Parents ‘should face consequences for their children’s behaviour’, says union

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/parents-children-school-behaviour-consequences-gzzl6s058

by Imaginary_Abroad_330

42 comments

  1. Couldn’t read the article as behind a paywall. But heck yes, parents should face the consequences for their children’s behaviour. They’re the fully responsible adult in this, any bad actions their child does is both the child and the parent’s responsibility.

  2. Is this because there is a lack of specialised schools that deal with extreme behaviours and children are in mainstream schools?

    Do teachers get taught how to recognise and manage children’s behaviour? There’s usually signs before an individual stabs someone else in the eye with scissors.

    Put a mobile phone signal blocker around schools during school hours.

    Edit: autocorrect

  3. Yep. I’ve always thought that we should do what they do in the Netherlands and some other European countries and make parents civilly liable for the actions of their children.*

    Child smashes a window? Parents either pay for a new one or get sued for the money. Child stabs someone? Parents are on the hook for the personal injury lawsuit. Etc etc.

    Would go a long way to encourage parents to do their job properly and actually parent their kids

    ***

    *I’m aware that it is technically possible to hold parents civilly liable for the actions of their children in the UK, but it’s far more difficult, and the legal hurdle to do this is extremely high, to the point where it’s so unlikely to be possible that it’s practically impossible in the vast majority of cases.

  5. This quote gets to the crux of the matter for me

    > To this end, it would seem that the right of every child to an education needs to be more robustly followed up by taking responsibility away from the small minority of parents who are abdicating this responsibility for their offspring.

    Yes it is important all children get an education and just ejecting troublesome pupils from the school system isn’t going to end well for them but an alternative of everyone in a class having a lackluster education because of a minority misbehaving is also terrible. They also have a right to an education and are actually willing to utilise it.

  6. If you can’t discipline your little cunt goblin.

    Then the school should be able to garnish the wages of mummy and daddy every time little tarquin acts up.

    As soon as it starts effecting their ability to go on holiday or buy new cars on finance you’ll see a change in attitude by the parents.

    The school my missus teaches at had a high aggressive issue with the chav kids. So the new head teacher would exclude the kids straight away. Parents complained they had to use up holidays to look after their kids or loose work.

    After a couple of months of this those same kids became very much more pleasant people to teach 

  7. Do parents even face their own consequence for their own behaviour?

    Truth of the matter is, parents themselves often have the same trait. It’s why their child developed in such a way.

  8. Depends on the behaviour and the age of the child. A 16 year old kid who refuses to listen to their parent is much different from a 9 year old having a meltdown because they’ve never heard the word no or had to share.

  9. I think it would really help to make parents see that their parenting or lack of has consequences. There seems to be a shift in parents expecting schools to parent their children for them with children starting school in nappies, unable to use a knife and fork, not owning a book and I heard this week not recognising their own name??
    I think if there was some kind of compulsory parenting classes where parents were taught the responsibilities of having children such as basic skills, teaching manners and disciplining bad behaviour, there would be less messed up feral kids attacking their teachers.
    Disclaimer- I know it’s a minority of children, many parents are doing an amazing job and when I use the word discipline I don’t mean physical punishment I mean teaching right from wrong and having consequences for bad behaviour.

  10. Sort of. Parents can mess a child up. But some children are awful for no apparent external reason. The parents might prefer to abandon them either way. A difficult policy.

  11. They should allow smacking your child then. In some cases this is the only way to learn consequences.

  12. Former head of year in a secondary school here. Here’s my opinion, whatever it’s worth.

    The behaviour that the unions are referring to is unmanageable repeat offenders of extreme behaviour. The key point here is the repeating factor. If those students who disrupt daily and make the other students’ lives complete hell went to their detentions & served their exclusions, there’s a chance of deterring that behaviour.

    The behaviour is perpetuated by parents refusing to adhere to school policy when it comes to detentions or other sanctions so those same students have nobody saying “your actions have consequences” at home. In those situations, of which I’ve seen **many**, yes there absolutely should be consequences for parents.

    Not prison. Not criminal consequences. But mandatory programs to help their kid(s) reconnect with the purpose of education, discipline & empathy for others. If they attend and the kids are still making shit choices, the school should have the contractual option to then request a managed move to another school.

    The unions are not talking about the odd detention here, the occasional late to school there. They’re talking about the epidemic of students going to school, deliberately disrupting the learning of other students for a few hours until they get their own way and get excluded.

  13. It’s needed. It might just be me, but kids seem to behave worse these days. I’ve noticed it during the break the last few weeks, they have no respect for anything.

  14. The criminal age of responsibility is 10. Just send them to juvie.

  15. I 100% agree that parents should face consequences for their children behaviour.

    But I do have to ask, when are teachers/schools going to take some consequences for the pathetic lack of teaching in general and willingness to remove disruptive children from the classroom.

    I have two kids in school at present. Eldest is 14 in secondary school. Youngest is 11 in last year of primary school.

    My eldest regularly complains that most of her lesson are extremely difficult to learn anything from because most of the lesson is disrupted by unruly kids. She also complains that several of her lesson like French and English consist of spending several lessons a week every week for the past several months watching movies in class. How ok earth is that teaching?

    My youngest has forest school 4 or 5 times a week. He says that in short his class are left to “mess around in the flower beds” and that’s about it. They aren’t growing anything, planting anything and aren’t learning about forest or the environment. Last week I took him into school on the Monday and he told me he was looking forward to have an easy day, as he had “double football” in which the kids were just left to have a kick around, Forest school, the the had math, followed be free learning time.

    I have little to no faith that our schools in the UK are either allowed l or bothered enough to remove children that are stopping the ones that want to learn, from learning.

    And even if they did, it doesn’t seem to me that school are interested in providing a curriculum that engages the children and encourages them to learn.

    So yeah TLDR, parents should be forced to get their children’s shit together. The schools should get theirs together too.

  16. Teaching staff here it’s a tricky one, partly due to the fact a parent can be totally supportive of the school and the kid still be a total cunt, the only direct consequence I generally support would be an outright ban on mobiles were repeat offenders have the childs mobile destroyed. Since mobiles are generally a luxury item and the loss for a parent isnt actually a critical one, this puts a non-essential cost on the parent which doesnt really have to be paid.

  17. Unions should face consequences for their behavior say parents.

    Like shutting down schools, sacrificing children’s mental health and long term prospects for a virus that effects majority the elderly.

    They are pathetic.

  18. Look at the kids in that picture. Absolutely feral!

  20. We have somehow lost the idea that children must be taught to behave, although even if we hadn’t, many parents have no idea how to go about this. In some cases nor do the schools since special schools have been deprecated which means expertise was dissipated.

    They say we cannot expect Fred to sit still because he has ADHD, say, rather than we **need** to teach Fred to sit still because he has ADHD.

    At a supermarket checkout recently, a mother snapped at her daughter to stop trying to help take goods out of the trolley. Well, how the flip will the daughter learn **why** the order matters (weight and grouping items when packing) if mum doesn’t tell her? ETA turn it into a game where mum calls for the next item and daughter hands it to her.

    We see the howls from the outraged middle classes when a school insists on its dress code being followed. What has the length of a skirt to do with learning how to tell the time in Spanish? Of course, the answer is nothing and yes the school is being picky but the point is that we do need to learn to obey rules even if we cannot rationalise them or disagree with them, because that is how we move more-or-less smoothly through adult society.

    It might also help if something could be done about gangs but that is outside a school’s control.

  21. Parents do face consequences.

    They tell their children off and the Liberal feminazi scum of social services come knocking.

  22. I’d like the consequence of raising a lovely daughter. Can I have my medal now? Oh not that kind of consequence. Of course.

  23. Yep they should. It’s amazing how many are autistic apparently, I bet the majority aren’t autistic, just not parented. Even autistic children can be well behaved. It’s very different when you just refuse to teach your kid anything or tell them no.

  24. It might be a reminder to more motivated parents I suppose. But I often see parents screaming at their children in the street (I live in a rough area). Consequences on those parents will be passed on to the children.

  25. I’ve worked with just about the worst behaved children in the country. I am convinced that the ultimate behavioural management tool is the implicit threat of violence. I know that sounds awful, but the “and what the fuck are you going to do about it?” attitude when behaviour is challenged must be met with “make you comply, or hate the alternative.” This isn’t a call for corporal punishment or child abuse; it’s a call for meeting shitty attitudes with zero tolerance and granting pastoral staff the right to restrain (using pain compliance techniques if required) and detain kids who are violent and disruptive.

  26. I think if this is tied in to proper support for parents it could be quite a positive thing. Do I think that parents are always responsible for their children’s bad behaviour? No. Do I think that some parents need support in managing their children’s bad behaviour? Yes. Do I think that some parents enable their children’s bad behaviour? Also yes.

    If measures could be put in place to discourage the third thing and provide the second we might see improvements.

  27. Yes, this should be the case anywhere.

    Tired of underaged kids walking around with weapons hurting people and nothing ever happens.

    Imagine if the parents get a 10k € fine for your kid doing bad shit or put the parent in jail from 1 day to 30 days.

    I can guarantee you that the parents will learn to teach better and the kid will have to listen better.

  28. Too many parents today molly cuddling their kids as if they can do no wrong. Definitely needs to be more accountability

  29. This is a symptom of a bigger problem. Most families have both parents working, which means the child gets to spend less time with either/both. Mothers also more often than not are doing all or most of the domestic work, which puts a considerable strain on them. If we want to solve this issue we have to overthrow capitalism, as it doesn’t adequately provide the proper conditions for families or teachers to prosper and excel. We need to replace it with a system where the working burden is progressively lessened, not increased, both domestic and professional, by lessening working weeks without a loss in pay, providing everybody with the basic necessities like good quality healthcare, education, housing, etc. We should also make communal kitchens and creches to lessen domestic work. In short, we need to replace it with socialism.

  30. My children have both attacked teachers, attacked us, and damaged large parts of the house.

    They have diagnoses of ASD, ADHD, Generalised Anxiety, Dyslexia, and social and emotional difficulties. None of this is our fault as parents.

    I’ve spent over £14,000 getting them properly diagnosed, covering ADHD and ASD assessments, months of private prescriptions, and numerous medical appointments. As the waiting lists for this run into years.

    I did this because I wanted to help my children, and I was fortunate enough to be able to afford it. But thousands of other families with children just like mine , receive no help at all from broken and overwhelmed services. That’s also not the fault of the parents, many of whom are working themselves to exhaustion just to survive.

    Things are still ongoing. I’m about to begin what will likely be months of therapy with my 12-year-old, who has severe anxiety and rarely leaves the house. It’s incredibly disruptive to our family life, but more than anything, I want him to be happy.

    Sadly, what’s been most difficult is the lack of empathy and understanding from some educators. While I fully agree that no teacher deserves to be harmed, I’ve also found that many have been judgmental, unhelpful, and more interested in blaming parents than supporting children. And frankly, I wouldn’t trust some of those voices or their unions to have any fair say over parental sanctions or decisions about what’s best for families like ours.

  31. If this was the case when I was a kid, I would’ve just been abused more

  32. Did some put a right wing politician in charge of a union? I agree that parents should face consequences for the actions of their children but I never thought I would see a union say that.

  33. I notice we’re not suggesting that ministers be held accountable for the behaviour of children being failed by the state here. Yet, every parent I know that has tried to get their child access to mental health or neurodivergent services has ended up rejected or put on indefinite (years long) waiting lists, the Labour government is doubling down on the previous run of Tory governments’ commitments to putting children into increased poverty, social services and schools (especially pastoral services) are consistently defunded to the point of falling apart, the police have no youth schemes that work prior to arrest and charge, and they’re consistently bombarded by all the hatred and vitriol of today’s morally bankrupt sociopolitical landscape metastasised through the rancid lens of social media and low quality rage bait journalism like this… but sure, it’s just the parents that are to blame!

  34. I have been teaching primary for nearly 20 years, over that time real terms funding increased then dramatically reduced.

    The reduction in funding has meant that there are less support staff (like Teaching Assistants) who can be an extra person to give in the moment support to a child when they are becoming dysregulated – it isn’t always possible for a class teacher to give that instant support as they are teaching 29 other children or managing other potential children with behaviour needs.

    I do also think that a bigger and bigger chunk of children arrive at school with poor emotional regulation skills, poor social skills, poor resilience and desperate for attention and affection.

    I think lots of parents are stretched financially and time wise – maybe working longer hours to make ends meet and stressed – they don’t have the energy or time to put into children and digital devices are an easy way to placate children while they are cooking, managing life, having down time etc. unfortunately I think addictive online experiences exacerbate the problems children have.

  35. Who is enforcing this? As in, who is making the call? Who is sending the fine? The grief you can get for setting a detention or telling a child off is crazy these days, I’d hate to have to be the one phoning the parent to tell them I’m sending a fine. 

  36. Should schools face consequences if their children are being bullied in school or children are learning bad behaviours in school?

  37. Parents do need to be accountable. My wife is a primary school teacher and the proportion of parents who point blank refuse to believe their child ever does anything wrong is unbelievably high. Their attitude stinks.

  38. Nature and nurture and all that. There will be cases where children have learning/behavioural problems which can only be managed.

    But… There are a lot of situations where the families are just horrible cunts. And in those situations screw the lot of them.

  39. Parents have failed kids. Id be ok with handing the responsibility to them but it won’t make a difference. They do not care. They won’t be paying fines. They won’t be changing behaviours. It might be a reasonable approach but societal failure is deeper rooted.

  40. They should also, somehow, have to watch this behaviour! The amount of times you get that ‘no, not my child’ attitude like FFS not only are we professional educators we are also adult humans, why would you not believe me when I tell your your horrible spawn called me a stupid cunt? Should be like appealing a card in football, if you are proven to be wrong and therefore a shit parent the punishment is doubled.

  41. I once worked with a Mum whose three daughters all got Anti Social Behaviour Orders at the same time. From that you’d assume she was a terrible Mum but unless she was great at hiding it she seemed a little stern but trying her best. Like literally escorted the youngest to school to make sure she was there. Then ran around the school to catch the same daughter trying to leave by another entrance.

    Kids unfortunately have free will.

  42. So what does this mean, parents getting detention for their kids misbehaviour? On paper and in theory, I’m all for it. But in practice, it’s going to be a very difficult thing to enforce. There are also a lot of legal challenges behind the extent of what consequences a parent might face and their severity considering a parent didn’t actually do anything. Without the full force of the law on top of them, parents could simply refuse and that’s the end of it. But, is it something the government and legal system want to stretch their already limited resources on?

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