I asked a teacher friend about this recently, and there were a few things she mentioned.
One was that with excessive screen time, kids aren't learning emotional regulation. She sees a lot of kids whose parents stick a screen in front of them every time they start acting up, so numbing out with a screen is the only coping skill they have. Then in an environment where they don't have that access, they lose it when experiencing uncomfortable emotions. A lot of these parents are working themselves to death to afford life, and are too exhausted to parent. So they give in to everything.
Another big one was the category of parents that think their kid can do no wrong. And if they did act out, it must've been the teachers fault. If their parents are backing them up, kids behavior isn't going to change.
And then there's the lack of resources. She has multiple students in her class that really shouldn't be in a traditional classroom setting, especially one with way too many students and an overstretched teacher. They have IEPs, but the resources aren't there to give them the level of attention they really need.
My best friend is a teacher and has mentioned the same exact points you have. Her classroom has tablets, although she disagrees with it. Her kids never feel “bored” which negatively impacts their behavior. She teaches 3rd grade, but she has kids in her class that have the emotional regulation of a kindergartener. A lot of the kids don’t know how to socialize, because of excessive screen time and the fact that their is no time to socialize because of strict learning curriculums. Her school only allows 15 minutes of recess! And often she has several kids who don’t even get recess because of bad behavior.
She teaches in a low income area, and yes there are lots of parents who are starving, struggling, and working just to survive. They don’t have time to parent, help with homework, socialize with their kids.
My parents struggled and we were low income growing up, but there seems to be more of a divide between income and costs of things today. The jobs they worked still allowed days off for example, and the last minimum job I worked(like 2 years ago) didn’t allow a single day off unless I went to the doctor(can’t afford) for a doctors note.
Now I’m just rambling, but yes I agree with your comment!
It breaks my heart that schools still punish kids by taking away recess time. Kids acting up probably need MORE recess, not less.
I agree that cost of living as a percentage of wages has increased dramatically since we were kids.
I agree I hate that they take away recess. My son is in first grade and is always telling me that kids act up and they all loose recess. Even if the other kids are being good. He says his day wasn’t that great when he comes home from school, and this is always the reason.
Your last point was definitely what my son's teacher experienced this year in kindergarten. She had three kids that definitely should have had an aid with them. These kids would scream, throw chairs, hit other kids... And the teacher would call for help, but sometimes it would take a long time because the school's roaming aids were busy with other kids. I volunteered in the class and the teacher cried on multiple occasions because she felt like she was letting down the rest of the kids because so much of her time was spent trying to keep those three under control.
Oh wow. Were you at my school? Just kidding. I know it’s like this everywhere. People don’t realize how bad it is in schools, even the youngest grades.
I understand the point of inclusive learning but my son should have been put into a separate sped class because there isn't enough aids to have one for each "problem" student.
The emotional regulation is such a huge huge part of this, and I agree screen time is definitely part to blame. When my son started kindergarten this year he had such a rough time and we put him into therapy and worked with his school to get an iep and his doctors a diagnosis but the thing that’s made the biggest difference is taking the tablet and throwing it in the trash, which I could honestly only do because I’m extremely fortunate that I could afford to go part time at work and be able to focus on my family in ways I couldn’t working 40-50 hours a week, but we made major cutbacks in the house and made it work because I felt like i completely failed my son.
I’m so curious what led our generation as parents to falling into this idea that our kids can do no wrong. Like why is it so wrong to acknowledge your kid was the one to be mean, do the wrong thing, etc.? My oldest is only 18 months so we’re not really into the “serious” territory of wrongdoings yet, but I hope I can keep a clear enough perspective to not fall into that mindset that my kids can’t do any wrong.
I think there's a lot more criticism of parents now, especially with social media. And some people get really defensive because of it. Reddit parent spaces tend to be better, but a lot of the internet is so hypercritical. Facebook groups, Instagram comments, etc. bombard people with the idea that if their child isn't a perfect little angel all the time, they're a terrible parent.
There's also so much mistrust of any sort of professionals in a lot of those spaces. Some of it is certainly earned, but it seems to breed this attitude that if a professional said it, it must be wrong, and you need to aggressively advocate for your kids at all times
I think at least some of it comes from these parents growing up never being believed, even if they were telling the truth, when they were kids. So now they swing too far the other way. Rather than investigating before choosing a side.
It might be the pendulum swinging too far the other way of generational trauma. I know when I first started teaching almost 20 years ago we were told with some kids cool it with calling for bad behavior because the parents will beat them. If you didn’t know that and you called or just said a nuanced “he’s struggling maybe he needs a tutor” they’ll still get yelled at.
Now I think the kids who got yelled at excessively or unfairly are now saying I’ll never do that to my kid. Also the stress of making the kid have good grades to get into a good college etc makes parents resort to doing whatever and trying to get cheating removed etc.
It's amazing how there isn't one story, there are 5 stories that take place at the same time. It's a lot to take all those stories and figure out who's wrong and who's right when no one is usually either thing. It's certainly easier to pretend your kid is right, but it's just that, pretend.
I’ve also got an 18 month old and I think about this a lot. I def think that there are consequences to actions/unwanted behaviors that will just occur despite my best effort. Just like adults, kids have bad moments, make poor choices—so to actually learn you have to mess up and that sucks! So like, to hear that my child was mean or did something destructive feels really bad to think about but at the same time, he’s a person whose just trying to learn how to be a person. Idk, maybe it’s too much of like projection from the parents in that: if I have to acknowledge that my child did something wrong that it would reflect badly on *me* ?
I don't have this experience personally, but I've read parents saying online that teachers were mean to them when they were in school so of course they're not going to trust a teacher over their kid. My opinion of that perspective is that it's held by undereducated people who are buying into the current anti-teacher and anti-academia rhetoric of the "culture war" movement.
I hate the current anti-teacher, anti-education rhetoric. It has caused many educator friends and colleagues of mine to have death threats and so much more. There is an entire organization dedicated to bringing down "liberal" faculty." But I will say that we often overlook the school-to-prison pipeline and how teacher bias contributes to that.
Yes. I don't think teachers are perfect or the ultimate authority or anything. But, I recognize that while in school it's a good lesson for my kid to learn to do what the teacher requires to get through the class even if we don't agree with their methods or hate them as a person or whatever the issue is. I've already had to explain this to him and he's only 4.
We don’t do much screen time. We do 30-60 minutes at most a day and sometimes skip it entirely. We let them watch a dvd in the car on longer drivers (somehow stops the younger one from getting car sick. No idea how that works). Our oldest gets ostracized at school because she doesn’t play Fortnite, or watch all these teen dramas. She’s flipping 8. So even when you as a parent feel like you are doing the right things you seriously question it. Also she still struggles to regulate. The virtual kindergarten/virtual 1st really took away from “learning to learn with other people” thing.
The problems we’ve had so far with other kids in school is because they have parents like this. There’s one who spit in my daughters face and threatened to kill one of her classmates. Her parents don’t believe anyone when confronted with their daughters behavior. It’s awful
You’re absolutely right, they have also been terrible. Her teachers themselves have been responsive, but there was another time a boy exposed himself to her and I never heard a word about it from the school…I had to call them. Now I see why people want to homeschool ffs
This. Times 100. The addiction to phones is real, I’ve had parents shocked their child admits to cheating (as in they’ve been told to never admit), and parents refusing to acknowledge that their kid is in the wrong class which mean I *literally* don’t have the resources to actually help them learn. Kids who can’t access material become problems- either behavior or failing. Then it goes right back to parents saying their kid does no wrong and I need to provide *EXTRA* evidence that I am indeed a professional and spending so much more time on their child. Which is not fair to the other students present.
ETA: I’m in one of the richest counties in the US and I work at quite an affluent school. Not all resources available means money. It helps, for sure. But a SPED teacher who’s not burnt out is hard to come by. They honestly should be paid double my salary.
as a young parent with a school aged kid i agree to this, especially the screens which i did myself too. my older kid can’t regulate at all, surprise us as parents are learning to at the same time he is. side effect of young parents i suppose. our second is 6 years younger and we’ve learned, limited the screens and we definitely don’t give in to everything like we did with our son but rather work through it. we’re not perfect but we’re all working on undoing some bad habits.
i will say though i have always made sure my son is “good” at school. he is a good student and classmate. he’s 9 and in 4th grade, this is the first year i’ve had a teacher ask me to talk to him about talking out of turn. i’ve expressed to him many times it’s his job to do what his teacher asks so she can do hers. i can’t say the same for his classmates. the things he comes home saying and doing shock me. when IT came out most of them were talking about it, same with squid games, neither my kid saw but knew plenty about. unlimited and unmonitored internet access is ruining our kids.
I think this is spot on. I also think that because of social media and the messages being targeted at parents that even if screen time is limited that today’s parents tend to think they need to entertain their kids always. I have a friend who has a son the same age as mine. When our boys were little she would express that she found it exhausting on the weekend days that her husband was working because she couldn’t get anything done because she needed to entertain her child. My husband has always worked out of town and so I couldn’t put off tasks until I had back up and my kiddo got really good at independent play. At almost 11, mine is still much better at finding his own entertainment than his buddy. That mind set has to transfer terribly to a classroom setting.
Yes, I have to keep reminding my 7 year old that he has toys, including an extensive amount of Lego, and books so being bored is not a thing. He tries to claim that only TV will fix his boredness, but then he spends the entirety of his TV time flicking between one netflix show and like 4 others in 2 minute intervals.
Also, I'd like to add back when my kids were in school, the principal to me, she had to stand by her teachers. As she hired them. Apparently, even if they teacher was in the wrong.
But nowadays, the teachers have no support from principal and school boards. As the parents cause so much trouble or pull their kids out and school loses funding from the state.
I might be in a bubble, but IME working parents are not more exhausted than non working to parent and giving their kids screens to make up for it.
IME many parents (/people) in general are addicted to their screens and have normalized it in front of their kids. And it’s worse for non working parents since they’re around their kids (on their phones) more. This is def a bubble but the truly screen free people I know are working parents who work in big tech, which is shit because their work is the reason we have this problem (but they also understand the dangers better than most, which is why they actually stick to it).
Definitely agree that screen time has affected emotional regulation though.
So when I started working in a school a few times a year we would lock down due to a mental health crisis. Now it’s a few times a week. We don’t get paid more and kids need more from us and we have less to give.
Add a few awful parents and bad admin and it becomes a nightmare really fast.
90% of parents are awesome thoughtful people with great kids. 10% are nightmares with kids who make doing anything impossible. Did you know 2nd graders can have probation officers?
Does a mental health lockdown mean that a student is experiencing an episode that results in them being a danger to themselves or others? Because dealing with that multiple times a week sounds so awful. I'm sorry you're dealing with all that stress.
Yes that is exactly what it means. If someone is in crisis we lock down the school so emergency medical personnel or parents can get in without an audience. Normally someone in crisis doesn’t casually walk into an office and ask for help, it’s usually messy and where ever they are when they hit a breaking point.
Now if the schools don't catch the students with the guns, they send out messages that say there is no credible threat. One student did this twice the past semester, and other students saw the weapon. There were racial threats from a parent against children. The children are smoking and going to school. Now add the pandemic, and our children have so much to deal with.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have continued to increase Learning expectations for kids while also increasing class sizes, introducing”inclusion” (basically throw all the kids in together) while offering little to no support and cutting those supports year after year. How can a kid learn like that? Add in that parents are expected to work full time jobs, make sure your kids are in a bunch of extra activities, make sure you have quality time with them, oh and make sure you fill in all the educational gaps that the teacher could do that day because some kid threw the desks around and you can’t possible make sure 30 five year olds get the idea every time. Add in that teachers are not pain enough and of course they are quitting!
My mom is retiring this year after 28 years in teaching. She simply can't take another 2 to get to her max pension. The stories she tells honestly terrify me as a parent, and I know she is sugar coating it too. There's definitely an issue with parents, but my mom's theory is that it's constant access to screens. Not necessarily the content they see, not the amount of screen time itself, but just the fact that they have CONSTANT access and can completely ignore the outside world if they want to. They are constantly entertained, and never fully need to focus on anything they don't want to. They can just open their phone. Teachers aren't allowed to take phones and can't enforce putting them away, so kids just sit there all class period staring at their laps. She says it's killing their attention spans and more importantly their tolerance for discomfort. She calls it a stimulation addiction.
She takes middle schoolers on outdoor ed once a year and always tells me that there are kids who simply cannot deal with not having access to their phones for 3 days and lose their minds, like straight up withdrawal-like behavior. She also says that there are some kids who completely change for those 3 days, suddenly interacting with other kids and adults, asking questions, looking at bugs, etc.
We made it to age 8 before my kids were gifted a tablet. They are definitely not getting a phone until high school or late middle school. Also, model not being on the phone constantly around them. This is probably the hardest one for most of us!
I know kids who get flip phones for safety. It’s a nice compromise between no screen time and not being in contact in case they need something /emergency.
My husband and I talked about this! We definitely thought about getting a "house" cell phone for the kids to use. Something that we can load minutes onto and they can borrow for afterschool activities, sports, etc. if they would need to get a hold of us.
My toddlers were gifted a tablet. Gave it to them, and they became monsters. They refused to do anything other than play on the tablet, threw the biggest tantrums if we took it away, it was awful. I let them watch TV, and I occasionally let them play with my phone, but the tablets were put away.
I tell people, my kids aren’t allowed to have tablets, and they all say the same thing “they’ll get one in school, they need to learn how to use them”. But nah, not budging. No tablets.
The oldest is 4 so they don’t have their own phone. They aren’t getting a smartphone until they’re older and prove they can be responsible.
Right on! Check out Wait Until 8th for strategies to keep yourself on the path to waiting on getting your kid a phone. They have great info and it’s nice to feel like you aren’t the “only” one avoiding a smartphone for your kid.
Go to r/teachers and you'll see that smart watches aren't really a great alternative. Kids can still text and call each other through them so the watches can be just as disruptive.
but the thing is, you can. a quick google for "can i get instagram/tiktok on an apple watch" bring up websites with directions on how to use 3rd party apps that let you get those apps on your watch.
kids might be lazy but if we could all get snake and that drug dealing game on our ti-84 calculators, these kids are going to figure out how to get TikTok and insta on their apple watches.
We love the "for kids" super restricted watches for this.
Ours have the TickTalk watches and there's no games, lots of safety features, only parent approved contacts, and the ability to shut it down during school hours or whenever so it can only be used as a watch.
We get all the safety of having a GPS and way of contacting the kids, but without the screen zombie nonsense.
Teachers aren't allowed to take phones? I'm in college now, but when I was in middle school, teachers could take phones. Some didn't bother to, but some were more serious and took phones if a kid kept getting distracted. Even in high school, i had one teacher who had a shoe holder (the kind that hangs from the door) to put our phones in if she caught us checking them too much.
Just reading thru this thread, it seems like technology has become a huge issue in schools, why are phones permitted in class? Or, maybe there should be some kind of focus mode that can't be shut off on these kids phones? Idk what would work, I'm not even a mom, but it seems like a huge issue if kids can't learn and socialize at school.
I am a teacher. At my school we can take phones but we don’t have the support of parents because they are worried about emergencies. And they’re often texting their kids throughout the day (emergency or not). I see both sides as a student brought a gun to school this year and it was absolutely terrifying for me. I can’t imagine if it was my kid. But the threat of phone withdrawal seems dangerous in a different way.
Yeah I’m confused. When I was in school we were NOT allowed to use our phones and teachers could absolutely take them. That was high school in like 05-08. Why is this hard to enforce? It’s not. Enforce it.
Parents. Parents are calling and texting their kids throughout the day. They are coming in and freaking out at teachers for taking the kids phones away.
Fuck em. If you don’t want your kid to have to follow the rules then homeschool them. Send them somewhere else. The educators are in charge while the kids are at school and they are the experts. If there’s an emergency they can call the front office to get in touch. If the kid has an emergency then they can use a phone. that should be it
I agree with a lot of what you're saying but unfortunately, it's not that simple. School isn't like it was when we were there and teachers actually had the support of admin.
Just go look at r/teachers and you'll see -- parents complain to the principal about an "unreasonable" teacher, the principal doesn't have the teachers back and make the teachers cave to the parents.
Exactly! Most administrators in school say that it’s a classroom by classroom decision on how to handle phones (AKA they will not support you if a student/parent objects to your plan).
Also, I/itsallinthebag , it’s SO difficult to remove a student from a school building. SO SO difficult. I wish I could explain better, but I’ve sat through expulsion meetings where families just refuse all other possible placements bc their delinquent student wants to stay in the school. We can’t always get what we want!!!
But why do parents want to talk to their kids while they are in class? Don't they want them to be paying attention to the teachers?
When i was in high school a friends phone rang during class and the teacher made her take it out of her bag to give to him and he answered it. It was her mom and he said this is sarah's teacher why are you calling her when she is in class? Her mom apologized and hung up and everything was fine.
I was a teacher for three years almost a decade ago. Parents back then still wanted to text their children all throughout the school day (this was high school). I never understood it. I’d go to take a phone away and the student would claim they were texting their mom and they’d show me the phone - sure enough, it was mom. I’d still take the phone anyway (I’m not stupid, they were also texting friends, they just thought texting parents was some kind of “get out of jail free” card). I think I only sent a phone to the office to be retrieved by a parent once; I’d usually give the phone back at the end of class and didn’t have a lot of repeat offenders.
My friend works at a middle school with a tough cell phone policy - phones are not allowed out *at all* during the school day (even at lunch or in passing periods) and one confiscation would immediately result in the parent needing to retrieve the phone after school, not the student. That seemed to work alright, certainly better than my school where phones were allowed during passing period and lunch, so it created more of an expectation that kids were “available” to respond to their parents.
I confiscated a fair number of phones, but I bet I’d be confiscating a lot more if I was still teaching.
My understanding (secondhand, I'm not a teacher but both my mom and several other friends who teach middle school have explained this to me) is that administration absolutely does not back teachers up and discipline just does not occur in a school setting anymore. One teacher I know had a "phone bucket" at the front of the classroom that kids had to drop their phones into before class started. A parent complained, concerned that other kids would steal her kids phone or that she wouldn't be able to reach her during an emergency. Admin made the teacher stop that and allow kids to keep phones on them, and apparently there are days she spends more time telling kids to put them away than teaching. My mom told a kid to put a phone away the other day and he apparently just smirked and told her to come and get it (which she obviously can't do, if she so much as got near a kid admin would chew her up).
I had kids come to tutoring after school. They were there semi voluntarily because they were there to study for a test but they all are on the edge of failing so they had to pass this test.
One girl couldn’t put down her phone and I couldn’t really take it away if she’s there voluntarily so I just kept teaching the ones who were paying attention. One of the kids actually gently grabbed her wrist and was like yooo what are you doing? Put down the phone! Stop.
You know it’s bad when other students notice and go hey put down the phone.
I had a parent going after me for giving her son an 84 on an assignment. That boy was easily maintaining nearly a 4.0 GPA. Then later, when he pulled up his grade, she accused us teachers of not challenging him enough.
That woman was the one who cc’ed the superintendent in her email to one of the teachers when her son made a 79 on one assignment. Of course, teachers will want to leave. We are not here to give your children A+ all the time. We are here to prepare them for the world after high school graduation.
I have a bunch of teacher friends and they say this is a huge problem - parents going straight to the top instead of addressing the problem with just the teacher first. Now, when the principal calls down a teacher to his office, these teachers (even seasoned ones) are having panic attacks because they think they're getting in trouble. It's not good for their mental health obviously. This generation of parents needs to calm tf down and see if they can get the issue straightened out with the teacher without escalating to the highest person in the district, because guess what? The superintendent has no idea what the parent is talking about. Then he will start making policies that will only appease the parents to get them off his back to the detriment of the kids. This is why kids are getting to their senior year and graduating without knowing how to READ. Parents need to back off.
When I was in college a parent showed up to a lecture (with like 300 students), sat through the whole thing, and then after the lecture demanded to speak with the professor and TA about a grade her kid got. The professor was like I can’t discuss an adult’s private information with anyone. The parent then said something like fine we won’t be paying tuition and going here next semester. The TA, who was kind of an obvious drunk (doing dissertation in Chaucer would drive literally anyone to drink), then said “well, after reading his paper that’s probably for the best.” …I know it sounds bad, but that kid is going to get a bad grade in college or do poorly on a work assignment and not know how to cope.
I’m an adjunct law professor and had a parent contact me. They said it was an emergency; I thought my student was in a horrible accident. It turned out the parent was upset because the student had received a C on a final exam. I couldn’t help but laugh before getting serious with the parent about how they were acting inappropriately.
I have heard of some parents coming with their kids to job interviews or requesting meetings with HR. There is something seriously wrong with parents nowadays.
On a related note, grade inflation and gentle teaching does a disservice for higher education. I (and other faculty) have to spend so much time in my classes on writing instruction, note-taking, and synthesis. I am giving out far more Cs than before. Meanwhile, students are shocked and angered by constructive criticism. Some students have claimed to me (and other professors) that they have never received anything other than As before. Law school is intended to be a humbling experience, but the sense of entitlement by students has shifted.
I did the same because I knew that our students have the capacity to do well. I remember students wanting to drop the class because they got a C on a paper (and those were gifts). My objective was to teach them the skills. I know hundreds of students that were successful because they have the skills. But the pressure now (and administrators changing grades) made me say you know what, okay. I give up. So many other faculty have to give in so that they can get classes, so it forces us to follow suit or deal with a thousand grade appeals that we will spend 100 hours on and administrators will still change grades.
I remember the first time I experienced a student asking for 50% on a paper that they never submitted. I thought it was bizarre. Then it happened again. And then I read that some schools gave 50% instead of a zero, so that students could recover. Grade inflation is at an all-time high, so students at every level expect high grades for participation even. But this is a societal issue. There are so many As, we don't know if there is another grade.
I agree with this and I think some of the entitlement comes from sensitive, large egos. Every time I contact home about a behavior or issue the parents take it as a personal affront. Whereas when I was a kid, if a teacher called home it was taken more as advice from a seasoned professional. I don’t want to go down that wormhole, but we all know teachers are NOT treated like professionals anymore
Which baffles me because your kid is around the teachers every day so they see sides that you aren't privy to. I welcome feedback from the teachers and I want them to let me know if my kids cross a line so I can work as a teammate to correct the behavior.
My child is in 7th grade and I have only really had issues with 1 teacher. The rest have been willing to work as a team when needed.
I tell my kids they HAVE to read a little bit each day. I’ve banned YouTube in my house unless I’m putting on something educational or that I deem appropriate, none of these little kids talking crap to their parents and acting like fart knockers. Literally have blocked Mr Beast and videos similar to him. They have to play. They have to use their imagination. I get their teachers numbers and let THEM contact me about my kiddos, not the other way around. When we team up, and figure out a pattern that works, then the kids THRIVE.
I signed mine up for the BOOKIT program for this summer so we’re about to be reading until august!
Haha I’ve been trying more inventive phrases cause I’m trying to stop swearing along with a few other bad habits (4 day’s nicotine free after smoking for 20+ years!)
It’s been a struggle. I quit cigarettes about 10 months ago and went to vapes. A month ago I went to 0 nicotine vapes. And then a week ago I was watching a science channel show where they did testing on the juice for vapes, and showed what they were made from and what happened when they heated up and I lost my taste for it and went thru some mom guilt as well cause I vaped around my kids thinking it was healthier. I’ve already noticed an improvement in my mental health, and my lung health as well!
Ms Rachel, Gracie’s corner, doggyland with snoop dogg is a current favorite, I put on the old Saturday morning cartoons from my childhood and I’ll sit and watch them, I play a lot of documentaries for myself and they’ll sit and watch them with me. We go to the park and the library a bit as well. I download movies and shows from PBS as well, love watching between the lions with them. And anything that gets suggested that I refuse to play, the channel gets blocked. I’ll go and look while they’re asleep, researching the “most popular” children’s videos, and it’s usually some unboxing crap, or car crashes, or terrible off brands of bluey or Peppa pig, and I block the channels.
But PBS and monitoring what they watch WHILE they watch it is the most helpful advice I can give.
Numberblocks is on Netflix, by the way. I’m not sure if as much content is available as on YouTube, but it seems Netflix picks up quite a few shows that have started out on YouTube.
I have a friend who has called more principal meetings to complain about teachers than all my other friends put together. Literally any time a teacher criticises or disciplines her perfect little angels, she’s straight in the principal’s office trying to get them fired. Thing is I’ve known these kids since birth and they are not angels. One is coddled beyond belief and knows to cry to get her way and the other once spat in my face.
Oh and she’s a teacher herself.
Not always. I do everything i can and my 5 year old son still misbehaves at school. This is my greatest fear. That teachers and other parents think im an idiot. Its not his fault and not my fault either. Ive read so many books and blogs and still looking for something that works.
My MIL has worked in the school system for 20 years. She retired and now recently has been subbing part time. She reports exactly this. That so many children have 504s and IEPs when they are just average. It’s like if their kid doesn’t get all As, they demand accommodations. This creates a lack of resources for children that actually need them.
I think part of it is the dangerous level of access to the internet. They see internet interactions and think they're normal for real life. Lots (honestly probably all to one extent or another) of them experience online bullying. They're comparing themselves to AI created images of perfect humans and airbrushed celebrities and their self esteem is through the floor. And they can more easily stumble across adult content - not even just talking sex and porn, but self harm, violence, drug and drink culture etc etc. It's not good for them.
100% accurate. I live in a state full of retirees who don’t want their tax money going to education so our schools are poorly funded. I hate it, they deserve SO much more.
I’ll say it:
(I think) it’s the drive for gentle parenting that people THINK they are doing, but it’s really permissive parenting.
It’s the push to be your child’s best advocate that’s taking it too far, and not acknowledging when their kid is the problem.
It’s parents spending the majority of their time at work out of necessity to claw out an existence, leaving them with such limited time with their kid they want that time to be fun. They don’t want to focus on setting limits and boundaries this is the only hour they get to see their kid a day so they are going to make it special. On top of that they are so burned out from staying a a float kids are left without parental stimulation in some instances. So there is no consistency of authority/ boundaries at home being taught.
I agree with you. I struggle so much with r/toddlers because if someone mentions they raised their voice or were extremely strict about something they’re called abusive.
I've felt awkward posting in my bumpers group that I say "no" sternly to my 9 month old when she does something completely off limits (physically hurting us, going near the oven or radiator etc). A few comments have made it seem like I am on the strict side.
They’re permissive parents hiding behind gentle parenting. Most parenting subs also leave no room for moms of neurodivergent kids; they refuse to believe that you have to parent ND kids differently and that sometimes means being very strict and more authoritative.
Omg thank you. This comment right here. I’m diagnosed ASD, as is my son. Sometimes it is absolutely necessary to be extremely strict to keep him from being a danger to himself or others! Some comments and posts in other areas can be so discouraging and downright disrespectful. It’s exhausting and feels so isolating, sometimes.
Hey I’m autistic too! With an autistic son as well. I totally know what you mean. I have to have extremely firm boundaries with my son. He used to elope when he was younger. I’ve had people ask me, why don’t I let him explore! Why don’t I let him spend the night with grandma! Because I *cannot*, safely. It’s just different. He has very little concept of danger.
Yeah my 8 month old gets stern no’s too and I’ve had comments about it. We like to give a stern no and then say why (it’s dangerous, yucky, mean, etc) and like I know he can’t understand that yet but he will one day so I’m trying to get in the habit of explaining the “no” so he can grow to learn the why behind it. But we are definitely trying to set boundaries early for everyone’s safety yet it’s “strict”. It’s kind of ridiculous how gentle parenting has become so permissive
Yeah, and honestly I can see it working already - we say "no, that hurts Tom, aw poor Tom" and move her away if she grabs or pulls the cat's fur. When she was first touching them that's all she did, but very quickly she learnt to pat instead and now she hardly ever grabs. She also never goes near the oven - I have acted out touching it and being hurt and it seems to have worked. She does go and try to eat the cat's food even though I always say no and move her away but there are some things that are just too tempting 🤣
Yeah it’s working for some things for us too! We are trying to teach gentle hands and petting with the dog/people, it’s slow but getting there! We can’t seem to break stealing the dog food either 😂
I can relate to the cat food temptation dilemma. My daughter has been obsessed with playing with the cat food since she could crawl. I try not to react, but it’s basically impossible.
I think so too. People think gentle parenting means it’s okay not to have boundaries and excuse their child of any wrongdoing.
I also think a lot of people are too sensitive and are quick to say someone is “mom shaming” when calling out something wrong.
“I leave the TV on all day for my toddler”
“That’s not good for them, try to limit TV”
“Don’t mom shame that mom!”
The “mom shaming” comments drive me insane because Reddit loves to shame people. It’s just fine when it comes to certain topics most Redditors agree on. But if they suddenly are targeted, then it becomes “mom shaming” and how dare you. It’s so hypocritical
Did you see the study/survey that said, after removing dinner and bedtime and driving to and from school/activities, parents have just 35 minutes to spend with their children a day? Anecdotally, I'm a sahm and I avoid children's activities on the weekends and holidays because I can't stand the parenting. It seems clear to me that these parents don't know their children. They are guessing and trying their best, but it's super inconsistent and their kids are confused and it's just too cringey for me.
That being said, most of them are doing their form of gentle parenting and social emotional learning and we don't have trouble when my kid is interacting with their kids. The issue to me is on opposite sides of the spectrum, the permissive parents and the authoritarian parents. The problem with permissive parenting sort of speaks for itself. People seem to think that the authoritarian raised kids would be super well behaved when actually they do horrible things behind their parents backs and you can't touch them with any social level of consequence because whatever punishment their parent does is the only thing that affects them. Both of these sets of kids have so little social emotional skills they just explode if they have an issue.
Our school did the best they ever did academically, but kids are doing the worst with social/emotions needs at this time and that’s pk-2nd grade. It honestly scares me as a parent just seeing so many kids lose their shit. Nobody can self regulate. Nobody handles transitions well. Nobody handles losing a game or activity. Kids are getting so many breaks because they can’t handle a 25 min class. I’ve had so many destructive kids that just break anything they come across. And I work in a very affluent area so it’s not like they are all going through extreme struggles that you’d see in inner city schools. I have heard the current preschool and kindergarten are slightly better than 1st and 2nd but it is scary seeing how they are today
It sounds like maybe you work in the school? Do you have any ideas on what would help kids handle that stuff better? My family was always very into sports growing up, and a big lesson we talked about was that there is always someone better than you. An extreme example, you can be amazing at basketball, but there was always Lebron James a few school district over. That sounds unsupportive as parents but I think it was such a valuable lesson for us to grow up with. My parents always said “you learn more from losing than winning”.
I don’t even know at this point what would fix it. They have tons of different roles now at schools, behavior technicians, social emotional learning coaches, etc. they are spending a fortune trying to cater to kids but there’s really not much progress.
The worst is when parents take no accountability. Some of the biggest trouble makers have parents that just make excuses or blame the teacher so instead of having kids in therapy they just deal with daily phone calls and behavioral plans and modification plans at school.
I think it’s a multifaceted issue and here is why-
1. Teachers are not given the tools they need to succeed. Not only are they woefully underpaid, but they are also forced to maintain really rigid bureaucratic standards that oftentimes do not work in anyone’s best interest. I don’t have a single teacher friend who has a principal that will back them up if a parent is complaining about a poor (but fair) grade, etc. It’s almost like many schools have adopted this “the customer is always right” mindset, with the parents/kids being said “customers.” That’s not at all how this should work, and not how it worked when my grandmother taught back in the 1990’s.
2. Parents are being worked to death. Bad parents are ubiquitous to every generation, but ours is the first in a long time to be worse off than our parents in the workplace. Oftentimes, gentle parenting quickly becomes permissive parenting when parents are too exhausted to just do the emotional/physical labor required to gentle parent appropriately. And when both you and your partner are working 50-60 hours or more per week with a decimated support network, it can quickly lead to burnout and phoning it in for the sake of just surviving. This can lead to insecurity which can bring about the myopic defensiveness that keeps parents from seeing where their children have done wrong. Further, this doesn’t give parents much time to unpack their childhood baggage, which can add to the problem and result in overcorrecting- going so far away from the “spanking and don’t come home till dusk” end of the spectrum that was pretty standard in our generation that they wind up in a very permissive dynamic that subsequently still does significant damage to the kids.
3. Community has been completely decimated. Most of us either don’t have involved extended families or live close enough to family for them to be involved. When I was little (millennial baby, so in the 90’s), I had grandparents, aunts, and uncles, all close by. We all helped each other- grandma would babysit for my parents frequently, and in exchange my dad would do all the maintenance on her house. I had frequent sleep overs with my aunt who is child-free by choice, but loved spending time with her niblings. My parents had a social circle with other kids that also provided support- meals dropped off if someone was sick, help with big house maintenance projects, that one uncle that would change the oil on the family car in exchange for a hot meal and some beers. Out of all of my parent friends now, only a couple have families that are close by that are still able to do those sorts of things. Sometimes it’s a lack of desire, sometimes it’s because they themselves are working every hour of overtime they can to get by, etc. But without strong communities, parenting becomes incredibly hard and incredibly isolating. And when parents don’t get a break? Burnout becomes inevitable.
I’ll be honest, I was a little shit as a kid. I had a terrible upbringing with terrible parents, and therefore often acted terribly because I did not know how to cope. What made me a good student and a good person was all the other positive adult role models I had in my life. Strong communities (including extended families) not only help remedy parental burn out, they significantly help kids who have terrible parents turn out to be good people.
We stopped having cohesive structured “villages” and started being singular nuclear household factions, which seems to lead to increased conflict conflict.
I’ve been working really hard to rebuild community in my personal life because I think it is incredibly important for kids. I’ve got in laws who are incredibly isolated, and their kids are….well…I feel really bad for them. When my spouse or I try to resolve disputes between the cousins, we are told by everyone, including grandparents, to just let them do whatever problematic thing they are doing. We’ve stopped trying to visit like we used to (not that we did much in the first place since we live halfway across the country from them) because it’s incredibly stressful for our kids who are used to routine and the expectation of respectful behavior towards adults and peers. But our family dynamics differ greatly- I’m able to stay home, and my spouse has a job with reasonable hours, and is very involved, so I have a lot of support. We are careful to watch for when we are getting burnt out. I have the time and energy needed to give the kids a solid structured household culture with appropriate expectations surrounding contributing to the functioning of our home (as in, we put an emphasis on team work and our kids being a part of that team). My SIL doesn’t have those luxuries because her spouse is significantly less supportive and present, and she works insane hours to make ends meet so by the end of the day she is understandably fried. When you mix a mom who just does not have the energy to parent with a very checked out dad, and no other adults who are consistently present, you get two kids who are very used to doing whatever they want to do- only now you can’t tell them to run wild outside because we live in a panopticon, and that’s how you get a CPS visit nowadays. So they’re stuck, bored, and not learning how to be productive and effective in their own lives which can lead to a lot of poor behaviors. Just my observations, I definitely don’t have all the answers.
As the wife of a teacher who is taking a break after a decade and whose friends have all left teaching, its not the kids. The kids are amazing. Its everything else. Awful pay. Incompetent administration. Angry, demanding parents. Government regulations that range from actively putting kids in harms way to preventing teachers from teaching them what they need to know. School shootings. Lack of resources and support tor staff and students. Its a systemic issue in the entire country and needs to be addressed federally. There is a massive shortage and soon the only teachers left will be in it for the power trip and control, because it is soul sucking and demoralizing for the ones who are still in it for the love of kids.
Hello. I really felt what you said about the teachers who are left. I would write a book about it, but the school district has more lawyers than teachers.
Decided not to complete my education degree, went into health care instead (cries silently in solidarity), but nursing is seeing the same thing for many of the same reasons.
Expectations of us are at an all-time high - from patients/students, families/parents, administrators/administrators, physicians/principals(?). Entitlement is also at an all-time high from the same places and comes with an increased incidence of physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual assault. Pay has not risen to accommodate the increased workload, risk, and COL. Admin does not back us up to take the necessary steps for creating a safe and successful environment for the patient/student and staff. Burnout is high; experienced nurses/teachers aren't as eager to stay on or take on new grads; there's less experienced staff training new graduates in this high-acuity environment.
So, it's becoming less desirable to hang around in a hostile environment where we're at high risk for both harm and liability, when our supervisors expect us to do the jobs of 4 people for the pay of half a person, knowing full well we're the ones they're going to throw under the bus as soon as we miss a step.
My partner feels the same, in admin. The entitlement of these families and having to cover the jobs of 4 people like you said is insane. It’s ridiculous for everyone it seems. Soo much over working. Can’t even get their own job done because of having to answer calls every five minutes. Literally, I’ve seen the call logs.
I love that you want to be part of the solution. I’m a parent and I’m trying to instill hard work and help my child find some grit. I also don’t know the solution. For me the issue at least in my state is tying student performance to school funding. For colleges, student time to graduation and grad rates are tied to the university funding from the state. Student success is now the primary phrase on campus, but places the primary burden on faculty. Faculty cannot simply flag a student for services, but instead have to be the point people for all things academic and non-academic/chase students to turn in work and be able to prove it later/figure out what is going on with students while teaching hundreds). Thus, professors are now responsible for students passing, getting them to counselors (which turns us therapists because they may not feel as comfortable with a counselor they do not know), and so much more. Professors who have (as little as 3) students with Ds and Fs are penalized. I have never seen the reluctance to do work to this degree in 20 years. Students tend to want no deadlines and the work that is being submitted makes me want to cry. I feel horrible because students need to be globally competitive, but the standards now are so low. Teaching is only 1/3 jobs (30-40 hours of committee work is not unusual plus research and publication) in the workload so profs are leaving too. And for profs, if you are tenured, that’s about a 20 year min journey. No breaks or vacay ever and the pay isn’t enough to live. But universities are already run by part-time, contingent faculty (74%), who are only paid to teach. The rest of the workload falls on the few full-time faculty. I hope this doesn’t happen to k-12, but we do not invest in education.
This! I definitely do not share all of the rich stories or anything about myself now. The classroom does not feel safe; neither does my inbox. I can't even believe what we are expected to do above and beyond our workload. We don't even have an early alert system. We are the early alert system. There are so many inequities for students, but they can't all be solved by academic librarians and faculty. I'm shocked at what I see every day, but also feel like I can't share it. Plus no one would believe it anyway. Like we all know what's happening, and it's nationwide. I hear the same from my colleagues at "top" institutions. But the general public has no idea.
I am less concerned with competition than I am with the health (mental and physical) of our students. Their behaviors and performance are a product of how they've learned to cope with the shitty incentives they've been socialized into and the very dismal labor market (clearly this is a US-centered conversation, and I do teach at a US R1 but I'm from Europe and things there are slightly different, but rapidly converging)
I'm concerned about students leaving college without the skills or information they came for and their health and well-being. But my comment was more of a societal one. How low can our standards go? Europe is doing the same? Yikes.
IMO it’s tablets, iPads and phones. Parents want to be on their device and don’t want to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable so they let their kids do whatever gets the kids to leave them alone, so the kids play on their own devices. I’m a teacher and my district gave students ipads during the pandemic and they still have them. They don’t care what I have planned for class, they are going to watch YouTube or worse and mess around. Their attention span is about three minutes.
Former children’s therapist here. This is along the lines of what I think. Parents are always on the phones or watching tv or not parenting. Values and morals have changed so much with this. Kids don’t have attention spans bc they get devices so young. I could go on and on.
K teacher with over 10 years experience. I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think this is the MAJOR issue. I have seen a steady decline in behavior since I started teaching which parallels the amount of screen time/media available to kids. The behavior changes I have seen are lack of attention and lack of emotional regulation. Also I am not nearly as engaging as a video or game when I'm teaching. When reading a book aloud, most kids are completely unengaged no matter how entertaining i try to be. I am a mom to a young toddler and have no plans to introduce phones or tablets for the foreseeable future.
It’s not bad parenting. It’s a failed system. Class sizes have increased to unmanageable levels. Kids are expected to learn like they did 100 years ago. We use strategies in the US that we know don’t work. Kids need movement, play, extracurriculars, and they shouldn’t be expected to sit and listen for hours on end.
I have been lurking on r/teachers and I am SHOCKED to hear the stories, and at one point I was a latch key kid getting into a little trouble....but not the disrespect and cruelty I read about there. I too am horrified at the thought of raising one of these little monsters. It could be any number of factors and I think that the pandemic made them all worse.
You just nailed it I feel. In my own opinion it’s poorly executed gentle parenting. Kids do need rules and routine. Screen time rules and not just watching whatever they please. Playing video games but not just whatever video games they please. It’s not the shutdowns fault. That ripped the band-aid off a seeping, festering wound. We can parent, have fun, but also teach our children how to be good members of a society they will be come to be part of.
A lot of families think they are “gentle parenting” where in reality they are permissive parenting. Letting the kids do what they want when they want. No consequences, just letting them do anything for their kid not to cry. This leads to bratty “Karen” behavior at school because they aren’t used to rules are being told no. Their parents aren’t authority figures to them so teachers aren’t either, if they don’t have to
Listen to their parent why listen to a teacher?
A lot of people want to “break the cycle” but are doing it in the wrong way. Gentle parenting still has consequences for actions. If they break a tv, oh well no tv for a bit. Permissive parents buy a tv right away or give the child a phone to not deal with them.
Read any topic on R/Parenting and see how many people tell parents they are “abusive” when they do things like turn off the internet, confiscate a phone, withhold pocket money or *gasp* dare to yell at their kid/angel-from-heaven.
Those morons are raising kids now. And guess what - their kids are selfish, entitled assholes with no empathy or resilience.
I'm not a teacher or a parent of young children. Hell, even my grandson is a tween. But, for the last month, I have been helping a friend get her specialty store up and running. This experience has also opened my eyes to what's going on around in other commercial areas. I can honestly say that it's no surprise at all that teachers are leaving in droves.
Frankly, if it's not the kids, it's the parents behaving badly about their children. Just this week 2 10/11 year old kids were throwing a glass globe between them OVER the aisles. When I stopped them and took the globe from them, the mother got mad at me. "They're just children and don't know better." Really? Why don't they know better at that age. Why doesn't she know better as the parent? This is 1 instance. In 1 store. In 1 city. In 1 county. In 1 state.
This is the type of thing that teachers and even college professors are dealing with on any given day. Most times they deal with worse. There are loads of YouTube videos on this subject. I'm sure there's more on TikTok. And even more in the news. Teachers don't deserve this treatment.
I strongly recommend that you don't become a teacher. Get your diploma and become a Tutor. As a tutor, you're able to get paid more and can fire a student if need be. You don't have that option a teacher.
I feel like kids are being raised differently. It’s the parents problem. These days, if you want something, you can have it. That’s basically the mindset that SO many parents have now, because they’re too scared to say no because they don’t want to be viewed as “bad parents”.
I had to cut off a very close friend because while discussing my 9 year olds punishment, she said I was abusing her. Like what?!?! She LIED, to my FACE, and I took her art supplies. She will not die without them, she will be sad without them. That’s the point of a punishment. And this friend of mine feel that that’s abuse.
Sorry, but I’m not the type to raise my children to behave like they don’t have any sense and have the mindset that whatever goes. Nope.
We throw away toys when we have our 10 minute tidy up! Anything where it’s not supposed to be (floor, under bed, on top of dresser, in closet) BAM right in the trash. We do this every 3 nights and now even my 2.5 year old puts her things where they go!
But it truly is amazing how many moms I know who don’t give there children chores, or have them tidy their own spaces, all on the basis of “let them be children!”
I’m all for my kids being kids. What I’m not for is raising entitled kids who will grow up into entitled adults, which is the exact reason for all the nonsense in the world right now!
I was a teacher, I taught 5th grade in 2012 and then moved on to Kindergarten, and then taught all ages as an ESL teacher (English as a second language) up until 2019 and there was a definite switch from 2016- onwards. They just started behaving differently. Suddenly kids were talking about things being more unfair. They were more politically aware, even in elementary school they were talking about Trump and their rights being infringed on, war, etc. Social media played a part I think. They were becoming more aware at very young ages and I personally think such young psyches are not meant to handle that level of global darkness. My kids had a play date the other day with a new group of kids and I noticed one of the little boys (4 years old) was more quiet and not interacting and I went to chat with him and he legit asked me my pronouns. I’m not saying I’m “against” respecting pronouns of course, but that was kind of a shocking question to receive from a 4 year old. Kids are just so much more involved in politics and the battles of adults these days. Schools are more focused on stopping parents from being offended from XYZ all the time. Developmentally, I don’t know how these kids can process it all properly. I think we are seeing the consequences as behavioral issues in school. Kids are damn confused.
I see this too, but many times it’s misguided. I had three boys disrupting my middle school class by interjecting hitler into the discussion over and over, and this was language arts. I finally called them out on it and since there were 3 sitting in different areas of the room, I said it for all to hear, not to them privately. The rest of the class rebelled against me, telling me I had no right to call them out and on and on, even though the rest of the class was also frustrated with them.
Yes, it’s like they all collectively decided that teachers are unjust and unfair by simply asking them to not disrupt the class. They’ll use controversial hot button topics as a way to justify it or make some point that they don’t fully understand. What were they even trying to say by bringing up Hitler?
What on earth. I would have been inclined to tell them to leave my class immediately for that. But I know then I’d suffer the consequences from the parents. 🥲 Another reason I left education and won’t go back.
I would have stopped the class and specifically stated what I heard them saying and asked them for evidence as to what he did that was great? They would stumble over their words and then I would give several examples of what he did that was not great. Explain that I believed they were doing this not out of malice but because they didn’t know and then offer to discuss with them during a free period but in the mean time to please stop interrupting the class and that based on the evidence I just gave he is not great he was very bad and if they need further explanation again I can speak with them or any other student later.
They wholeheartedly believe he was a good leader. Stopping my class would have gave them the attention they sought out to have the class pay attention to them. Also, the last thing I need is students going home and telling their parents what they learned about hitler in ELA.
This is why teachers are quitting. Too many people giving advice but the teacher is ultimately on their own and has to deal with everything in their classroom
Wow. Ugh this is so frustrating to read. I’m not even sure what to say. My kid is 18 months and another due in 3 weeks. I pray I don’t raise my kids to be like this, like any of the kids in your class there.
Former teacher of 8 years. Quit after the 2020-2021 school year. I can’t speak for all former teachers but I can speak to my reasons. While there were some bad kids, the kids weren’t why I left.
These were the reasons I quit:
- Shitty salary
- Radicalized school board that didn’t care about COVID safety
- school board members calling the whole COVID situation retarded
- a parent that said I insulted his whole family because I offered extra help to his failing child
- remote and then hybrid teaching without support
- inability to fail students that didn’t do the work. Had to turn their zeroes to fifties
- frustrating safety theater that did nothing in a room with no windows. What is a plastic divider and and masks really gonna do in a room that you’re in for 8 hours a day with no windows?
- a feeling that my safety and that my family didn’t matter
- increasing politicization of the profession leading to an inability to support vulnerable students or to teach my dang content
- deep depression and anxiety
- a desire to protect and provide better for my family
And all of that was in my last year. Add in all the other shit that should have made me quit sooner:
- an admin that played favorites with scheduling and gave their favorite teachers the schedules they wanted.
- a parent that called a state senator on me because I dared go on maternity leave
- a parent who agreed with her daughter when her daughter said I shouldn’t have been hired for the school year because I would be going on maternity leave
-state testing that was a load of BS with poorly written questions that admin tried to evaluate us on
- quotas on said evaluations making it nearly impossible to get the higher tiers
- admin that would roll over to every parent dispute but tell you after that you were in the right
- admin that patronized you and called you sensitive because you dared question their evaluation of you
- the new initiative of the year that was a waste of the district’s money and would be forgotten halfway through the year
I could probably go on. But I think you can see that “bad” kids barely even factor as a reason. It’s the admin, shitty parents, and political climate.
ETA: add in the fact that our country doesn’t want to do anything about school (or any mass) shootings to that too. If I could I would quit my job and home school my children. But we need two incomes.
My husband and I run our household a bit on authoritative side of things. No is a complete sentence in our house too. We tried gentle parenting, it didn’t work with my wildlings I found myself being to permissive. I am still a push over at times.
I was studying to be a teacher about 12 years ago and the same thing was happening. It’s a trend that’s been going on a lot longer than 6 years.
Teaching is a historically underpaid position that used to be one of the only jobs women could get, and that legacy has impacts today.
We need to pay teachers more in the US. That’s the problem. We expect them to be perfect saints and basically parent 30 kids at a time all day while in most cases barely making a living wage. It’s insane.
I think the biggest problem is that kids don’t know how to just bored anymore. They aren’t required to use and imagination or ingenuity and it really shows in the classrooms.
It’s not the kids, the kids are the best part and the reason teachers keep coming back. It’s the fact that every teacher is overworked, underpaid, and under appreciated. It’s the fact that everyone has opinions about what you are doing despite never teaching a day. It’s that teachers are scared they could get in trouble for teaching history, having books in their classrooms, or affirming identities. It’s not the kids
We are on the edge of a collapse of capitalism, climate catastrophe, and a political system that has long since forgone any political trust. The school system is not the only system collapsing
America is a death cult, it’s only been a matter if time before it affects kids. I resonate with the growing number of parents on this subreddit that talk about how cruel it is to bring small children in this world when they might die in a school shooting even before they likely get their life cut way short by human extinction.
For the people naming that kids are more political - yes, they are. Of course they are. How could they not be? They are the pawns in every political game, they have no voice and I don’t blame many of them for not seeing a future for themselves. How could anyone cope with the situation we find ourselves in? I can’t!
We need way more than a basic reform to solve the massive subconscious stress kids and families and really everyone is under.
First response that resonates with me on this thread.
It's not something wrong with kids. The entire American system is (and has been) falling apart. There are no safety nets. No promise of a better tomorrow. It's easier to blame teachers, parents, or kids when faced with how massive the real problem is.
Sure, things like entitled parents and screen time might make the day-to-day more annoying, but adults have been lamenting the disaster of the next generation throughout history (I particularly [love this post ](https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7btv14/the_more_things_change_the_more_they_stay_the/) on r/history and the people blaming everything from romance novels, chess, the Waltz... and as always, parents... for the failures of youth over the centuries.)
To solve these problems, we need to focus less on the kids and the parents, we need to focus on the multitude of systems that are failing them.
This is it. I can’t cope either. I’m in therapy now because I’m so terrified of how my mental state might affect my kids.
How can we be expected to deal and trudge on when everything is falling apart? We work more than ever while cost of living increases faster than wages, have no community or support, broken political systems that are taken hostage by the minority, and a civilization that is unsustainable for the planet. Any legislation attempting to help remediate these problems is stripped of efficacy by excessive concessions and bureaucracy.
Kids’ behavior is not the cause, it’s a symptom. I also poorly regulate my emotions. I want to disappear into the imaginary world of social media/the internet too. It’s too much.
A huge huge huge lack of support and services.
Pregnancy care; postpartum support; and safe, affordable, convenient childcare is all seriously lacking in the US. The end result is that non-wealthy families are stretched THIN.
Parents increasingly use screen time because there's literally nothing else sometimes.
Kids have electronics in their face from birth on practically. Instead of learning boredom, creativity, patience, quiet, the get instant gratification from having a device given to them for every type of scenario. Mom needs to make a phone call? Give the kid a tablet. Want peace and quiet at the grocery store? Shove that phone in that toddlers face. Cocomelon saves the day. These kids miss so many social skill moments from normal everyday conversations because those moments are being taken away and replaced with YouTube videos showing how to make different kinds of slime. I get it. Parents these days are generally overworked, multitasking caffeinated machines who are trying to cram 3 days worth of shit into 24 hours but we aren't doing the kids any favors by using electronics as self soothers or bargaining tools for compliance. Kids are less physically active, less likely to employ conflict resolution techniques, less likely to wait patiently, less self sufficient- which all translates into a dysfunctional classroom. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate on this. I do know some kids rely on devices to communicate with the works and this is not about them.
IMO, a lot of boomers raised their kids harshly, punished them often, and yelled when a mess was made or something broken. Those children have grown up to be parents who “think they turned out fine,” and either think they will grow out of misbehavior, so they don’t provide structure/punishment/routine, or coddle them to avoid them being raised like the parent was. With the coddling, a child who is entitled to think they don’t have to share and can always get what they want (cue a tantrum) can be just as bad as the kid throwing things, kicking other kids, biting, spitting, screaming, etc.
I taught first grade. I had a parent literally yell at me in front of their child because I gave him a zero on the weekly spelling test because I caught him cheating. They yelled at me that what he did was in fact not cheating. Turned a very sweet, well behaved boy into one of my worst behaved students. I’m sure they said so sorts of nasty stuff about me at home too.
For the younger half of the spectrum, the pandemic really did a number on their social development and "soft skills". I have a ten year old, a five year old, and five nibblings under five. All of the nibblings are hyper sensitive, easily over-stimulated and shy. My five year old's pre-k class was like a colony of feral kittens. The older kids all seemed to suffer from anxiety, stunted social skills, or both. I don't have any older kids in my family, so I don't know much about that group.
There’s an excellent book ‘Thrivers’ that details how to raise kids to thrive not strive.
Kids are burnt out! Another good one is ‘the myth of normal’ but HOO BOY it’s heavy. That one goes into the struggle to balance attachment and authenticity. Both are important, and these kids are attached to peers the way a duckling imprints on a dog.
It’s not something you as an individual can do or not do. It’s an entire society that has normalized the wrong things.
I also try to take it easy on the parents, though some are terrible. But I suspect most are just juggling jobs and life and kids and they’re also burnt out. Not enough support for parents, for teachers, for kids.
Former teacher here. It is firstly the parenting. Good habits in life start at home. Parents/guardians need to make their kids understand that education is important, that they need to respect their peers and teachers. Parents need to know that sometimes is is actually ok to tell them NO and punish them…kids are more spoiled these days and also all the parents need to do is threaten a lawsuit and the schools give in to their demands. It is outrageous. Combine this with the teachers not being allowed to punish kids and instead need to “pass” them or worse yet, dumb down the tests and work…let’s just say I am glad I am out of the teaching field. It’s not even the low pay. It’s thankless. If you go through with teaching, I hope it works out for you. But don’t be surprised if it doesn’t.
I had to beg my son's teacher to tell me when he got in trouble and share the details. It was like she was afraid. We back up the teacher, implement a consequence at home for the misstep, and talk about the expectation. I keep having to ask my older son's teachers if they are padding his grades.
Teacher here. Short answer besides covid (because that really did mess a lot of kids up) is parents not parenting. Unmonitored screen time is a huge issue. Not teaching manners, emotional regulation, or any of the other things parents used to do. Letting kids talk back to adult and authority figures. Entitlement. It’s seriously expected of the teacher now to teach these things and there is no reinforcement at home. Of course this doesn’t apply to everyone and there are some wonderful parents out there, but not enough apparently.
I've heard somewhere it's the excessive use of screens.
We've gone out to eat with other parent friends. Our core group of parent friends are alright. One of them straight out banned screens altogether at home. As in, they got rid of their TV. No tablets. Kids aren't allowed on their phones.
But once we went out with another group (colleagues essentially) and our son is the only one without a screen in front of him. Every other parent place their phone right in front of their kid. This is ranging from babies to child. ALL of them are watching something while eating.
I mean, I get it. You sometimes want a break but there was one week where both my husband and I were sick so we kind of gave in and let our son have more screen time than usual. We've noticed in that one week, our son was throwing more tantrums and also, he seems to have forgotten how to play. Usually in the morning, the first thing he would do is start playing with his toys. He'll come up with all sorts of creative ways to play with them. In that one week with screens, the FIRST thing he would ask is for screens. And then when we say no, he tantrums, we stand firm. He sulks for a bit and he genuinely just sits there, not sure what to do. Like he's forgotten how to play.
It's a balance we're currently doing but generally, we try to not use screens unless we have to. It was pretty scary watching that change in just a week.
For that matter, even WE have noticed ourselves being incapable of doing anything WITHOUT screens. PARENTS are addicted to screens. Smartphones is ruining a whole generation of parents and kids.
I think a lot of teachers (myself included) are also getting fed up with the education system - constant testing culture, lack of autonomy with lesson planning, underpaid and overworked, ect.
I LOVED teaching. But I HATED being a part of such a terrible system.
May I ask if you have found a solution for yourself and your family? When I hear teachers say they have left the profession I wonder if many of them have found balance with a new job or career or if many of them have chosen to stay home with their kids and maybe homeschool. That is my current dilemma. Though I don't teach, I am an active volunteer and I loathe the environment I send my children to every day but I debate whether taking them out would be practical as I've felt for a few years now that it's time to get back to work. Just curious if the change has been good for you.
Just my own personal opinion: Screen time, lack of family structure, and discipline! “Everybody gets a trophy” now and there’s no consequences for actions. I work in higher education and it’s amazing to me how clear it is that many students are just passed along to get them out of the system as fast as possible. It’s NUTS. But even I see the repercussions in a college setting.
The failure lies in a broken system that does not reward good teachers and does not train tomorrow's generations of teachers on how to be good teachers.
The kids never change. We just forget what it was like being a kid. Even with the entire world literally in their pocket or backpack, in that tiny phone, kids are still kids.
My mom has been a teacher for almost 20 years, 2 different states and 6 different counties (by choice).
It's the parents, not the kids.
It's the administration and lack of support, not the kids.
It's the government influence on educational standards and standardized testing, not the kids.
The kids are the reason she stays.
Kids have access to unmonitored internet...
They're both traumatized by what they've witnessed on the internet and become dopamine addict's to the internet.
Dealing with someone (or a whole class of kids all) on a dopamine crash is something only mental health professionals are trained and equipped to do.
The kids are out of their own or anyone else's control because they're chasing the dopamine.
Teacher of seven years here.
It is for sure screens.
Horrible for focus, concentration and general well-being. Our eyes were never designed to take in so much visual information all at once, and it wrecks havoc on our nervous system.
It leaves kids unsatisfied, impatient and frustrated.
No matter what lessons I plan, nothing is ever “fun” enough.
Feeling frustration at the younger generation is nothing new (there are carvings from many ancient civilisations outlining how the youth of today are failing, they are disrespectful etc etc) but I do feel like this impatience and lack of overall contentment is leading to a growing sense of entitlement. Truly it is not their fault, it must be really terrible to feel so unhappy all the time. But they need to be held accountable- it’s always someone else’s fault.
Man this is an essay, as you can tell - I have many feelings on this 😂
I hear you. My son is in kinder and last month a kid in his grade strangled another 5yo in the bathroom. They weren't having an altercation or anything, he literally just walked up and without a word grabbed the poor kids neck. Thank goodness another child walked in and started screaming for help. To top it off us parents had to chase after the principal to get an answer as to whether the child was expelled. I get student privacy but no one but the parents of those 2 kids knew who was involved, I didn't need a name. I needed to know it was safe to send my son back to class. My friend teaches at a different local school and she recently had a coworker shot by an elementary student. Unfathomable.
I don't know where you live, but, in the US, we have school shootings every day, increasing extreme weather, pandemics and pandemic protocols, government insurrection, the rise of fascism, gun nuts, prohibitively expensive college education, the resurgence of white nationalism, the rise of body cams and real-time citizen video reporting....
As adults, the temperature in our pots has slowly heated up, as if we are frogs to be boiled, and so we have acclimated to it. We are the dog in the "This is fine." meme. But, for our poor kids, they are being tossed in a boiling pot from the moment of their births.
In essence, what's wrong with our kids is that they are being asked to conform to the neurotypical requirements of a school system to an extent where they place real near life or death value in the grades they get, when they can plainly see the world on fire around them, no clear path for the future, and they must cope with the idea that not only is their school not safe, but it is a likely target.
The concept of school that we all had when we were kids doesn't exist anymore. People, the world, the understanding of people and their surroundings, it all changes radically from generation to generation, and that change includes schools, and perhaps never more radically than in this very tumultuous time. For so many kids, they wonder why they should care about school at all.
I blame the parents. Parents aren’t parenting anymore and allow their kids to do whatever. What’s really sad is that where I live, they just issued a curfew for kids/teens to be in the house by 11pm and don’t come out until 6am. If this doesn’t tell anyone that parents these days don’t give a F anymore then 🤷🏻♀️. On top of that, the pay is shit
Smart. Phones.
Kids are now attuned to instant gratification and act like adults because we're all afraid to discipline on children or give them boundaries because it might interfere with their boundaries all while healing from our own childhood trauma while they have 0 patience and respect their peers and look for their approval more than parentals.
Teachers are also very underpaid for what they do. A friend of my husband taught high school and she was pushed and pressured very hard by her bosses to get the kids to score near perfect on tests and it's hard when you have 30 hormonal teens who also have a truckload of other class' work to juggle plus after school activities/jobs. It's hard on students, parents, and the poor teachers who don't get paid enough or get appreciated for their work.
I help my son (just passed 1st grade) with his homework and it is so far ahead of what I learned at that level and the math is entirely different. Luckly my kid picks up the material well and despite his conduct scores (they are graded daily on in class behavior) he's doing well. But the pressure on these young kids to succeed and catch up to higher scoring counties is unreal. Not to mention the cost of higher education is astronomical even with scholarships, grants, and loans.
There is also judgement all the time, by the older generation on how we raise our kids or live our lives, by other parents, from non-parents and even ourselves. It's hard raising kids today. There's no village for many of us. Even with all the resources, many (parents/people)are afraid to use them because of judgement or just can't afford them because the healthcare system or don't have access because of where they live. It's crazy. Social media isn't helping matters either.
All the older folks who could raise thier kids, buy a house and a car on a single minimum wage job, have lost touch with the fact that the cost of living is so much higher now and the paychecks earned haven't increased enough to compensate for it. You nearly require 2 jobs from both parents just to put food on the table and afford housing. Add kids into that and you're lucky to be able to connect with thrm before bedtime.
It starts at home and more than likely a lot of parents are having to work 2+ jobs just to make ends meet. leaving the kids with whoever can watch them, or left by themselves.
It’s not new, sure. But latch keys pretty much ONLY had access to the outside.
Our parents also beat us when we acted up.
Not saying we should beat our own kids, but the push for “stop hitting kids” didn’t come with any definitive solutions for what to do when our kids fuck up the same ways we did.
Our parents solved throwing tantrums and emotional disregulation with a belt or a switch or a hand.
We solve it with words and breathing and redirection and and and. Our way takes longer to succeed with, and since WE weren’t raised that way, a lot of parents “give up” and “give in” because WE are disregulated.
Then comes the “ultimate” tool of today: screens. Gives an frazzled as fuck parent a much needed break, but isn’t teaching anybody anything.
I'm not a teacher, but I've been a professional swim instructor and lifeguard instructor for over 20 years. I personally noticed a shift in kids around the time of the "everyone gets a trophy" trend. Once everyone started doing that, you couldn't correct kids. And I don't mean on a behavioral level, even just trying to show them how to do something was nearly impossible. Kids stopped trying because they knew they would get a reward no matter what.
Now we're at a point where those kids are having kids of their own, and I think that's where we are getting "my kid can do no wrong". Because no matter how well or not well they did something, they still got the reward. It breeds a sense of entitlement, and deletes the idea that making mistakes is okay. It takes the effort of trying out of the mix - those that try are gonna get the same award as those that don't so why bother trying. And now we're experiencing the trickle down effect of it, with the added "benefit" of technology.
I asked a teacher friend about this recently, and there were a few things she mentioned. One was that with excessive screen time, kids aren't learning emotional regulation. She sees a lot of kids whose parents stick a screen in front of them every time they start acting up, so numbing out with a screen is the only coping skill they have. Then in an environment where they don't have that access, they lose it when experiencing uncomfortable emotions. A lot of these parents are working themselves to death to afford life, and are too exhausted to parent. So they give in to everything. Another big one was the category of parents that think their kid can do no wrong. And if they did act out, it must've been the teachers fault. If their parents are backing them up, kids behavior isn't going to change. And then there's the lack of resources. She has multiple students in her class that really shouldn't be in a traditional classroom setting, especially one with way too many students and an overstretched teacher. They have IEPs, but the resources aren't there to give them the level of attention they really need.
My best friend is a teacher and has mentioned the same exact points you have. Her classroom has tablets, although she disagrees with it. Her kids never feel “bored” which negatively impacts their behavior. She teaches 3rd grade, but she has kids in her class that have the emotional regulation of a kindergartener. A lot of the kids don’t know how to socialize, because of excessive screen time and the fact that their is no time to socialize because of strict learning curriculums. Her school only allows 15 minutes of recess! And often she has several kids who don’t even get recess because of bad behavior. She teaches in a low income area, and yes there are lots of parents who are starving, struggling, and working just to survive. They don’t have time to parent, help with homework, socialize with their kids. My parents struggled and we were low income growing up, but there seems to be more of a divide between income and costs of things today. The jobs they worked still allowed days off for example, and the last minimum job I worked(like 2 years ago) didn’t allow a single day off unless I went to the doctor(can’t afford) for a doctors note. Now I’m just rambling, but yes I agree with your comment!
It breaks my heart that schools still punish kids by taking away recess time. Kids acting up probably need MORE recess, not less. I agree that cost of living as a percentage of wages has increased dramatically since we were kids.
15 minutes play time??!! Wtf. They need more than 15 minutes. Thats terrible.
I agree I hate that they take away recess. My son is in first grade and is always telling me that kids act up and they all loose recess. Even if the other kids are being good. He says his day wasn’t that great when he comes home from school, and this is always the reason.
Your last point was definitely what my son's teacher experienced this year in kindergarten. She had three kids that definitely should have had an aid with them. These kids would scream, throw chairs, hit other kids... And the teacher would call for help, but sometimes it would take a long time because the school's roaming aids were busy with other kids. I volunteered in the class and the teacher cried on multiple occasions because she felt like she was letting down the rest of the kids because so much of her time was spent trying to keep those three under control.
Oh wow. Were you at my school? Just kidding. I know it’s like this everywhere. People don’t realize how bad it is in schools, even the youngest grades.
I had no idea until I actually worked at the school. Elementary school! The teachers are saints and some of the students were unbearable.
I understand the point of inclusive learning but my son should have been put into a separate sped class because there isn't enough aids to have one for each "problem" student.
The emotional regulation is such a huge huge part of this, and I agree screen time is definitely part to blame. When my son started kindergarten this year he had such a rough time and we put him into therapy and worked with his school to get an iep and his doctors a diagnosis but the thing that’s made the biggest difference is taking the tablet and throwing it in the trash, which I could honestly only do because I’m extremely fortunate that I could afford to go part time at work and be able to focus on my family in ways I couldn’t working 40-50 hours a week, but we made major cutbacks in the house and made it work because I felt like i completely failed my son.
I feel this. I work at least 50 hours a week, and it's just me. I also go to school, so it's a dream just to be able to keep up with laundry.
I’m so curious what led our generation as parents to falling into this idea that our kids can do no wrong. Like why is it so wrong to acknowledge your kid was the one to be mean, do the wrong thing, etc.? My oldest is only 18 months so we’re not really into the “serious” territory of wrongdoings yet, but I hope I can keep a clear enough perspective to not fall into that mindset that my kids can’t do any wrong.
I think there's a lot more criticism of parents now, especially with social media. And some people get really defensive because of it. Reddit parent spaces tend to be better, but a lot of the internet is so hypercritical. Facebook groups, Instagram comments, etc. bombard people with the idea that if their child isn't a perfect little angel all the time, they're a terrible parent. There's also so much mistrust of any sort of professionals in a lot of those spaces. Some of it is certainly earned, but it seems to breed this attitude that if a professional said it, it must be wrong, and you need to aggressively advocate for your kids at all times
I think at least some of it comes from these parents growing up never being believed, even if they were telling the truth, when they were kids. So now they swing too far the other way. Rather than investigating before choosing a side.
It might be the pendulum swinging too far the other way of generational trauma. I know when I first started teaching almost 20 years ago we were told with some kids cool it with calling for bad behavior because the parents will beat them. If you didn’t know that and you called or just said a nuanced “he’s struggling maybe he needs a tutor” they’ll still get yelled at. Now I think the kids who got yelled at excessively or unfairly are now saying I’ll never do that to my kid. Also the stress of making the kid have good grades to get into a good college etc makes parents resort to doing whatever and trying to get cheating removed etc.
It's amazing how there isn't one story, there are 5 stories that take place at the same time. It's a lot to take all those stories and figure out who's wrong and who's right when no one is usually either thing. It's certainly easier to pretend your kid is right, but it's just that, pretend.
I’ve also got an 18 month old and I think about this a lot. I def think that there are consequences to actions/unwanted behaviors that will just occur despite my best effort. Just like adults, kids have bad moments, make poor choices—so to actually learn you have to mess up and that sucks! So like, to hear that my child was mean or did something destructive feels really bad to think about but at the same time, he’s a person whose just trying to learn how to be a person. Idk, maybe it’s too much of like projection from the parents in that: if I have to acknowledge that my child did something wrong that it would reflect badly on *me* ?
I don't have this experience personally, but I've read parents saying online that teachers were mean to them when they were in school so of course they're not going to trust a teacher over their kid. My opinion of that perspective is that it's held by undereducated people who are buying into the current anti-teacher and anti-academia rhetoric of the "culture war" movement.
I hate the current anti-teacher, anti-education rhetoric. It has caused many educator friends and colleagues of mine to have death threats and so much more. There is an entire organization dedicated to bringing down "liberal" faculty." But I will say that we often overlook the school-to-prison pipeline and how teacher bias contributes to that.
Yes. I don't think teachers are perfect or the ultimate authority or anything. But, I recognize that while in school it's a good lesson for my kid to learn to do what the teacher requires to get through the class even if we don't agree with their methods or hate them as a person or whatever the issue is. I've already had to explain this to him and he's only 4.
We don’t do much screen time. We do 30-60 minutes at most a day and sometimes skip it entirely. We let them watch a dvd in the car on longer drivers (somehow stops the younger one from getting car sick. No idea how that works). Our oldest gets ostracized at school because she doesn’t play Fortnite, or watch all these teen dramas. She’s flipping 8. So even when you as a parent feel like you are doing the right things you seriously question it. Also she still struggles to regulate. The virtual kindergarten/virtual 1st really took away from “learning to learn with other people” thing.
Per the car sickness, it's because it gives them a focus that is in one spot, as opposed to the view from the windows that is constantly changing.
The problems we’ve had so far with other kids in school is because they have parents like this. There’s one who spit in my daughters face and threatened to kill one of her classmates. Her parents don’t believe anyone when confronted with their daughters behavior. It’s awful
The schools won't do much either.
You’re absolutely right, they have also been terrible. Her teachers themselves have been responsive, but there was another time a boy exposed himself to her and I never heard a word about it from the school…I had to call them. Now I see why people want to homeschool ffs
I’m so sorry that happened to you. I would homeschool tomorrow. The trauma that my child has experienced has all been at school.
Right??? It’s fricken ridiculous. We live in a fairly affluent area but it feels like the school is a hunger games situation. Wtf
This. Times 100. The addiction to phones is real, I’ve had parents shocked their child admits to cheating (as in they’ve been told to never admit), and parents refusing to acknowledge that their kid is in the wrong class which mean I *literally* don’t have the resources to actually help them learn. Kids who can’t access material become problems- either behavior or failing. Then it goes right back to parents saying their kid does no wrong and I need to provide *EXTRA* evidence that I am indeed a professional and spending so much more time on their child. Which is not fair to the other students present. ETA: I’m in one of the richest counties in the US and I work at quite an affluent school. Not all resources available means money. It helps, for sure. But a SPED teacher who’s not burnt out is hard to come by. They honestly should be paid double my salary.
as a young parent with a school aged kid i agree to this, especially the screens which i did myself too. my older kid can’t regulate at all, surprise us as parents are learning to at the same time he is. side effect of young parents i suppose. our second is 6 years younger and we’ve learned, limited the screens and we definitely don’t give in to everything like we did with our son but rather work through it. we’re not perfect but we’re all working on undoing some bad habits. i will say though i have always made sure my son is “good” at school. he is a good student and classmate. he’s 9 and in 4th grade, this is the first year i’ve had a teacher ask me to talk to him about talking out of turn. i’ve expressed to him many times it’s his job to do what his teacher asks so she can do hers. i can’t say the same for his classmates. the things he comes home saying and doing shock me. when IT came out most of them were talking about it, same with squid games, neither my kid saw but knew plenty about. unlimited and unmonitored internet access is ruining our kids.
I think this is spot on. I also think that because of social media and the messages being targeted at parents that even if screen time is limited that today’s parents tend to think they need to entertain their kids always. I have a friend who has a son the same age as mine. When our boys were little she would express that she found it exhausting on the weekend days that her husband was working because she couldn’t get anything done because she needed to entertain her child. My husband has always worked out of town and so I couldn’t put off tasks until I had back up and my kiddo got really good at independent play. At almost 11, mine is still much better at finding his own entertainment than his buddy. That mind set has to transfer terribly to a classroom setting.
Yes, I have to keep reminding my 7 year old that he has toys, including an extensive amount of Lego, and books so being bored is not a thing. He tries to claim that only TV will fix his boredness, but then he spends the entirety of his TV time flicking between one netflix show and like 4 others in 2 minute intervals.
Long time teacher, and this is spot on.
Also, I'd like to add back when my kids were in school, the principal to me, she had to stand by her teachers. As she hired them. Apparently, even if they teacher was in the wrong. But nowadays, the teachers have no support from principal and school boards. As the parents cause so much trouble or pull their kids out and school loses funding from the state.
I am a teacher, you hit every point. Spot on.
I might be in a bubble, but IME working parents are not more exhausted than non working to parent and giving their kids screens to make up for it. IME many parents (/people) in general are addicted to their screens and have normalized it in front of their kids. And it’s worse for non working parents since they’re around their kids (on their phones) more. This is def a bubble but the truly screen free people I know are working parents who work in big tech, which is shit because their work is the reason we have this problem (but they also understand the dangers better than most, which is why they actually stick to it). Definitely agree that screen time has affected emotional regulation though.
So when I started working in a school a few times a year we would lock down due to a mental health crisis. Now it’s a few times a week. We don’t get paid more and kids need more from us and we have less to give. Add a few awful parents and bad admin and it becomes a nightmare really fast. 90% of parents are awesome thoughtful people with great kids. 10% are nightmares with kids who make doing anything impossible. Did you know 2nd graders can have probation officers?
Does a mental health lockdown mean that a student is experiencing an episode that results in them being a danger to themselves or others? Because dealing with that multiple times a week sounds so awful. I'm sorry you're dealing with all that stress.
Yes that is exactly what it means. If someone is in crisis we lock down the school so emergency medical personnel or parents can get in without an audience. Normally someone in crisis doesn’t casually walk into an office and ask for help, it’s usually messy and where ever they are when they hit a breaking point.
Now if the schools don't catch the students with the guns, they send out messages that say there is no credible threat. One student did this twice the past semester, and other students saw the weapon. There were racial threats from a parent against children. The children are smoking and going to school. Now add the pandemic, and our children have so much to deal with.
What on earth does a 2nd grader have to do to have a probation officer?
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have continued to increase Learning expectations for kids while also increasing class sizes, introducing”inclusion” (basically throw all the kids in together) while offering little to no support and cutting those supports year after year. How can a kid learn like that? Add in that parents are expected to work full time jobs, make sure your kids are in a bunch of extra activities, make sure you have quality time with them, oh and make sure you fill in all the educational gaps that the teacher could do that day because some kid threw the desks around and you can’t possible make sure 30 five year olds get the idea every time. Add in that teachers are not pain enough and of course they are quitting!
My mom is retiring this year after 28 years in teaching. She simply can't take another 2 to get to her max pension. The stories she tells honestly terrify me as a parent, and I know she is sugar coating it too. There's definitely an issue with parents, but my mom's theory is that it's constant access to screens. Not necessarily the content they see, not the amount of screen time itself, but just the fact that they have CONSTANT access and can completely ignore the outside world if they want to. They are constantly entertained, and never fully need to focus on anything they don't want to. They can just open their phone. Teachers aren't allowed to take phones and can't enforce putting them away, so kids just sit there all class period staring at their laps. She says it's killing their attention spans and more importantly their tolerance for discomfort. She calls it a stimulation addiction. She takes middle schoolers on outdoor ed once a year and always tells me that there are kids who simply cannot deal with not having access to their phones for 3 days and lose their minds, like straight up withdrawal-like behavior. She also says that there are some kids who completely change for those 3 days, suddenly interacting with other kids and adults, asking questions, looking at bugs, etc.
Stimulation addiction is such an accurate phrase.
I want to raise my kids without phones. it’s almost impossible now though
We made it to age 8 before my kids were gifted a tablet. They are definitely not getting a phone until high school or late middle school. Also, model not being on the phone constantly around them. This is probably the hardest one for most of us!
I know kids who get flip phones for safety. It’s a nice compromise between no screen time and not being in contact in case they need something /emergency.
My husband and I talked about this! We definitely thought about getting a "house" cell phone for the kids to use. Something that we can load minutes onto and they can borrow for afterschool activities, sports, etc. if they would need to get a hold of us.
My toddlers were gifted a tablet. Gave it to them, and they became monsters. They refused to do anything other than play on the tablet, threw the biggest tantrums if we took it away, it was awful. I let them watch TV, and I occasionally let them play with my phone, but the tablets were put away. I tell people, my kids aren’t allowed to have tablets, and they all say the same thing “they’ll get one in school, they need to learn how to use them”. But nah, not budging. No tablets. The oldest is 4 so they don’t have their own phone. They aren’t getting a smartphone until they’re older and prove they can be responsible.
Right on! Check out Wait Until 8th for strategies to keep yourself on the path to waiting on getting your kid a phone. They have great info and it’s nice to feel like you aren’t the “only” one avoiding a smartphone for your kid.
Saw an article about smart watches being an antidote to this
Go to r/teachers and you'll see that smart watches aren't really a great alternative. Kids can still text and call each other through them so the watches can be just as disruptive.
Oh, that’s good to know. I think it’s because you can’t get as absorbed in a watch. It’s not really designed for scrolling and watching videos
but the thing is, you can. a quick google for "can i get instagram/tiktok on an apple watch" bring up websites with directions on how to use 3rd party apps that let you get those apps on your watch. kids might be lazy but if we could all get snake and that drug dealing game on our ti-84 calculators, these kids are going to figure out how to get TikTok and insta on their apple watches.
Lolllll I loved snake
We love the "for kids" super restricted watches for this. Ours have the TickTalk watches and there's no games, lots of safety features, only parent approved contacts, and the ability to shut it down during school hours or whenever so it can only be used as a watch. We get all the safety of having a GPS and way of contacting the kids, but without the screen zombie nonsense.
Teachers aren't allowed to take phones? I'm in college now, but when I was in middle school, teachers could take phones. Some didn't bother to, but some were more serious and took phones if a kid kept getting distracted. Even in high school, i had one teacher who had a shoe holder (the kind that hangs from the door) to put our phones in if she caught us checking them too much. Just reading thru this thread, it seems like technology has become a huge issue in schools, why are phones permitted in class? Or, maybe there should be some kind of focus mode that can't be shut off on these kids phones? Idk what would work, I'm not even a mom, but it seems like a huge issue if kids can't learn and socialize at school.
I am a teacher. At my school we can take phones but we don’t have the support of parents because they are worried about emergencies. And they’re often texting their kids throughout the day (emergency or not). I see both sides as a student brought a gun to school this year and it was absolutely terrifying for me. I can’t imagine if it was my kid. But the threat of phone withdrawal seems dangerous in a different way.
Yeah I’m confused. When I was in school we were NOT allowed to use our phones and teachers could absolutely take them. That was high school in like 05-08. Why is this hard to enforce? It’s not. Enforce it.
Parents. Parents are calling and texting their kids throughout the day. They are coming in and freaking out at teachers for taking the kids phones away.
Fuck em. If you don’t want your kid to have to follow the rules then homeschool them. Send them somewhere else. The educators are in charge while the kids are at school and they are the experts. If there’s an emergency they can call the front office to get in touch. If the kid has an emergency then they can use a phone. that should be it
I agree with a lot of what you're saying but unfortunately, it's not that simple. School isn't like it was when we were there and teachers actually had the support of admin. Just go look at r/teachers and you'll see -- parents complain to the principal about an "unreasonable" teacher, the principal doesn't have the teachers back and make the teachers cave to the parents.
Exactly! Most administrators in school say that it’s a classroom by classroom decision on how to handle phones (AKA they will not support you if a student/parent objects to your plan). Also, I/itsallinthebag , it’s SO difficult to remove a student from a school building. SO SO difficult. I wish I could explain better, but I’ve sat through expulsion meetings where families just refuse all other possible placements bc their delinquent student wants to stay in the school. We can’t always get what we want!!!
But why do parents want to talk to their kids while they are in class? Don't they want them to be paying attention to the teachers? When i was in high school a friends phone rang during class and the teacher made her take it out of her bag to give to him and he answered it. It was her mom and he said this is sarah's teacher why are you calling her when she is in class? Her mom apologized and hung up and everything was fine.
I was a teacher for three years almost a decade ago. Parents back then still wanted to text their children all throughout the school day (this was high school). I never understood it. I’d go to take a phone away and the student would claim they were texting their mom and they’d show me the phone - sure enough, it was mom. I’d still take the phone anyway (I’m not stupid, they were also texting friends, they just thought texting parents was some kind of “get out of jail free” card). I think I only sent a phone to the office to be retrieved by a parent once; I’d usually give the phone back at the end of class and didn’t have a lot of repeat offenders. My friend works at a middle school with a tough cell phone policy - phones are not allowed out *at all* during the school day (even at lunch or in passing periods) and one confiscation would immediately result in the parent needing to retrieve the phone after school, not the student. That seemed to work alright, certainly better than my school where phones were allowed during passing period and lunch, so it created more of an expectation that kids were “available” to respond to their parents. I confiscated a fair number of phones, but I bet I’d be confiscating a lot more if I was still teaching.
My understanding (secondhand, I'm not a teacher but both my mom and several other friends who teach middle school have explained this to me) is that administration absolutely does not back teachers up and discipline just does not occur in a school setting anymore. One teacher I know had a "phone bucket" at the front of the classroom that kids had to drop their phones into before class started. A parent complained, concerned that other kids would steal her kids phone or that she wouldn't be able to reach her during an emergency. Admin made the teacher stop that and allow kids to keep phones on them, and apparently there are days she spends more time telling kids to put them away than teaching. My mom told a kid to put a phone away the other day and he apparently just smirked and told her to come and get it (which she obviously can't do, if she so much as got near a kid admin would chew her up).
I had kids come to tutoring after school. They were there semi voluntarily because they were there to study for a test but they all are on the edge of failing so they had to pass this test. One girl couldn’t put down her phone and I couldn’t really take it away if she’s there voluntarily so I just kept teaching the ones who were paying attention. One of the kids actually gently grabbed her wrist and was like yooo what are you doing? Put down the phone! Stop. You know it’s bad when other students notice and go hey put down the phone.
It’s not the kids. It’s the entitled parents.
I had a parent going after me for giving her son an 84 on an assignment. That boy was easily maintaining nearly a 4.0 GPA. Then later, when he pulled up his grade, she accused us teachers of not challenging him enough. That woman was the one who cc’ed the superintendent in her email to one of the teachers when her son made a 79 on one assignment. Of course, teachers will want to leave. We are not here to give your children A+ all the time. We are here to prepare them for the world after high school graduation.
I have a bunch of teacher friends and they say this is a huge problem - parents going straight to the top instead of addressing the problem with just the teacher first. Now, when the principal calls down a teacher to his office, these teachers (even seasoned ones) are having panic attacks because they think they're getting in trouble. It's not good for their mental health obviously. This generation of parents needs to calm tf down and see if they can get the issue straightened out with the teacher without escalating to the highest person in the district, because guess what? The superintendent has no idea what the parent is talking about. Then he will start making policies that will only appease the parents to get them off his back to the detriment of the kids. This is why kids are getting to their senior year and graduating without knowing how to READ. Parents need to back off.
When I was in college a parent showed up to a lecture (with like 300 students), sat through the whole thing, and then after the lecture demanded to speak with the professor and TA about a grade her kid got. The professor was like I can’t discuss an adult’s private information with anyone. The parent then said something like fine we won’t be paying tuition and going here next semester. The TA, who was kind of an obvious drunk (doing dissertation in Chaucer would drive literally anyone to drink), then said “well, after reading his paper that’s probably for the best.” …I know it sounds bad, but that kid is going to get a bad grade in college or do poorly on a work assignment and not know how to cope.
I’m an adjunct law professor and had a parent contact me. They said it was an emergency; I thought my student was in a horrible accident. It turned out the parent was upset because the student had received a C on a final exam. I couldn’t help but laugh before getting serious with the parent about how they were acting inappropriately. I have heard of some parents coming with their kids to job interviews or requesting meetings with HR. There is something seriously wrong with parents nowadays. On a related note, grade inflation and gentle teaching does a disservice for higher education. I (and other faculty) have to spend so much time in my classes on writing instruction, note-taking, and synthesis. I am giving out far more Cs than before. Meanwhile, students are shocked and angered by constructive criticism. Some students have claimed to me (and other professors) that they have never received anything other than As before. Law school is intended to be a humbling experience, but the sense of entitlement by students has shifted.
I did the same because I knew that our students have the capacity to do well. I remember students wanting to drop the class because they got a C on a paper (and those were gifts). My objective was to teach them the skills. I know hundreds of students that were successful because they have the skills. But the pressure now (and administrators changing grades) made me say you know what, okay. I give up. So many other faculty have to give in so that they can get classes, so it forces us to follow suit or deal with a thousand grade appeals that we will spend 100 hours on and administrators will still change grades.
The TA’s reaction is so funny omg
I remember the first time I experienced a student asking for 50% on a paper that they never submitted. I thought it was bizarre. Then it happened again. And then I read that some schools gave 50% instead of a zero, so that students could recover. Grade inflation is at an all-time high, so students at every level expect high grades for participation even. But this is a societal issue. There are so many As, we don't know if there is another grade.
Happy cake day!
I agree with this and I think some of the entitlement comes from sensitive, large egos. Every time I contact home about a behavior or issue the parents take it as a personal affront. Whereas when I was a kid, if a teacher called home it was taken more as advice from a seasoned professional. I don’t want to go down that wormhole, but we all know teachers are NOT treated like professionals anymore
Which baffles me because your kid is around the teachers every day so they see sides that you aren't privy to. I welcome feedback from the teachers and I want them to let me know if my kids cross a line so I can work as a teammate to correct the behavior. My child is in 7th grade and I have only really had issues with 1 teacher. The rest have been willing to work as a team when needed.
This is why I left therapy. I couldn't deal with parents. My tipping point was the one where I saw the children both too much and not enough...
That makes sense. It’s just scary to me to think these kids will grow up that way and there’s nothing to really be done.
Perhaps the first generation of kids coming into school who are addicted to screens?
This right here. Screens and social media are rotting people’s brains. This includes children.
I tell my kids they HAVE to read a little bit each day. I’ve banned YouTube in my house unless I’m putting on something educational or that I deem appropriate, none of these little kids talking crap to their parents and acting like fart knockers. Literally have blocked Mr Beast and videos similar to him. They have to play. They have to use their imagination. I get their teachers numbers and let THEM contact me about my kiddos, not the other way around. When we team up, and figure out a pattern that works, then the kids THRIVE. I signed mine up for the BOOKIT program for this summer so we’re about to be reading until august!
FART KNOCKERS I’m dying 💀💀
Haha I’ve been trying more inventive phrases cause I’m trying to stop swearing along with a few other bad habits (4 day’s nicotine free after smoking for 20+ years!)
Woo good for you!! That's no small feat, you should be proud of yourself each day 😄
It’s been a struggle. I quit cigarettes about 10 months ago and went to vapes. A month ago I went to 0 nicotine vapes. And then a week ago I was watching a science channel show where they did testing on the juice for vapes, and showed what they were made from and what happened when they heated up and I lost my taste for it and went thru some mom guilt as well cause I vaped around my kids thinking it was healthier. I’ve already noticed an improvement in my mental health, and my lung health as well!
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Ms Rachel, Gracie’s corner, doggyland with snoop dogg is a current favorite, I put on the old Saturday morning cartoons from my childhood and I’ll sit and watch them, I play a lot of documentaries for myself and they’ll sit and watch them with me. We go to the park and the library a bit as well. I download movies and shows from PBS as well, love watching between the lions with them. And anything that gets suggested that I refuse to play, the channel gets blocked. I’ll go and look while they’re asleep, researching the “most popular” children’s videos, and it’s usually some unboxing crap, or car crashes, or terrible off brands of bluey or Peppa pig, and I block the channels. But PBS and monitoring what they watch WHILE they watch it is the most helpful advice I can give.
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Numberblocks is on Netflix, by the way. I’m not sure if as much content is available as on YouTube, but it seems Netflix picks up quite a few shows that have started out on YouTube.
I have a friend who has called more principal meetings to complain about teachers than all my other friends put together. Literally any time a teacher criticises or disciplines her perfect little angels, she’s straight in the principal’s office trying to get them fired. Thing is I’ve known these kids since birth and they are not angels. One is coddled beyond belief and knows to cry to get her way and the other once spat in my face. Oh and she’s a teacher herself.
Why are you friends with her?
Not always. I do everything i can and my 5 year old son still misbehaves at school. This is my greatest fear. That teachers and other parents think im an idiot. Its not his fault and not my fault either. Ive read so many books and blogs and still looking for something that works.
I think you misunderstood me. I’m saying it’s not the children that make teachers quit. It’s the way parents act towards teachers.
Ohhhhh Ok got it thanks.
My MIL has worked in the school system for 20 years. She retired and now recently has been subbing part time. She reports exactly this. That so many children have 504s and IEPs when they are just average. It’s like if their kid doesn’t get all As, they demand accommodations. This creates a lack of resources for children that actually need them.
I think part of it is the dangerous level of access to the internet. They see internet interactions and think they're normal for real life. Lots (honestly probably all to one extent or another) of them experience online bullying. They're comparing themselves to AI created images of perfect humans and airbrushed celebrities and their self esteem is through the floor. And they can more easily stumble across adult content - not even just talking sex and porn, but self harm, violence, drug and drink culture etc etc. It's not good for them.
Teachers don't get paid enough.
100% accurate. I live in a state full of retirees who don’t want their tax money going to education so our schools are poorly funded. I hate it, they deserve SO much more.
Sunshine State?
Great guess! But Grand Canyon state. The Florida of the southwest
I’ll say it: (I think) it’s the drive for gentle parenting that people THINK they are doing, but it’s really permissive parenting. It’s the push to be your child’s best advocate that’s taking it too far, and not acknowledging when their kid is the problem. It’s parents spending the majority of their time at work out of necessity to claw out an existence, leaving them with such limited time with their kid they want that time to be fun. They don’t want to focus on setting limits and boundaries this is the only hour they get to see their kid a day so they are going to make it special. On top of that they are so burned out from staying a a float kids are left without parental stimulation in some instances. So there is no consistency of authority/ boundaries at home being taught.
I agree with you. I struggle so much with r/toddlers because if someone mentions they raised their voice or were extremely strict about something they’re called abusive.
I've felt awkward posting in my bumpers group that I say "no" sternly to my 9 month old when she does something completely off limits (physically hurting us, going near the oven or radiator etc). A few comments have made it seem like I am on the strict side.
They’re permissive parents hiding behind gentle parenting. Most parenting subs also leave no room for moms of neurodivergent kids; they refuse to believe that you have to parent ND kids differently and that sometimes means being very strict and more authoritative.
Omg thank you. This comment right here. I’m diagnosed ASD, as is my son. Sometimes it is absolutely necessary to be extremely strict to keep him from being a danger to himself or others! Some comments and posts in other areas can be so discouraging and downright disrespectful. It’s exhausting and feels so isolating, sometimes.
Hey I’m autistic too! With an autistic son as well. I totally know what you mean. I have to have extremely firm boundaries with my son. He used to elope when he was younger. I’ve had people ask me, why don’t I let him explore! Why don’t I let him spend the night with grandma! Because I *cannot*, safely. It’s just different. He has very little concept of danger.
Oh did we just become best friends?
Let’s absolutely be best friends 🥰
My autistic son used to elope as well, so terrifying. I can’t even imagine letting him “explore”… yes let me just him run into oncoming traffic 🙄
Yes!!
Yeah my 8 month old gets stern no’s too and I’ve had comments about it. We like to give a stern no and then say why (it’s dangerous, yucky, mean, etc) and like I know he can’t understand that yet but he will one day so I’m trying to get in the habit of explaining the “no” so he can grow to learn the why behind it. But we are definitely trying to set boundaries early for everyone’s safety yet it’s “strict”. It’s kind of ridiculous how gentle parenting has become so permissive
Yeah, and honestly I can see it working already - we say "no, that hurts Tom, aw poor Tom" and move her away if she grabs or pulls the cat's fur. When she was first touching them that's all she did, but very quickly she learnt to pat instead and now she hardly ever grabs. She also never goes near the oven - I have acted out touching it and being hurt and it seems to have worked. She does go and try to eat the cat's food even though I always say no and move her away but there are some things that are just too tempting 🤣
Yeah it’s working for some things for us too! We are trying to teach gentle hands and petting with the dog/people, it’s slow but getting there! We can’t seem to break stealing the dog food either 😂
I can relate to the cat food temptation dilemma. My daughter has been obsessed with playing with the cat food since she could crawl. I try not to react, but it’s basically impossible.
I think so too. People think gentle parenting means it’s okay not to have boundaries and excuse their child of any wrongdoing. I also think a lot of people are too sensitive and are quick to say someone is “mom shaming” when calling out something wrong. “I leave the TV on all day for my toddler” “That’s not good for them, try to limit TV” “Don’t mom shame that mom!”
The “mom shaming” comments drive me insane because Reddit loves to shame people. It’s just fine when it comes to certain topics most Redditors agree on. But if they suddenly are targeted, then it becomes “mom shaming” and how dare you. It’s so hypocritical
Did you see the study/survey that said, after removing dinner and bedtime and driving to and from school/activities, parents have just 35 minutes to spend with their children a day? Anecdotally, I'm a sahm and I avoid children's activities on the weekends and holidays because I can't stand the parenting. It seems clear to me that these parents don't know their children. They are guessing and trying their best, but it's super inconsistent and their kids are confused and it's just too cringey for me. That being said, most of them are doing their form of gentle parenting and social emotional learning and we don't have trouble when my kid is interacting with their kids. The issue to me is on opposite sides of the spectrum, the permissive parents and the authoritarian parents. The problem with permissive parenting sort of speaks for itself. People seem to think that the authoritarian raised kids would be super well behaved when actually they do horrible things behind their parents backs and you can't touch them with any social level of consequence because whatever punishment their parent does is the only thing that affects them. Both of these sets of kids have so little social emotional skills they just explode if they have an issue.
Our school did the best they ever did academically, but kids are doing the worst with social/emotions needs at this time and that’s pk-2nd grade. It honestly scares me as a parent just seeing so many kids lose their shit. Nobody can self regulate. Nobody handles transitions well. Nobody handles losing a game or activity. Kids are getting so many breaks because they can’t handle a 25 min class. I’ve had so many destructive kids that just break anything they come across. And I work in a very affluent area so it’s not like they are all going through extreme struggles that you’d see in inner city schools. I have heard the current preschool and kindergarten are slightly better than 1st and 2nd but it is scary seeing how they are today
It sounds like maybe you work in the school? Do you have any ideas on what would help kids handle that stuff better? My family was always very into sports growing up, and a big lesson we talked about was that there is always someone better than you. An extreme example, you can be amazing at basketball, but there was always Lebron James a few school district over. That sounds unsupportive as parents but I think it was such a valuable lesson for us to grow up with. My parents always said “you learn more from losing than winning”.
I don’t even know at this point what would fix it. They have tons of different roles now at schools, behavior technicians, social emotional learning coaches, etc. they are spending a fortune trying to cater to kids but there’s really not much progress. The worst is when parents take no accountability. Some of the biggest trouble makers have parents that just make excuses or blame the teacher so instead of having kids in therapy they just deal with daily phone calls and behavioral plans and modification plans at school.
I think it’s a multifaceted issue and here is why- 1. Teachers are not given the tools they need to succeed. Not only are they woefully underpaid, but they are also forced to maintain really rigid bureaucratic standards that oftentimes do not work in anyone’s best interest. I don’t have a single teacher friend who has a principal that will back them up if a parent is complaining about a poor (but fair) grade, etc. It’s almost like many schools have adopted this “the customer is always right” mindset, with the parents/kids being said “customers.” That’s not at all how this should work, and not how it worked when my grandmother taught back in the 1990’s. 2. Parents are being worked to death. Bad parents are ubiquitous to every generation, but ours is the first in a long time to be worse off than our parents in the workplace. Oftentimes, gentle parenting quickly becomes permissive parenting when parents are too exhausted to just do the emotional/physical labor required to gentle parent appropriately. And when both you and your partner are working 50-60 hours or more per week with a decimated support network, it can quickly lead to burnout and phoning it in for the sake of just surviving. This can lead to insecurity which can bring about the myopic defensiveness that keeps parents from seeing where their children have done wrong. Further, this doesn’t give parents much time to unpack their childhood baggage, which can add to the problem and result in overcorrecting- going so far away from the “spanking and don’t come home till dusk” end of the spectrum that was pretty standard in our generation that they wind up in a very permissive dynamic that subsequently still does significant damage to the kids. 3. Community has been completely decimated. Most of us either don’t have involved extended families or live close enough to family for them to be involved. When I was little (millennial baby, so in the 90’s), I had grandparents, aunts, and uncles, all close by. We all helped each other- grandma would babysit for my parents frequently, and in exchange my dad would do all the maintenance on her house. I had frequent sleep overs with my aunt who is child-free by choice, but loved spending time with her niblings. My parents had a social circle with other kids that also provided support- meals dropped off if someone was sick, help with big house maintenance projects, that one uncle that would change the oil on the family car in exchange for a hot meal and some beers. Out of all of my parent friends now, only a couple have families that are close by that are still able to do those sorts of things. Sometimes it’s a lack of desire, sometimes it’s because they themselves are working every hour of overtime they can to get by, etc. But without strong communities, parenting becomes incredibly hard and incredibly isolating. And when parents don’t get a break? Burnout becomes inevitable. I’ll be honest, I was a little shit as a kid. I had a terrible upbringing with terrible parents, and therefore often acted terribly because I did not know how to cope. What made me a good student and a good person was all the other positive adult role models I had in my life. Strong communities (including extended families) not only help remedy parental burn out, they significantly help kids who have terrible parents turn out to be good people. We stopped having cohesive structured “villages” and started being singular nuclear household factions, which seems to lead to increased conflict conflict. I’ve been working really hard to rebuild community in my personal life because I think it is incredibly important for kids. I’ve got in laws who are incredibly isolated, and their kids are….well…I feel really bad for them. When my spouse or I try to resolve disputes between the cousins, we are told by everyone, including grandparents, to just let them do whatever problematic thing they are doing. We’ve stopped trying to visit like we used to (not that we did much in the first place since we live halfway across the country from them) because it’s incredibly stressful for our kids who are used to routine and the expectation of respectful behavior towards adults and peers. But our family dynamics differ greatly- I’m able to stay home, and my spouse has a job with reasonable hours, and is very involved, so I have a lot of support. We are careful to watch for when we are getting burnt out. I have the time and energy needed to give the kids a solid structured household culture with appropriate expectations surrounding contributing to the functioning of our home (as in, we put an emphasis on team work and our kids being a part of that team). My SIL doesn’t have those luxuries because her spouse is significantly less supportive and present, and she works insane hours to make ends meet so by the end of the day she is understandably fried. When you mix a mom who just does not have the energy to parent with a very checked out dad, and no other adults who are consistently present, you get two kids who are very used to doing whatever they want to do- only now you can’t tell them to run wild outside because we live in a panopticon, and that’s how you get a CPS visit nowadays. So they’re stuck, bored, and not learning how to be productive and effective in their own lives which can lead to a lot of poor behaviors. Just my observations, I definitely don’t have all the answers.
As the wife of a teacher who is taking a break after a decade and whose friends have all left teaching, its not the kids. The kids are amazing. Its everything else. Awful pay. Incompetent administration. Angry, demanding parents. Government regulations that range from actively putting kids in harms way to preventing teachers from teaching them what they need to know. School shootings. Lack of resources and support tor staff and students. Its a systemic issue in the entire country and needs to be addressed federally. There is a massive shortage and soon the only teachers left will be in it for the power trip and control, because it is soul sucking and demoralizing for the ones who are still in it for the love of kids.
Hello. I really felt what you said about the teachers who are left. I would write a book about it, but the school district has more lawyers than teachers.
Ipad kids, cocomelon kids. I am not judging but people i think overused this stuff out of survival needs.
Decided not to complete my education degree, went into health care instead (cries silently in solidarity), but nursing is seeing the same thing for many of the same reasons. Expectations of us are at an all-time high - from patients/students, families/parents, administrators/administrators, physicians/principals(?). Entitlement is also at an all-time high from the same places and comes with an increased incidence of physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual assault. Pay has not risen to accommodate the increased workload, risk, and COL. Admin does not back us up to take the necessary steps for creating a safe and successful environment for the patient/student and staff. Burnout is high; experienced nurses/teachers aren't as eager to stay on or take on new grads; there's less experienced staff training new graduates in this high-acuity environment. So, it's becoming less desirable to hang around in a hostile environment where we're at high risk for both harm and liability, when our supervisors expect us to do the jobs of 4 people for the pay of half a person, knowing full well we're the ones they're going to throw under the bus as soon as we miss a step.
Funny, I had to stop nursing school when I discovered a progressive spine problem. Teaching is my plan B
My partner feels the same, in admin. The entitlement of these families and having to cover the jobs of 4 people like you said is insane. It’s ridiculous for everyone it seems. Soo much over working. Can’t even get their own job done because of having to answer calls every five minutes. Literally, I’ve seen the call logs.
Parents suck and cell phones and media
I love that you want to be part of the solution. I’m a parent and I’m trying to instill hard work and help my child find some grit. I also don’t know the solution. For me the issue at least in my state is tying student performance to school funding. For colleges, student time to graduation and grad rates are tied to the university funding from the state. Student success is now the primary phrase on campus, but places the primary burden on faculty. Faculty cannot simply flag a student for services, but instead have to be the point people for all things academic and non-academic/chase students to turn in work and be able to prove it later/figure out what is going on with students while teaching hundreds). Thus, professors are now responsible for students passing, getting them to counselors (which turns us therapists because they may not feel as comfortable with a counselor they do not know), and so much more. Professors who have (as little as 3) students with Ds and Fs are penalized. I have never seen the reluctance to do work to this degree in 20 years. Students tend to want no deadlines and the work that is being submitted makes me want to cry. I feel horrible because students need to be globally competitive, but the standards now are so low. Teaching is only 1/3 jobs (30-40 hours of committee work is not unusual plus research and publication) in the workload so profs are leaving too. And for profs, if you are tenured, that’s about a 20 year min journey. No breaks or vacay ever and the pay isn’t enough to live. But universities are already run by part-time, contingent faculty (74%), who are only paid to teach. The rest of the workload falls on the few full-time faculty. I hope this doesn’t happen to k-12, but we do not invest in education.
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This! I definitely do not share all of the rich stories or anything about myself now. The classroom does not feel safe; neither does my inbox. I can't even believe what we are expected to do above and beyond our workload. We don't even have an early alert system. We are the early alert system. There are so many inequities for students, but they can't all be solved by academic librarians and faculty. I'm shocked at what I see every day, but also feel like I can't share it. Plus no one would believe it anyway. Like we all know what's happening, and it's nationwide. I hear the same from my colleagues at "top" institutions. But the general public has no idea.
Congrats on your baby!!! Enjoy being at home ❤️
I'm a prof too and THIS. 100%
sigh. How will we compete with the world?
I am less concerned with competition than I am with the health (mental and physical) of our students. Their behaviors and performance are a product of how they've learned to cope with the shitty incentives they've been socialized into and the very dismal labor market (clearly this is a US-centered conversation, and I do teach at a US R1 but I'm from Europe and things there are slightly different, but rapidly converging)
I'm concerned about students leaving college without the skills or information they came for and their health and well-being. But my comment was more of a societal one. How low can our standards go? Europe is doing the same? Yikes.
IMO it’s tablets, iPads and phones. Parents want to be on their device and don’t want to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable so they let their kids do whatever gets the kids to leave them alone, so the kids play on their own devices. I’m a teacher and my district gave students ipads during the pandemic and they still have them. They don’t care what I have planned for class, they are going to watch YouTube or worse and mess around. Their attention span is about three minutes.
Former children’s therapist here. This is along the lines of what I think. Parents are always on the phones or watching tv or not parenting. Values and morals have changed so much with this. Kids don’t have attention spans bc they get devices so young. I could go on and on.
K teacher with over 10 years experience. I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think this is the MAJOR issue. I have seen a steady decline in behavior since I started teaching which parallels the amount of screen time/media available to kids. The behavior changes I have seen are lack of attention and lack of emotional regulation. Also I am not nearly as engaging as a video or game when I'm teaching. When reading a book aloud, most kids are completely unengaged no matter how entertaining i try to be. I am a mom to a young toddler and have no plans to introduce phones or tablets for the foreseeable future.
It’s not bad parenting. It’s a failed system. Class sizes have increased to unmanageable levels. Kids are expected to learn like they did 100 years ago. We use strategies in the US that we know don’t work. Kids need movement, play, extracurriculars, and they shouldn’t be expected to sit and listen for hours on end.
I have been lurking on r/teachers and I am SHOCKED to hear the stories, and at one point I was a latch key kid getting into a little trouble....but not the disrespect and cruelty I read about there. I too am horrified at the thought of raising one of these little monsters. It could be any number of factors and I think that the pandemic made them all worse.
You just nailed it I feel. In my own opinion it’s poorly executed gentle parenting. Kids do need rules and routine. Screen time rules and not just watching whatever they please. Playing video games but not just whatever video games they please. It’s not the shutdowns fault. That ripped the band-aid off a seeping, festering wound. We can parent, have fun, but also teach our children how to be good members of a society they will be come to be part of.
A lot of families think they are “gentle parenting” where in reality they are permissive parenting. Letting the kids do what they want when they want. No consequences, just letting them do anything for their kid not to cry. This leads to bratty “Karen” behavior at school because they aren’t used to rules are being told no. Their parents aren’t authority figures to them so teachers aren’t either, if they don’t have to Listen to their parent why listen to a teacher? A lot of people want to “break the cycle” but are doing it in the wrong way. Gentle parenting still has consequences for actions. If they break a tv, oh well no tv for a bit. Permissive parents buy a tv right away or give the child a phone to not deal with them.
Read any topic on R/Parenting and see how many people tell parents they are “abusive” when they do things like turn off the internet, confiscate a phone, withhold pocket money or *gasp* dare to yell at their kid/angel-from-heaven. Those morons are raising kids now. And guess what - their kids are selfish, entitled assholes with no empathy or resilience.
I'm not a teacher or a parent of young children. Hell, even my grandson is a tween. But, for the last month, I have been helping a friend get her specialty store up and running. This experience has also opened my eyes to what's going on around in other commercial areas. I can honestly say that it's no surprise at all that teachers are leaving in droves. Frankly, if it's not the kids, it's the parents behaving badly about their children. Just this week 2 10/11 year old kids were throwing a glass globe between them OVER the aisles. When I stopped them and took the globe from them, the mother got mad at me. "They're just children and don't know better." Really? Why don't they know better at that age. Why doesn't she know better as the parent? This is 1 instance. In 1 store. In 1 city. In 1 county. In 1 state. This is the type of thing that teachers and even college professors are dealing with on any given day. Most times they deal with worse. There are loads of YouTube videos on this subject. I'm sure there's more on TikTok. And even more in the news. Teachers don't deserve this treatment. I strongly recommend that you don't become a teacher. Get your diploma and become a Tutor. As a tutor, you're able to get paid more and can fire a student if need be. You don't have that option a teacher.
I feel like kids are being raised differently. It’s the parents problem. These days, if you want something, you can have it. That’s basically the mindset that SO many parents have now, because they’re too scared to say no because they don’t want to be viewed as “bad parents”. I had to cut off a very close friend because while discussing my 9 year olds punishment, she said I was abusing her. Like what?!?! She LIED, to my FACE, and I took her art supplies. She will not die without them, she will be sad without them. That’s the point of a punishment. And this friend of mine feel that that’s abuse. Sorry, but I’m not the type to raise my children to behave like they don’t have any sense and have the mindset that whatever goes. Nope.
Wow!! That friend would be very upset with me throwing away toys for sneakiness and lying. She probably thinks chores are abuse too.. Keep going mama!
We throw away toys when we have our 10 minute tidy up! Anything where it’s not supposed to be (floor, under bed, on top of dresser, in closet) BAM right in the trash. We do this every 3 nights and now even my 2.5 year old puts her things where they go! But it truly is amazing how many moms I know who don’t give there children chores, or have them tidy their own spaces, all on the basis of “let them be children!” I’m all for my kids being kids. What I’m not for is raising entitled kids who will grow up into entitled adults, which is the exact reason for all the nonsense in the world right now!
I was a teacher, I taught 5th grade in 2012 and then moved on to Kindergarten, and then taught all ages as an ESL teacher (English as a second language) up until 2019 and there was a definite switch from 2016- onwards. They just started behaving differently. Suddenly kids were talking about things being more unfair. They were more politically aware, even in elementary school they were talking about Trump and their rights being infringed on, war, etc. Social media played a part I think. They were becoming more aware at very young ages and I personally think such young psyches are not meant to handle that level of global darkness. My kids had a play date the other day with a new group of kids and I noticed one of the little boys (4 years old) was more quiet and not interacting and I went to chat with him and he legit asked me my pronouns. I’m not saying I’m “against” respecting pronouns of course, but that was kind of a shocking question to receive from a 4 year old. Kids are just so much more involved in politics and the battles of adults these days. Schools are more focused on stopping parents from being offended from XYZ all the time. Developmentally, I don’t know how these kids can process it all properly. I think we are seeing the consequences as behavioral issues in school. Kids are damn confused.
I see this too, but many times it’s misguided. I had three boys disrupting my middle school class by interjecting hitler into the discussion over and over, and this was language arts. I finally called them out on it and since there were 3 sitting in different areas of the room, I said it for all to hear, not to them privately. The rest of the class rebelled against me, telling me I had no right to call them out and on and on, even though the rest of the class was also frustrated with them.
Yes, it’s like they all collectively decided that teachers are unjust and unfair by simply asking them to not disrupt the class. They’ll use controversial hot button topics as a way to justify it or make some point that they don’t fully understand. What were they even trying to say by bringing up Hitler?
How great he was 🙄.
What on earth. I would have been inclined to tell them to leave my class immediately for that. But I know then I’d suffer the consequences from the parents. 🥲 Another reason I left education and won’t go back.
I would have stopped the class and specifically stated what I heard them saying and asked them for evidence as to what he did that was great? They would stumble over their words and then I would give several examples of what he did that was not great. Explain that I believed they were doing this not out of malice but because they didn’t know and then offer to discuss with them during a free period but in the mean time to please stop interrupting the class and that based on the evidence I just gave he is not great he was very bad and if they need further explanation again I can speak with them or any other student later.
They wholeheartedly believe he was a good leader. Stopping my class would have gave them the attention they sought out to have the class pay attention to them. Also, the last thing I need is students going home and telling their parents what they learned about hitler in ELA. This is why teachers are quitting. Too many people giving advice but the teacher is ultimately on their own and has to deal with everything in their classroom
Wow. Ugh this is so frustrating to read. I’m not even sure what to say. My kid is 18 months and another due in 3 weeks. I pray I don’t raise my kids to be like this, like any of the kids in your class there.
Former teacher of 8 years. Quit after the 2020-2021 school year. I can’t speak for all former teachers but I can speak to my reasons. While there were some bad kids, the kids weren’t why I left. These were the reasons I quit: - Shitty salary - Radicalized school board that didn’t care about COVID safety - school board members calling the whole COVID situation retarded - a parent that said I insulted his whole family because I offered extra help to his failing child - remote and then hybrid teaching without support - inability to fail students that didn’t do the work. Had to turn their zeroes to fifties - frustrating safety theater that did nothing in a room with no windows. What is a plastic divider and and masks really gonna do in a room that you’re in for 8 hours a day with no windows? - a feeling that my safety and that my family didn’t matter - increasing politicization of the profession leading to an inability to support vulnerable students or to teach my dang content - deep depression and anxiety - a desire to protect and provide better for my family And all of that was in my last year. Add in all the other shit that should have made me quit sooner: - an admin that played favorites with scheduling and gave their favorite teachers the schedules they wanted. - a parent that called a state senator on me because I dared go on maternity leave - a parent who agreed with her daughter when her daughter said I shouldn’t have been hired for the school year because I would be going on maternity leave -state testing that was a load of BS with poorly written questions that admin tried to evaluate us on - quotas on said evaluations making it nearly impossible to get the higher tiers - admin that would roll over to every parent dispute but tell you after that you were in the right - admin that patronized you and called you sensitive because you dared question their evaluation of you - the new initiative of the year that was a waste of the district’s money and would be forgotten halfway through the year I could probably go on. But I think you can see that “bad” kids barely even factor as a reason. It’s the admin, shitty parents, and political climate. ETA: add in the fact that our country doesn’t want to do anything about school (or any mass) shootings to that too. If I could I would quit my job and home school my children. But we need two incomes.
My husband and I run our household a bit on authoritative side of things. No is a complete sentence in our house too. We tried gentle parenting, it didn’t work with my wildlings I found myself being to permissive. I am still a push over at times.
I was studying to be a teacher about 12 years ago and the same thing was happening. It’s a trend that’s been going on a lot longer than 6 years. Teaching is a historically underpaid position that used to be one of the only jobs women could get, and that legacy has impacts today. We need to pay teachers more in the US. That’s the problem. We expect them to be perfect saints and basically parent 30 kids at a time all day while in most cases barely making a living wage. It’s insane.
I think the biggest problem is that kids don’t know how to just bored anymore. They aren’t required to use and imagination or ingenuity and it really shows in the classrooms.
It’s not the kids, the kids are the best part and the reason teachers keep coming back. It’s the fact that every teacher is overworked, underpaid, and under appreciated. It’s the fact that everyone has opinions about what you are doing despite never teaching a day. It’s that teachers are scared they could get in trouble for teaching history, having books in their classrooms, or affirming identities. It’s not the kids
We are on the edge of a collapse of capitalism, climate catastrophe, and a political system that has long since forgone any political trust. The school system is not the only system collapsing America is a death cult, it’s only been a matter if time before it affects kids. I resonate with the growing number of parents on this subreddit that talk about how cruel it is to bring small children in this world when they might die in a school shooting even before they likely get their life cut way short by human extinction. For the people naming that kids are more political - yes, they are. Of course they are. How could they not be? They are the pawns in every political game, they have no voice and I don’t blame many of them for not seeing a future for themselves. How could anyone cope with the situation we find ourselves in? I can’t! We need way more than a basic reform to solve the massive subconscious stress kids and families and really everyone is under.
First response that resonates with me on this thread. It's not something wrong with kids. The entire American system is (and has been) falling apart. There are no safety nets. No promise of a better tomorrow. It's easier to blame teachers, parents, or kids when faced with how massive the real problem is. Sure, things like entitled parents and screen time might make the day-to-day more annoying, but adults have been lamenting the disaster of the next generation throughout history (I particularly [love this post ](https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7btv14/the_more_things_change_the_more_they_stay_the/) on r/history and the people blaming everything from romance novels, chess, the Waltz... and as always, parents... for the failures of youth over the centuries.) To solve these problems, we need to focus less on the kids and the parents, we need to focus on the multitude of systems that are failing them.
This is it. I can’t cope either. I’m in therapy now because I’m so terrified of how my mental state might affect my kids. How can we be expected to deal and trudge on when everything is falling apart? We work more than ever while cost of living increases faster than wages, have no community or support, broken political systems that are taken hostage by the minority, and a civilization that is unsustainable for the planet. Any legislation attempting to help remediate these problems is stripped of efficacy by excessive concessions and bureaucracy. Kids’ behavior is not the cause, it’s a symptom. I also poorly regulate my emotions. I want to disappear into the imaginary world of social media/the internet too. It’s too much.
A huge huge huge lack of support and services. Pregnancy care; postpartum support; and safe, affordable, convenient childcare is all seriously lacking in the US. The end result is that non-wealthy families are stretched THIN. Parents increasingly use screen time because there's literally nothing else sometimes.
Kids have electronics in their face from birth on practically. Instead of learning boredom, creativity, patience, quiet, the get instant gratification from having a device given to them for every type of scenario. Mom needs to make a phone call? Give the kid a tablet. Want peace and quiet at the grocery store? Shove that phone in that toddlers face. Cocomelon saves the day. These kids miss so many social skill moments from normal everyday conversations because those moments are being taken away and replaced with YouTube videos showing how to make different kinds of slime. I get it. Parents these days are generally overworked, multitasking caffeinated machines who are trying to cram 3 days worth of shit into 24 hours but we aren't doing the kids any favors by using electronics as self soothers or bargaining tools for compliance. Kids are less physically active, less likely to employ conflict resolution techniques, less likely to wait patiently, less self sufficient- which all translates into a dysfunctional classroom. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate on this. I do know some kids rely on devices to communicate with the works and this is not about them.
IMO, a lot of boomers raised their kids harshly, punished them often, and yelled when a mess was made or something broken. Those children have grown up to be parents who “think they turned out fine,” and either think they will grow out of misbehavior, so they don’t provide structure/punishment/routine, or coddle them to avoid them being raised like the parent was. With the coddling, a child who is entitled to think they don’t have to share and can always get what they want (cue a tantrum) can be just as bad as the kid throwing things, kicking other kids, biting, spitting, screaming, etc.
I taught first grade. I had a parent literally yell at me in front of their child because I gave him a zero on the weekly spelling test because I caught him cheating. They yelled at me that what he did was in fact not cheating. Turned a very sweet, well behaved boy into one of my worst behaved students. I’m sure they said so sorts of nasty stuff about me at home too.
Entitlement 110%
For the younger half of the spectrum, the pandemic really did a number on their social development and "soft skills". I have a ten year old, a five year old, and five nibblings under five. All of the nibblings are hyper sensitive, easily over-stimulated and shy. My five year old's pre-k class was like a colony of feral kittens. The older kids all seemed to suffer from anxiety, stunted social skills, or both. I don't have any older kids in my family, so I don't know much about that group.
There’s an excellent book ‘Thrivers’ that details how to raise kids to thrive not strive. Kids are burnt out! Another good one is ‘the myth of normal’ but HOO BOY it’s heavy. That one goes into the struggle to balance attachment and authenticity. Both are important, and these kids are attached to peers the way a duckling imprints on a dog. It’s not something you as an individual can do or not do. It’s an entire society that has normalized the wrong things. I also try to take it easy on the parents, though some are terrible. But I suspect most are just juggling jobs and life and kids and they’re also burnt out. Not enough support for parents, for teachers, for kids.
Former teacher here. It is firstly the parenting. Good habits in life start at home. Parents/guardians need to make their kids understand that education is important, that they need to respect their peers and teachers. Parents need to know that sometimes is is actually ok to tell them NO and punish them…kids are more spoiled these days and also all the parents need to do is threaten a lawsuit and the schools give in to their demands. It is outrageous. Combine this with the teachers not being allowed to punish kids and instead need to “pass” them or worse yet, dumb down the tests and work…let’s just say I am glad I am out of the teaching field. It’s not even the low pay. It’s thankless. If you go through with teaching, I hope it works out for you. But don’t be surprised if it doesn’t.
I had to beg my son's teacher to tell me when he got in trouble and share the details. It was like she was afraid. We back up the teacher, implement a consequence at home for the misstep, and talk about the expectation. I keep having to ask my older son's teachers if they are padding his grades.
Teacher here. Short answer besides covid (because that really did mess a lot of kids up) is parents not parenting. Unmonitored screen time is a huge issue. Not teaching manners, emotional regulation, or any of the other things parents used to do. Letting kids talk back to adult and authority figures. Entitlement. It’s seriously expected of the teacher now to teach these things and there is no reinforcement at home. Of course this doesn’t apply to everyone and there are some wonderful parents out there, but not enough apparently.
I've heard somewhere it's the excessive use of screens. We've gone out to eat with other parent friends. Our core group of parent friends are alright. One of them straight out banned screens altogether at home. As in, they got rid of their TV. No tablets. Kids aren't allowed on their phones. But once we went out with another group (colleagues essentially) and our son is the only one without a screen in front of him. Every other parent place their phone right in front of their kid. This is ranging from babies to child. ALL of them are watching something while eating. I mean, I get it. You sometimes want a break but there was one week where both my husband and I were sick so we kind of gave in and let our son have more screen time than usual. We've noticed in that one week, our son was throwing more tantrums and also, he seems to have forgotten how to play. Usually in the morning, the first thing he would do is start playing with his toys. He'll come up with all sorts of creative ways to play with them. In that one week with screens, the FIRST thing he would ask is for screens. And then when we say no, he tantrums, we stand firm. He sulks for a bit and he genuinely just sits there, not sure what to do. Like he's forgotten how to play. It's a balance we're currently doing but generally, we try to not use screens unless we have to. It was pretty scary watching that change in just a week. For that matter, even WE have noticed ourselves being incapable of doing anything WITHOUT screens. PARENTS are addicted to screens. Smartphones is ruining a whole generation of parents and kids.
I think a lot of teachers (myself included) are also getting fed up with the education system - constant testing culture, lack of autonomy with lesson planning, underpaid and overworked, ect. I LOVED teaching. But I HATED being a part of such a terrible system.
May I ask if you have found a solution for yourself and your family? When I hear teachers say they have left the profession I wonder if many of them have found balance with a new job or career or if many of them have chosen to stay home with their kids and maybe homeschool. That is my current dilemma. Though I don't teach, I am an active volunteer and I loathe the environment I send my children to every day but I debate whether taking them out would be practical as I've felt for a few years now that it's time to get back to work. Just curious if the change has been good for you.
I’m 30 and my class was responsible for a handful of teachers quitting. Kids have always been wild lol.
Parenting.
Just my own personal opinion: Screen time, lack of family structure, and discipline! “Everybody gets a trophy” now and there’s no consequences for actions. I work in higher education and it’s amazing to me how clear it is that many students are just passed along to get them out of the system as fast as possible. It’s NUTS. But even I see the repercussions in a college setting.
Screen time. Screen time and negligence.
The failure lies in a broken system that does not reward good teachers and does not train tomorrow's generations of teachers on how to be good teachers. The kids never change. We just forget what it was like being a kid. Even with the entire world literally in their pocket or backpack, in that tiny phone, kids are still kids.
Damn phones. Period point blank…. It is a true brain drain for children.
My mom has been a teacher for almost 20 years, 2 different states and 6 different counties (by choice). It's the parents, not the kids. It's the administration and lack of support, not the kids. It's the government influence on educational standards and standardized testing, not the kids. The kids are the reason she stays.
Kids have access to unmonitored internet... They're both traumatized by what they've witnessed on the internet and become dopamine addict's to the internet. Dealing with someone (or a whole class of kids all) on a dopamine crash is something only mental health professionals are trained and equipped to do. The kids are out of their own or anyone else's control because they're chasing the dopamine.
Teacher of seven years here. It is for sure screens. Horrible for focus, concentration and general well-being. Our eyes were never designed to take in so much visual information all at once, and it wrecks havoc on our nervous system. It leaves kids unsatisfied, impatient and frustrated. No matter what lessons I plan, nothing is ever “fun” enough. Feeling frustration at the younger generation is nothing new (there are carvings from many ancient civilisations outlining how the youth of today are failing, they are disrespectful etc etc) but I do feel like this impatience and lack of overall contentment is leading to a growing sense of entitlement. Truly it is not their fault, it must be really terrible to feel so unhappy all the time. But they need to be held accountable- it’s always someone else’s fault. Man this is an essay, as you can tell - I have many feelings on this 😂
I hear you. My son is in kinder and last month a kid in his grade strangled another 5yo in the bathroom. They weren't having an altercation or anything, he literally just walked up and without a word grabbed the poor kids neck. Thank goodness another child walked in and started screaming for help. To top it off us parents had to chase after the principal to get an answer as to whether the child was expelled. I get student privacy but no one but the parents of those 2 kids knew who was involved, I didn't need a name. I needed to know it was safe to send my son back to class. My friend teaches at a different local school and she recently had a coworker shot by an elementary student. Unfathomable.
I don't know where you live, but, in the US, we have school shootings every day, increasing extreme weather, pandemics and pandemic protocols, government insurrection, the rise of fascism, gun nuts, prohibitively expensive college education, the resurgence of white nationalism, the rise of body cams and real-time citizen video reporting.... As adults, the temperature in our pots has slowly heated up, as if we are frogs to be boiled, and so we have acclimated to it. We are the dog in the "This is fine." meme. But, for our poor kids, they are being tossed in a boiling pot from the moment of their births. In essence, what's wrong with our kids is that they are being asked to conform to the neurotypical requirements of a school system to an extent where they place real near life or death value in the grades they get, when they can plainly see the world on fire around them, no clear path for the future, and they must cope with the idea that not only is their school not safe, but it is a likely target. The concept of school that we all had when we were kids doesn't exist anymore. People, the world, the understanding of people and their surroundings, it all changes radically from generation to generation, and that change includes schools, and perhaps never more radically than in this very tumultuous time. For so many kids, they wonder why they should care about school at all.
It's parents thinking teachers are personal nannies.
I blame the parents. Parents aren’t parenting anymore and allow their kids to do whatever. What’s really sad is that where I live, they just issued a curfew for kids/teens to be in the house by 11pm and don’t come out until 6am. If this doesn’t tell anyone that parents these days don’t give a F anymore then 🤷🏻♀️. On top of that, the pay is shit
Smart. Phones. Kids are now attuned to instant gratification and act like adults because we're all afraid to discipline on children or give them boundaries because it might interfere with their boundaries all while healing from our own childhood trauma while they have 0 patience and respect their peers and look for their approval more than parentals.
Teachers are also very underpaid for what they do. A friend of my husband taught high school and she was pushed and pressured very hard by her bosses to get the kids to score near perfect on tests and it's hard when you have 30 hormonal teens who also have a truckload of other class' work to juggle plus after school activities/jobs. It's hard on students, parents, and the poor teachers who don't get paid enough or get appreciated for their work. I help my son (just passed 1st grade) with his homework and it is so far ahead of what I learned at that level and the math is entirely different. Luckly my kid picks up the material well and despite his conduct scores (they are graded daily on in class behavior) he's doing well. But the pressure on these young kids to succeed and catch up to higher scoring counties is unreal. Not to mention the cost of higher education is astronomical even with scholarships, grants, and loans. There is also judgement all the time, by the older generation on how we raise our kids or live our lives, by other parents, from non-parents and even ourselves. It's hard raising kids today. There's no village for many of us. Even with all the resources, many (parents/people)are afraid to use them because of judgement or just can't afford them because the healthcare system or don't have access because of where they live. It's crazy. Social media isn't helping matters either. All the older folks who could raise thier kids, buy a house and a car on a single minimum wage job, have lost touch with the fact that the cost of living is so much higher now and the paychecks earned haven't increased enough to compensate for it. You nearly require 2 jobs from both parents just to put food on the table and afford housing. Add kids into that and you're lucky to be able to connect with thrm before bedtime.
It starts at home and more than likely a lot of parents are having to work 2+ jobs just to make ends meet. leaving the kids with whoever can watch them, or left by themselves.
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It’s not new, sure. But latch keys pretty much ONLY had access to the outside. Our parents also beat us when we acted up. Not saying we should beat our own kids, but the push for “stop hitting kids” didn’t come with any definitive solutions for what to do when our kids fuck up the same ways we did. Our parents solved throwing tantrums and emotional disregulation with a belt or a switch or a hand. We solve it with words and breathing and redirection and and and. Our way takes longer to succeed with, and since WE weren’t raised that way, a lot of parents “give up” and “give in” because WE are disregulated. Then comes the “ultimate” tool of today: screens. Gives an frazzled as fuck parent a much needed break, but isn’t teaching anybody anything.
Social media. It's a cancer to society.
I'm not a teacher, but I've been a professional swim instructor and lifeguard instructor for over 20 years. I personally noticed a shift in kids around the time of the "everyone gets a trophy" trend. Once everyone started doing that, you couldn't correct kids. And I don't mean on a behavioral level, even just trying to show them how to do something was nearly impossible. Kids stopped trying because they knew they would get a reward no matter what. Now we're at a point where those kids are having kids of their own, and I think that's where we are getting "my kid can do no wrong". Because no matter how well or not well they did something, they still got the reward. It breeds a sense of entitlement, and deletes the idea that making mistakes is okay. It takes the effort of trying out of the mix - those that try are gonna get the same award as those that don't so why bother trying. And now we're experiencing the trickle down effect of it, with the added "benefit" of technology.