. Often times the parents either deny their child could ever behave like that or they turn around and blame someone else (the teacher, another kid, etc) then they go venting on social media about how their kid is being picked on by the teacher. The teachers don't even bother writing notes home or attempting to contact the parents, it's a waste of time.
I don't know about everywhere, but around here a decent portion of the kids who do have behavior issues have those issues because their home lives are absolute hell. They don't have beds to sleep in; they don't have a good support system; they have a parent (or both) in jail; mom has a different live-in boyfriend every other month; grandparents are raising them because mom/dad are off partying; etc.
Now I will say there are some parents who will believe there is an issue and will work with teachers to resolve it. We had a little preschooler who was having a rough go of it at the beginning of the year, lots of behavior problems, tantrums, etc and with consistent notes back and forth, consistent consequences and rewards he got his behavior turned around in a couple of months. Of course he's not perfect, but he's so much better and I really do feel he'll be successful in kindergarten next year and going forward because his parents took the teacher's concerns seriously and they worked together to develop and work a plan.
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Post by Merge on Dec 28, 2019 20:40:37 GMT
Two answers: No Child Left Behind and Common Core I actually find that students are moving and out of their seat more (in a good way) with common core. Students are asked to collaborate and work in groups many times throughout the day. Our district is also revamping our classrooms to facilitate this through flexible furniture (different seat and work surfaces, low/high, standing/sitting, independent/group). Forgive me, but flexible seating and group work are (a) really just window dressing to try to make our kids' daily grind look more fun and social when it's not and (b) an absolute nightmare for introverted students. More recess. More unstructured time. More creative outlets and opportunities to think and dream and grow. And then we won't need wiggle seats and chaise longue chairs in the classroom. Allow differentiated demonstrations of learning, too - group vs. individual, written vs. spoken vs. performed, short term vs. long term - and we won't feel like we need to torture introverts with mandatory group assignments, berate extroverts for seeking social interaction to recharge, or flog kids with learning differences with a "standardized" test. Our entire method of educating kids needs to be re-thought, and not in the way the corporate ed reformers and "accountability" pushers would have you think. Let teachers teach and let kids be kids. A very dangerous point of view if you're an ed reformer banking billions selling standardized test prep, remedial work, standing desks and interactive software designed to move a kid ahead three grade levels in one year if they just sit and stare at that screen long enough.
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katybee
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,448
Jun 25, 2014 23:25:39 GMT
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Post by katybee on Dec 28, 2019 20:51:15 GMT
Kids have changed. And our expectations of them have changed.
We are treating kindergartners like second, even third graders.
We are treating third graders like high schoolers.
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Post by Merge on Dec 28, 2019 20:58:00 GMT
A major difference I see is the self importance children seem to have. I have noticed it grow through the years to the point where children feel the world revolves around them and the world has to accept them the way they are and treat them special. It used to be children were taught not to interrupt. Children were supposed to go outside and play and not sit around and be part of adult conversation. Children were educated in the way of the world that does not revolve around them. But, what really stands out to me is children did not make decisions that had impact on their lives --decisions such as spending the night with friends, going to movies that were really not child appropriate, doing homework or not, how to spend big amounts of money, wearing night club clothes to school. I always saw it as the role of the parent to step in and enforce the right answer to those decisions and teach them how to make good decisions. Childhood is about learning to make good decisions not just throwing them into the deep end to swim or drown. I see parents allow children to make these kinds of decisions and allow them to do whatever they want to do. They are worried about the hassle of enforcing rules, about children getting mad a them or even children not loving them if they don't allow them to do what they want. Children who get to make all the decisions in their lives without guidance become self important and don't learn to listen to rules or follow directions. They feel they make their own rules or rather rules don't apply to them. Some refuse to listen to teachers when the teacher needs for them to be quiet and does not allow them to do what they want. I think maybe you're remembering things with rose-colored glasses just a bit. Growing up during the late 70s and 80s, here are some decisions I made for myself or my friends made: Choosing NOT to sleep over at a friend's house at about 10 PM and letting myself back into my own house and bed without telling anyone, inciting a two-hour frantic search of the neighborhood that ended in a policeman showing my mom that I was sound asleep in my own bed. I was about 7 when that happened. Playing in the dug-out foundations of houses in our new neighborhood (I was 6 and my brother was 4), collecting the bent nails and other fun things the construction workers had left behind. Drinking sangria from a keg at countless block parties between the ages of 8 and 12 or so. Watching the R-rated movies in upper elementary/middle school on VHS that a friend's older brother had rented and left out for us to access in the basement playroom. Being dropped off at the movie theater and purchasing tickets for some G-rated movie, but going to the R-rated one instead. Sledding down a steep hill on cardboard boxes in high school and into traffic (a classmate ended up bouncing off of a car and breaking several ribs). The girl named Heather in my 5th grade class who was the envy of every other girl in her white satin jumpsuit with long fringes and short-short bottoms. Every girl in my high school who left home in one outfit and carried another that she changed into for school. The girl who simply removed her bra every day when she got to school. Doing speed with the high school forensics (competitive speech) team on an away trip so we could stay up all night to learn our lines. All the kids who never did their homework, cut class to go smoke in the field behind the school, got in cafeteria fights, told teachers where they could put their assignments, stabbed each other with pencils, etc. I grew up in a stable, working/middle-class home and area. We had rules and structure and were never neglected. But we, like virtually every kid raised at that time, also had a LOT of freedom relative to what kids have today. If I may say so, "children were supposed to go out and play" at that time meant children making a lot of decisions that may or may not have been in their best interest. The difference is that adults weren't crucified and didn't have CPS called on them when that happened. You can't have it both ways. You can't have parents who guide their child's every decision AND parents who raise kids who aren't the center of the universe. Kids are the center of the universe these days because parents are shamed for doing otherwise.
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Post by grate on Dec 28, 2019 21:02:41 GMT
Yes. To blame: Instant gratification, not hearing the word "no", parents negotiating instead of laying down rules or if they do try to have rules, they don't follow through, schools not standing up to parents who want all ways their ways over stupid little things (not IEP, safety or that type of thing) and so not following school rules or letting kids get away with things so they don't have to deal with certain parents. I once heard a 1st grader say "I will just tell my mom you hit me and you will lose your job".
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Post by jeremysgirl on Dec 28, 2019 22:09:03 GMT
I agree with Merge. I am really proud of the kids I raised. My kids are well mannered, they know right from wrong, when they feel convicted about something they pursue it, they know how to treat people with respect. They had plenty of free time. They know how to manage their time. But I think what people have the hardest time with is that my kids will never be sit down and shut up kids which was exactly the expectation my parents had. My parents didn't know me at all. They tried and tried to beat the spirit right out of me. They had strict rules and even worse punishments than I ever did. But you know what? When my kid is in a jam, I'm her first call. My dad was the absolute last person on my speed dial. They respect me because I guide them. Not because they fear me. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I raised good kids in a completely different way than I was raised. And yeah, teachers sometimes didn't like my kids. And hey some days I didn't like them either. And some days they didn't like me much either. But I really like the people they are and I know them better at 18 & 19 than my dad knows me at 44. I am pretty glad I didn't turn out to be the person he wanted me to be and I'm glad I raised kids who had enough care and concern to develop into the people they are. And these threads always make my hair stand on end because the world has changed. We have to change our parenting to adapt to it. And part of my adaptation was in direct response to the dad as master parenting I received. My role was to raise good humans. Good humans that I actually have a relationship with.
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seaexplore
Prolific Pea
Posts: 8,798
Apr 25, 2015 23:57:30 GMT
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Post by seaexplore on Dec 28, 2019 22:11:07 GMT
Yes. I blame lack of parenting skills--parents who have never set boundaries, nor said no to the children, nor enforced any structure to the family or society dynamics. I know it is the function of the older generation to say the younger generation is dragging down society, but....... 21 years at grade 6-8.
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PrettyInPeank
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,691
Jun 25, 2014 21:31:58 GMT
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Post by PrettyInPeank on Dec 28, 2019 22:37:35 GMT
My son had some behavioral issues this year. Teacher asked if he played a lot of video games. No, just on Saturdays when he’s not playing outside. Asked if I had taken the free district parenting course (I had). And in other ways implored ways in which his behavior could be my fault. I didn’t take offense, they’re fair questions. I told her some ideas, one of which was not to use the class clip chart on him because I believed it was causing anxiety, and that it could be making him worse.
She didn’t stop. He got worse. He would say, “I don’t matter in class, when I clip down I never clip back up, she hates me, what’s the point.” As humans it’s so easy to hone in on negative behavior that those charts end up being mostly for highlighting “bad” behavior in my opinion.
I requested a group meeting where we all met and came up with a game plan. The principal nixed the chart on her own and instead implemented a private positive behavioral note where basically he would score points, but not necessarily lose points. All the same rules applied, just the negative-leaning public-shaming chart was not used. He’s fine now and no longer goes to bed with stomach aches of anxiety. I changed absolutely nothing. The teacher just changed her approach.
So how would this have played out 50 years ago? 30 years ago? Would corporal punishment been involved? Drugs? Were teachers be cognizant of student emotions? A lot of times I think what seemed better was actually not better. Because there are a lot of ways to get conformity, and we don’t use them anymore.
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paigepea
Drama Llama
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Posts: 5,609
Location: BC, Canada
Jun 26, 2014 4:28:55 GMT
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Post by paigepea on Dec 28, 2019 23:16:17 GMT
I think this type of defiant behaviour has to do with the current ME society. When you have a society where people talk about their rights and, for example, feel they can carry guns regardless of who is being hurt (just one of many examples of how society has become a ME society) the kids are going to become part of that society.
I think that phones and screens and lack of face to face communication has led more to mean / bullying / unkind / not empathetic behaviour.
I’m not sure that a busy day should be an excuse for defiant behaviour. Maybe for goofing off or day dreaming. But defiance is deliberate.
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