School Misbehavior

The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

for California

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

So much of that energy that's tolerated at home can't possibly be tolerated in a school setting where children must pay attention and learn something other than the sounds that come out of Mary's mouth when her pigtails are tugged. Occasionally, children will misbehave in school because they don't get enough attention at home, have a low self-esteem or don't feel they have a niche or role in the class. Poor conduct is their misguided way of meeting these needs.

Logical consequences

Give teachers your complete permission to levy appropriate consequences for misbehavior. If your children are still disruptive, have the school call you to pick them up. Believe it or not, children seldom see leaving school early as a bonus. At least not under these circumstances. But just in case, don't let them have any fun when they get home. Keep them in their room to do schoolwork, whether they have any assignments or not.

Have them make amends for the disruption they caused. If necessary, have them apologize to the entire class. If they don't want to be embarrassed, they need to make better choices.

Solutions toward self-direction

Ask the teacher if you can help out in the classroom one afternoon a week for a while. You can observe a lot while you're cutting out little brown teddy bears from paper sacks, and this presence might give you some insight into what motivates your children to behave the way that they do. With this insight, you can better help your children solve their school behavioral problems.

Use questioning: "What are our rules about behaving at school?" "How easy do you think it is for your friends to learn and finish their work when you disrupt the class like that?"

Use impartial descriptions and give information: "Your teacher tells me you've been distracting the other classmates. Behavior like this makes it more difficult for you and your friends to learn. When learning becomes hard, your relationships with your teacher and the rest of the class might become more challenging."

Talk to the teacher about helping your children find their roles in the class. When children feel as if they have something to contribute, their behavior improves. I particularly like finding a role that somehow ties in to their behavioral problem. For instance, if Suzy has a problem talking in class, put her in charge of giving everyone a secret signal to settle down when they're getting noisy. If Jimmy tends to run all over the place when the class walks in line to the cafeteria at lunchtime, make him the line leader for a few days.