Tips to help when your child is disruptive in class
If your child's teacher has complained about your child's behaviour, don't panic just yet.
The last thing any parents want is to be the mom to the class disruptor. This means that you will be receiving constant letters, emails and phone calls about your child’s behaviour. Before this becomes your child’s official school title, here are some steps you can follow in attempts to understanding your child and stopping the behaviour in its tracks.
Speak to the teacher
The Brain Balance Achievement Centre recommends that parents should make means to talk to the teacher about their behaviour. Your child’s disruptions could come in different forms. Are they a class clown? Are they disrespectful? Do they pick on other kids during lessons? To understand the behaviour, chat with the person that experiences it first had. It might be a difficult conversation, but it is necessary.
If you both agree that it has to be stopped, you can put measures in place to manage it. One teacher recalls that she “set up a plan with his mother that involves getting stamps each day for good behavior. His mother then rewards him for his good day at home. We do this every single day”
Find the source of the behaviour
A reward is great and can be effective, but knowing the source of your child’s disruptiveness will be helpful. A teacher shares on the Scholastic Journals that “usually they are searching for attention, so you can find a way to make sure the student can get attention for positive behavior”. This would require you to speak to your child about their actions in school.
Check your child’s friends
Your child might be getting into trouble with kids that are influencing this behaviour. This is especially the case for kids that generally don’t have behavioural issues, or act right in the absence of these friends. Assessing his friends will make known which friends he should not be spending so much time with.
Deal with the behaviour at home as well
A lot of parents would expect the school teachers to manage their child’s behaviour at school. Empowering Parents is a company dedicated to empowering parents with kids that have some behavioural issues. They state that it is important that “parents need to hold him accountable and give consequences at home in addition to the consequences the school assigns”. This will also teach your child that there are consequences to the decisions they make.
Don’t defend your child
Parent’s default setting is to protect and defend their child. When it comes to this, this is the last thing you should do. Not only does it undermine the teacher, but it makes your child feel invincible. According to Empowering Parents, you need to “understand that defending your child when he has behaved inappropriately will not help him develop appropriate behavior skills”.
