Misbehaving in School

[ShyDaisi]

This isn't in regards to my son, but I saw a post on another message board about an 8 year old misbehaving in school. It got me wondering about GD, and how would you apply that to this situation. The situation presented was pretty vague -- just that the child had to "pull two cards" at school for misbehaving. She punished him with not being able to go out and play the following Saturday, but subsequently gave in and allowed him to go out -- that's what the post was about (giving in and not applying the punishment).

So, what would be the natural consequences of not behaving in school? Just the school consequences? So, would you not do anything at home? What would you do if this were your child?

[One_Girl]

When my dd has misbehaved at school in the past I have generally just told her I was disappointed to hear about the misbehavior and I have asked her what her plan is for the future. One time I felt that the situation warranted an apology letter to the teacher.
I really view misbehavior at school as something the teacher needs to deal with for the most part. If dd isn't misbehaving for me then I am not going to punish her at home for something little she did at home. If she habitually broke rules I might look into a behavior chart at school that would allow dd to earn computer time at home.

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

For single-incident sorts of things we talk about what happened and what they could have done better, but there are no real "consequences" at home. For repeated issues I've worked really hard with the kids to find the root causes and attack those. If the issues were repeated and a more acceptable behaviour pattern needed to be set I would consider some sort of earned reward system.

In general I feel like school misbehaviour should be dealt with at school.

[shanniesue2]

As a teacher (I teach kdg), I feel like I need to deal with most behavior issues at school. I will usually only involve the parent when the behavior is constant and what I'm trying isn't working or the behavior was really severe (i.e. I talked to the parent of a child who punched another child in the stomach). If it's typical kid-stuff, I like to give them a chance to redeem themselves. If the kid has stuggled all day long and then they have to go home and deal with getting punished for misbehaving all day, then the whole day has been a waste. But if, at the end of the day, I can say to the child, "let's have a better day tomorrow" and send them home and they can enjoy the evening the the whole day hasn't been terrible for them.

Thinking about it from the perspective of an adult, if you have a terrible day at work...nothing goes well, you spill coffee on yourself, the boss calls you in for a "chat," whatever... it's nice to be able to come home to some peace so that you can recharge and regain some dignity.

[churndash]

For the most part, what happens at school, stays at school.

If it were a severe problem, like violence, stealing, cheating, etc, then I'd reconsider, but if my kids do in get "in trouble" at school it's for something like talking out of turn. Once my son said a swear word in the bathroom.

I might comment on the behavior casually ("sometimes those words slip out when you are mad, but you need to watch your language) but that's it.

My kids have the "color" system too, and I'd never even consider punishing them for having to pull their color. (all that means is that they got a warning for some ordinary kid thing, like not sitting still or talking. The kids start out with a green card on their folder and if they get reprimanded for anything they pull the green card out and have a yellow card or whatever color is the warning color.)

[Llyra]

If the kid has stuggled all day long and then they have to go home and deal with getting punished for misbehaving all day, then the whole day has been a waste. But if, at the end of the day, I can say to the child, "let's have a better day tomorrow" and send them home and they can enjoy the evening the the whole day hasn't been terrible for them.

Thinking about it from the perspective of an adult, if you have a terrible day at work...nothing goes well, you spill coffee on yourself, the boss calls you in for a "chat," whatever... it's nice to be able to come home to some peace so that you can recharge and regain some dignity.

I agree with this, as a parent but also as a former classroom teacher.

DD1 is only in kindy, and has only ever had a few minor incidents of mild misbehavior at school. My approach has always been to sit down with her as soon as she's home to talk the situation over. I listen to her story, tell her what the teacher told me, and we focus on how her behavior affected the other kids and the teacher, and what other behaviors would have been more appropriate. Then we come up with a plan for how she's going to put it right-- apologizing to the teacher, for example, or doing something differently the next day. Then we forget the incident. The next morning, I'll briefly remind her before she leaves about what she decided she needed to do.

I think that if there was a continued pattern of disruptive behaviors at school, there needs to be a more organized approach that might possibly include taking away privileges at home. But in general for isolated school behavior issues, I think it's more important to TEACH than it is to PUNISH.

[Boot]

AS a teacher I have to say that parents often underestimate how important their role is in supporting their child's behaviour in school. I definitely don't think a child should be punished twice though. Just disapproval of the misdemeanor and support of the teacher's action is enough. IT's amazing the difference between the children whose parents take their school behaviour seriously and those whose parents have the attitude 'well it's the school's problem'. Really, when it comes down to it, a teacher's hands are totally tied if a child has the attitude that it doesn't matter what kind of trouble they get in, their parents won't care. I remember sending my first child home which is a really rare occurrence for me and reserved for very serious behaviour. The child point blank refused to come in at the end of recess. I had somewhere else to be and couldn't cajole him in as I had before so I sent him home. For me this was HUGE. This kid was completely unfazed because he knew his parents wouldn't care or would be annoyed at me, not him. It was completely ineffective as a consequence, although it did resolve the problem of who was going to supervise him.

Now, of course, if you don't support the school/teacher's actions then that is another story and you've got a problem on your hands.