Furthermore, I applaud the poster for taking on this task!
Actually, I think we are talking about the poster. She posted that she plans to discipline her son at home by writing sentences. That is when the conversation focused on whether to carry over the discipline to home or not.
I feel that teachers should not overcompensate by disciplining their students for their parents' lack of parenting skills. This is enabling. Perhaps the school folks should help these parents by at least pointing them in the direction of someone or an agency that could help these parents improve their parenting skills.
Excellent post...well said, very good points made!
Yes, it would be nice if all we had to do was teach our kids. But, in the real world it doesn't happen. I found that parents generally tended to fall into two sets. There were those that had good parenting skills. With their kids, just the threat of a phone call was enough to shape up the child. Unfortunately, for those parents with poor parenting skills - they usually had no clue and sometimes made things worse. It was much more effective to change the child's behavior at school. (And that's one reason why the DSM guidelines say behavior has to happen at both school and home over a period of 6 months). Consequently, I never asked a parent to discipline there child. Either the parent was already doing it or I was able to do it immediately much more effectively. Of course, if you are a new, or struggling teacher then you might call out for help from home.
As a middle school vice-principal I had a motto on my desk - "Show me, don't tell me". I found that the kids would say or write anything to get out of their situation. So they could "own" up to what they did all day long, but until there actions proved it - I watched them like a hawk.
Anyway, we have really spent too much time philosophizing on this post. We need a separate one for our own discussions. Hopefully, we can get back to this specific poster and her predicament.
Of course, I cannot speak for teachers, but I honestly don't think that they would prefer to assume the role of parent or disciplinarian of their students. I think that all they want to do is teach them.
I think that we need to ask our selves what message gets across to kids, regardless of their age, when they physically assault a student at school and absolutely nothing happens to them at home as if nothing very bad happened at school that day. I wonder if kids would get the impression that they could hurt someone at school but all of their privileges will be completely intact at home that same day.
Additionally, I wonder if we would be giving the wrong impression to our kids as to who their real parent is. The parent should be the one responsible for the behavior of their children at all times. By only having the teacher assume this responsibility for school misbehavior, I wonder if we are sending mixed messages to the child as to who the real parent is. I can only imagine that this issue can be very confusing to a small child in particular.
I totally agree that the most effective discipline is the one that occurs right away. I believe that wholeheartedly. However, this cannot always occur for reasons beyond our control. Sometimes, discipline has to be delayed. Should I child not be disciplined if the discipline cannot occur immediately? I realize that this isn't the same as the teacher disciplining the child at the time. However, this question is just as relevant.