As many of you know, I am starting a series of blogs about education, going down the alphabet focusing on a topic starting with each letter. I have already discussed the letter A for attendance in a previous blog. I want to discuss another important education topic: behavior.
Behavior, it is important. Trust me when I say this. What do teachers want to see from students in their classrooms? Students who are eager to learn, who are polite, respectful and enjoyable. Now, we know that not all kids are like this, but really, it is what we all wish for.
When a child misbehaves in school, it doesn’t just interfere with his learning; it interferes with every other child’s ability to learn in that classroom. A child who has poor behaviors pulls other kids off-task and the focus off what the teacher is trying to teach.
What else do teachers wish for? We wish for the days of parent support when a child does need disciplining for whatever reason. It seems too many times today when a child receives a detention for behaviors or is sent to the office, the parent immediately jumps in and accuses the teacher of picking on her child. What teachers wish for when dealing with behaviors is the support of the parent. I remember the days when my parents would come home from conferences to tell me what the teacher said, “Kaye, you are doing great, but you talk too much and it is interfering with others learning. This will stop now or you will not get your allowance for two weeks.”
Because I have seen first hand what happens when parents don’t support a teacher in a discipline situation when that teacher deserves parental support, I have made it a point to teach my preschool age son that he must behave at school or he will have consequences at home. That may seem tough to many of you parents out there, but I believe in sending him a message at an early age that his dad and I will support the school, his teacher and that school behavior and consequences at home will be directly related.
He had two time-outs in preschool last year, and he did have a consequence at home for them. Nothing major, he was three after all, but the day of the time-out, he wasn’t allowed to push the garage door opener button, which he absolutely loves to do. He knew this would happen if he got in trouble at school, and I followed through with it a home. Of course, as he ages, the consequences will grow with him to be age appropriate.
Now, don’t get me wrong, if I knew for sure my son was disciplined for something he shouldn’t have been, I will be at the school finding more information, but never will I badmouth the school or the teacher to my child. That sends the wrong message to him, basically teaching him that school and the teacher do not deserve respect, when they do.
Behavior at school is so important; no one likes to hear that her child misbehaved while there. How a parent handles this misbehaving is really the key, at least from a teacher’s viewpoint. If a child knows that he will have consequences at home for something he did at school, the child is less likely to continue misbehaving at school.