Yet another rant, yet again about work, but this one is a bit different.
As with any school we have some students with an assortment of problems.
Again as with most schools we end up trying to pick up the pieces left by crap parenting.
We have parents who mollycoddle their children to such an extent that at 18 years old they are incapable of the simplest of tasks such as catching a bus.
At 15 I was travelling from Wimbledon to Knightsbridge on public transport daily to get to work.
At 16 I was living in a small bedsit in Wandsworth and managing my own budget.
We have parents who don't give a flying fuck about their children, these parents are a pain in the arse.
But the worse parents of all, I think are the ones who insist on a pretence of a home life that is hunky dory, when in fact it contains all sorts of horrors.
We are then left trying to help a child with no clue as to what is causing the problems. The child is then labeled as difficult through no fault of their own.
15 comments:
My daughter is a teacher. It's not pretty, sometimes. Add in state and local laws about what you can and cannot do, and I wonder why anyone wants to teach, frankly! In fact, she's looking to get out. This is her eleventh year.
Debbie
How true is this. When children act out it's ALWAYS for a reason and that reason is usually an unstable/abusive/chaotic home life. It's not the fault of the child but what the heck do you do? I would have a difficult time being a teacher these days.
It's the same in healthcare.
Over 18 you are an adult. The number of 20 year olds that have their mothers want to stay over with them is nuts. Factor in that the parents want to know everything about their ADULT child is nuts.
My step-daughter is a primary school teacher & some of the parents are beyond belief! She has a mix of those that mollycoddle & those that don't give a flying fig. Of the latter I always wonder why have kids if you're not going to be bothered to parent them & add some value to their lives?
This is her 2nd year of teaching & she says that the difference between last years parents who were "on it & interested" & this years who on the whole seem disinterested is polar.
I don't know how she does it!
Oh yes, you are so right. Like you I was lighting the house fire at nine and preparing the main meal . When I got married I could do most domestic chores. I also worked and managed a degree when I was older. Witness Easter . . . I took three Easter eggs to my son's house for his three grand children. I put them on the kitchen side and when the two year old spotted them he screamed and had a tantrum . . . sorry to sound cold but he would not have even a taste until Easter sunday. Oh well, he carried on and then sat eating his egg. The point it, tantrums and screaming work so I shall carry on. I think teaching these days must be so difficult. Love Andie xxx
Used to like this blog but why the need for the four letter words?
I was on the subway the other morning and there was a class of around 8/9 year olds out for a class trip. They were all decently dressed and I recognized the address of their school (they all wear contact labels in case they get lost) as being in a nice middle-class area of the city. But what I really noticed was that more than half of them, both boys & girls) hadn't washed their faces or brushed their hair before they left home - most of them looked as though they had rolled out of bed and straight into their clothes! I simply cannot understand how parents can't even be bothered to ensure that simple hygiene is followed. If the parents take no pride in their children how is the child ever to learn! It's actually very sad.
I cannot bear cruelty towards children, it makes me swear, I have always used four letter words, feel free to stop reading if you don't like what I write.
WELL SAID! I'd much rather someone who lets rip the odd time to someone who doesn't get incensed by child cruelty! {{{hugs our H}}}
W
"Rant"? "Work" "home life"? Think you perhaps need a reality check.
Very well said. But there seems no solution to these never-ending problems, sadly.
Margaret P
Posting anonymously for reasons which will be seen
I re-read my secondary school reports last year - they make bittersweet reading. I was a straight A grade student at the local girls' grammar school until the IVth form (Y10 now)I went downhill very rapidly after that in my grades and attitude - from being a helpful, hardworking student I became someone who regularly bunked off, didn't bother with work (still managing reasonable grades due to natural ability), got into arguments with teachers - and got caught shoplifting twice within 3 months.
Reading them 30 years later was hard - I can see the obvious slip and would hope that nowadays someone would pick up that something was clearly wrong with this 15 year old girl - a student who later was predicted to get 4 good A level grades and who ended up with C, D, E. The most common note on my reports was words along the lines of 'She has ability but does not try.' ' She has the aptitude but not the correct attitude'
That may well have been because I was regularly sexually abused between the ages of 14 and 19 by my mum's then boyfriend (now husband). I tried to talk to her about it but she cut my concerns off.
I felt so sad for that girl reading those reports. A bright future was changed through no fault of her own. And she felt alone - who can you talk to about something like that? 30+ years ago such things weren't discussed.
Childline opened after it had begun (but whilst still ongoing - but was in the beginning with very limited hours of availability) Her own mum was hard to talk to about anything sexual/ body related (when asked what periods were she bought 2 books on the subject and never once discussed it) - so where to turn..?
I really hope with all my heart that someone would question such a fall in attitude and output nowadays and try to find out what was behind it
Anon, we've a good record of picking up on that sort of abuse, a staff member went head to head with social services in one instance.
It can be very difficult with some girls who think they are 'in love' they don't understand that a relationship shouldn't be abusive.
I'm sitting here nodding my head.
I'm still in touch with girls- I use the term loosely, we are all 78 now - that I was at the grammar school with. There was one girl that I avoided, I thought her brash, loud, untidy and pushy.
A couple of years ago, at a reunion, I talked to her and discovered that both her parents were alcoholics and she had to survive a chaotic home life. She had a concerned cousin who use to pick up bits of second-hand school uniform for her but she had to wash her clothes in a washbasin with whatever soap she could get her hands on. Somehow she managed to get herself through the sixth form and off to teacher training college without anyone realising what was going on. How I wished that I had known this at the time but she was too ashamed to tell anyone.
I've also come across children in my teaching career who should have been taken away from abusive parents. Some of them came from wealthy, 'privileged' families! Poor little souls. I used to break my heart over some of them but there was little help in the fifties and sixties.
I would like to think that it doesn't happen these days but flawed human beings haven't died out yet.
It is just so sad, one of my DD's is a foster carer and some of the things she has had to deal with would break your heart.
We have a child at school whose mother is called in regularly to discuss ways of managing her child's behaviour, she's has been wittering on about foreign holiday etc and cannot understand why her child is having problems. The reality is a family with 2 of the 5 siblings in prison and a father who only talks with his fists. Mother is prozaced up to the eyeballs and can no longer tell fact from fiction.
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