The behavioural blame game

I heard of a case recently in which a new child joined a British curriculum school in KG1 and from the first five minutes it became explicitly clear that the child had behavioural issues, writes Chris Fenton.

The teacher’s response was to get angry and demand the child be removed from the class. The head teacher’s response was much the same. The child’s response was to scream and cry at the top of his voice for more than an hour.

The UK-trained teacher was so distraught by the experience she took the next day off. The child, of course, didn’t and continued with his peculiar ways until he ended up in the head’s office where he screamed for another hour until he fell asleep.

Obviously this is an extreme example of behavioural issues in primary schools but none the less, it does happen and even though nobody likes it, it is no time for knee-jerk reactions such as the ones demonstrated. 

Educational professionals shouldn’t turn their back on such cases, or pass the buck, they should endeavour to find a solution with all of the associated parties involved and then, when in agreement on a course of action, should put it into practice so hopefully the troubled child will find a way to enjoy school and who knows, possibly benefit from it.

This sounds really easy doesn’t it, but it isn’t, it isn’t at all. 

The problem that I see regularly is that no one wants to take responsibility for a child’s behaviour when it starts to deviate from what a ‘normal’ child would do. 

It is very easy to pass the buck and say that it is the parent’s responsibility, or the schools responsibility, or even the Ministry of Education’s yet when we do that, the cycle of blame continues and continues until something extreme happens and then the cycle of blame reverses and the Ministry blames the school, and school blames the parents, and so on. 

Only once we stop this destructive cycle of blame and the passing of accountability and remember that somewhere in the whirlwind there is a child that needs real help, can we address the needs of all of our children and truly meet the Ministry’s mission statement - no child left behind.

The truth is that children with behaviour issues aren’t easy to deal with. They require effort and resources and time, lots of time, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve it. 

Children who demonstrate extreme behaviour generally are experiencing extreme emotions of their own. 

Sometimes they don’t know how to cope with school and very often have parents with very limited parenting skills and yet some teachers expect them to come in, sit down and conform and, when they don’t, the emotional blame game begins again. 

The whole thing is exhausting. Parents, who are tired of getting phone calls, want solutions from the school. Teachers, who are tired of the behaviour, want solutions from the parents and nobody is taking real responsibility when all the child wants is help.

There isn’t a proven formula for what makes an effective school but if there were, excluding the needs of all children, be it in a private or government school setting, certainly wouldn’t be a part of it.