Episode 171: When Classroom Behavior Breaks Down, Parents Are Blamed

Classroom disruption isn’t a punchline anymore. Teachers across the country are reporting more disrespect, more disengagement, and, in some cases, behavior that becomes unsafe, and families are being pulled into a tense question: Who is responsible for fixing it when student discipline breaks down?

I dig into what the research and recent national data say about declining student behavior in K-12 public education, including how pandemic-era habits and academic gaps can show up as acting out. I also talk about the discipline pendulum swing from zero-tolerance policies to restorative discipline practices, why many educators feel consequences have weakened, and what “restorative” is supposed to look like when it’s done well. You’ll hear why school administrators matter so much in these moments, what teachers need in training and support, and how parent-school relationships can either reinforce expectations or derail them.

Then I zoom in on what surprised me most: disruptive behavior can start shockingly early. Pre-K expulsions are occurring at higher rates than in K-12, with serious equity concerns, and we unpack research linking long hours in childcare to later aggression while challenging the idea that a single factor explains everything. I also share a promising approach that uses sibling relationships to build empathy, self-control, and stronger behavior at school.

If you’re a parent trying to read the subtle signs your child is struggling, I  close with clear action steps: get involved early, watch for body-language clues, ask better questions, advocate when needed, and don’t defend behavior you know is wrong. 

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Transcript

The New Reality Of Misbehavior

Zero Tolerance To Restorative Discipline

When Parents And Schools Clash

Training Administrators Need For Discipline

Restorative Tools Like Peer Court

Pre-K Expulsions Start Shockingly Early

Childcare Hours And Aggression Claims

Siblings As A Behavior Intervention

Parent Action Steps And Warning Signs

Key Takeaways And How To Respond

Share Your Thoughts And Closing

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome to another episode of K-12 Public Education Insights, Empowering Parents of Color Podcast. The podcast that converges at the intersection of educational research and parental actions. It's about making the trends, topics, and theories in public education understandable so that you can implement them into practical, actionable strategies that work for your children. My name is Dr. Kim J. Fields, former corporate manager, turned education researcher, and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microaggressions that I faced as an African-American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. This battle-tested experience is what I provide as action steps for you to take. It's like enjoying a bowl of educational research with a sprinkling of motherwit wisdom on top. If you're looking to find out more about the current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, and the action steps you can take to give your children the advantages they need, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 public education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. Give me 30 minutes or less, and I'll provide insights on the latest trends, issues, and topics pertaining to this constantly evolving K-12 public education environment. Student behavior in the classroom is declining. Remember the class clown in your schooling days? Well, it's come a long way from that. It's progressed to disrespect, abrasiveness, and in some severe cases, violence toward teachers and classmates. And you might be surprised to learn how early this disruptive behavior begins. What are schools doing about this issue? Many of them are blaming the parents. In this episode, I discuss the causes behind the rise of disruptive behavior in the classroom, why some teachers and school administrators are blaming parents, and what some schools and districts are doing to reverse this trend. I also discussed the need for early parent involvement as well as ways to recognize the subtle signs that tell you when your child is struggling at school. Let's gain some insight on this. Picture education as a three-legged stool. Parents are the third leg of the education stool. That stool has a leg for educators, a leg for school administrators and leaders, and a leg for parents. The seat of that stool represents education laws and policies. Parents are also the third leg of the discipline conversation. Many teachers indicate that behavior problems aren't just about students, it's about the parents. Can parents and teachers become allies and not enemies on the matter of student discipline? Maybe so, but it takes work. Here's the thing. Nationwide, both new and veteran teachers report dealing with deteriorating levels of student behavior in the classrooms. Students are abrasive, disrespectful, disengaged, refused to complete tasks, and in some severe cases, violent toward their peers and teachers. Since the 1990s, the zero tolerance policies that recommended a clean barrier between those who violated school rules and those who followed those rules, that was the prevailing discourse on how to discipline students. Those policies, according to the research, often overlooked inherent economic and social factors, since students of color and those with disabilities were typically disciplined at higher rates than their white peers. More recently, schools have tried to follow a gentler, more restorative approach to student discipline. The idea is to keep students in classrooms and extinguish conflict through conflict resolution practices and in-school suspensions, but in-school suspensions have had limited success in curbing behavioral issues, and it has also garnered criticism, especially from teachers, for letting students quote unquote off the hook with few to no consequences. When parents get involved in the conversation about disciplining their children, teachers and principals have found that they can help reinforce good behavior at home and in school, yet it can also derail the school's efforts to discipline students. When schools enforce consequences like suspensions, detentions, or exclusion from extracurricular activities, it's often the parents who try to shield their students. Some teachers have said that when they call parents to speak about their child's behavior in the classroom with them, either they're not getting an answer or they're getting negative feedback. As if the teacher is saying something bad about the child. Well, yeah, that's how the parents are going to interpret it, especially if that's the only reason that you call. The teachers are supposedly just looking for support to change the child's behavior. I can remember a number of these conversations between teachers, staff, and the principal regarding my son's behavior. They seem to be honestly looking for feedback for how to control him. I had no real feedback to give them since he didn't act at home the way he did at school. I pointed that out to the teachers and principals, indicating that I didn't have those issues at home. Mind you, my son was quote unquote acting out for two reasons. One, the teacher lacked classroom management skills, so he took over. And two, he was just bored with the level of work that the teacher required him to complete. In my mind, neither of these issues I could address at home, especially after I suggested that the teacher challenge him with more advanced work. Since the teacher refused to go the extra mile to provide more challenging work, I had no further feedback to provide. New national data appears to be backing up teachers' anecdotal perceptions about a downward slide in student behavior. 35% of the respondents to a nationally representative survey of more than 5,800 teachers as part of the State of the Teaching project indicated that their students' behavior was a lot worse than last year. There were very few reports of improvement in behavior. Educators have offered a number of explanations for these patterns, including habits that were developed during the pandemic when students weren't bound by school rules or structures that have lingered on to this day. Another potential factor is the academic fallout from the pandemic, which put many students behind grade level on reading and math. In many cases, students often behave poorly to shield what's going on with them academically. The other main factor that teachers indicated in that report was that students just aren't scared of the consequences anymore. They just do and say things to see if they can get away with it. The teachers who responded to the survey stated that smaller class sizes, providing instruction for parents on teaching children how to behave in ways that are appropriate for school, limiting parents' ability to undermine consequences when the children get into trouble for misbehaving, reducing students' access to screens, phones, and other devices, and tougher consequences for student misbehavior, including more or longer office referrals, suspensions, and expulsions, would all have a major positive impact on student behavior. Why do parents seem so resistant to backing up educators when it comes to misbehavior? One of the reasons is that the educators can make it feel like they're pointing fingers at the parent for not having control over their child's behavior, or they're hinting at the parent's parenting style. Now, this can easily make parents defensive, I can attest to that, and generally unhelpful in getting to the root cause of why their children are acting out. Teachers cannot manage disgruntled parents alone, and they expect their administrators to step in when disciplinary issues escalate. However, this is a tricky situation for school leaders because they need to negotiate peace, but they also must ensure that students learn their lesson from disciplinary matters. Teachers say that they need additional training on student behavior before things get too bad, and they need to know what to do when an angry parent gets involved. This training would be specifically about how to have restorative conversations with students and parents. Ultimately, it is important that school administrators establish a good rapport with parents from the beginning of the school year to make schools places where parents want to be. Restorative discipline practices are about holding students accountable and getting them to write a wrong. This approach is getting a lot more notice because the criticism that continues to grow surrounding zero tolerance disciplinary practices that often require out-of-school suspension and expulsion. The goal is to change a student's bad behaviors rather than kicking him or her out of school as punishment and risking them disconnecting from school altogether. An example of a restorative disciplinary practice is a peer court, where a student who misbehaved has to answer questions in front of his peers, as in a courtroom setting, and waits on a verdict and a sentence that the student must abide by. For example, a student gets in trouble for fighting and presents the situation before a peer court. The court rules and sentences the student to address his or her actions by writing letters of apology, undergoing tutoring, and joining a school sports team or other extracurricular activity. There is always a timeline associated with completing the sentencing. The records of the students who carry out their sentences are wiped clean. When does disruptive behavior begin at school? Apparently quite early. I have read this before in a different study and it still seems crazy to me. Pre-kindergarten children are being expelled from their classes for behavior problems at a higher rate than students in K-12 schools, according to a recent study. For every 1,000 preschoolers enrolled in state pre-K programs, roughly seven are being tossed out of school compared with two per thousand students in elementary, middle, and high schools. Expuls rates are even higher for preschoolers enrolled in community-based programs. This puts the pre-kindergarten students behind in the benefits that preschool provides, and they may enter elementary school already behind their counterparts on cognitive, academic, social, and behavioral concepts. The likelihood is that they may never catch up these skills. Perhaps this is an early educator training issue. Professional development could address this issue. Four-year-olds were 50% more likely to be expelled than two or three-year-olds, and boys were expelled at a rate that was four and a half times greater than the rate for girls. Black children weren't twice as likely as Hispanic and white children to be expelled, and more than five times as likely to be expelled as Asian American children. Principals say behavior problems among pre-K children can often be addressed before they become serious because parents tend to be more involved in their children's schools at that age. Many principals would also argue that expulsion does not solve a behavior problem. The provider of pre-K classes may also make the difference. For example, public school-based programs or head start sites expelled preschoolers at a lower rate. Nevertheless, aggressive behavior among young children seems to be escalating. It's important that program leaders focus on the whole child, not just behavioral issues, especially since pre-K programs are being expanded with the hope that children will acquire the skills they need for elementary school. Well, teachers and staff blamed parents for disruptive behaviors exhibited by some students, and now they indicate that children who spend time in childcare centers are more at risk for behavioral problems such as aggressiveness and disobedience. Wow. So what does a hardworking parent who has to rely on child care services do while they work two jobs? Specifically, the researchers say that 17% of the children who spend more than 30 hours a week in childcare by the time they are four and a half years old are more aggressive toward other children in kindergarten. This rating came from caregivers, mothers, and teachers. On the other hand, only 6% of the children who were in childcare less than 10 hours a week showed the same behavior problems. Naturally, these latest findings are unlikely to resolve the long-standing debate among parents and policymakers over whether childcare outside the family's home is helpful or harmful. I think one of the assumptions that the researchers in this project are making is that disciplinary problems can be tracked to one source, in this case, long hours in childcare. But this is not true. Disruptive behaviors exhibited by some students in school are due to a number of external factors, mostly stemming from situations in the home and in the community. Also, 83% of the children who spend more than 30 hours a week in childcare do not show behavior problems. The researchers need to look at that. They might also want to take a look at the adult-child ratios in child care centers and the outcomes that are measured for all the children. A recent study enlisted siblings to prevent behavior problems. The study harnessed the power of sibling relationships to encourage healthy childhood development and improve achievement. The study built on a growing body of research that suggests that positive sibling relationships can be highly influential in a child's development and behavior. I've experienced this myself when I was growing up and had older siblings who held us accountable. Anyone have an older sister who thought she was your second mother? Yeah, I did too. Now I'm stressing a positive sibling relationship. You may already know or have experienced that negative sibling relationships can lead to impaired social skills, depression, exposure to risky situations, and parental stress. The program in the study was held after school for fifth graders who had younger siblings between the second and fourth grade. For 12 weeks, fifth graders and their siblings attended weekly group sessions and three family nights, which included their parents, after school. In the program, children worked on improving their empathy toward one another and were engaged in joint decision-making activities. The sessions also focused on emotional understanding and fair play skills. At the end of the study, children in the intervention group had lower levels of problem internalization and higher levels of self-control and higher social competence as well as academic performance. While the intervention program was not equally successful on all measures of siblings' relationships, the researchers hope that it will at least be a starting point for incorporating sibling relationships into disruptive behavior prevention programming. So, what can you do with the information that I just shared? Here are the action steps you can take regarding disruptive student behavior in the classroom. A new research study in the journal, School Psychology, found that middle school students whose parents got involved early in the school year had fewer academic and behavioral problems later on. Parent involvement, as I've said, you know, that's one of my platform topics, it typically declines as students move from elementary to middle school grades. However, highly involved parents at the start of the year had students who, by the end of that school year, had better social skills, stronger focus on tasks, and fewer emotional or behavioral problems in class. This was true for not only elementary students, but middle school students as well. Even though your child may not exhibit problems they're having at school when they are at home, there are ways to tap in to what they may be struggling with. If you drive them to school, you can use that time to discuss whether they had a fight with a friend or whether they have anxiety about an upcoming test. Holds true if you pick them up from school. Meaningful discussions during the drive home can be revealing. Understanding these triggers or warning signs early can help extinguish a small issue before it grows. Check out your child's body language, like whether there's a slump in their posture, whether their head hangs down as if it's covered by clouds, whether they avoid conversation, and whether they're just simply dragging their feet or moving slowly. Addressing these issues could head off poor behavior that could be exhibited at school. It's just another way to help your child have a good day at school. You know your child best. Stay engaged, observe any behavior changes, and ask what's going on with them. Advocate for your child at school when necessary, and if you know your child is in the wrong, bring that to his or her attention. By all means, do not defend a child who has exhibited disruptive behavior. Stand for integrity by aligning yourself with what is right and demonstrate that to your child. Before I highlight this episode's takeaways, I have an announcement. I'll be taking a one-week break from the podcast for spring break. This means that the next episode after this one will drop April 7th. I hope you have a great spring break or have had a great spring break. Now, on to this episode's takeaways. Here are this episode's takeaways. Nationwide, both new and veteran teachers report dealing with deteriorating levels of student behavior in the classrooms. Students are abrasive, disrespectful, disengaged, refuse to complete tasks, and in some severe cases, violent toward their peers and teachers. Since the 1990s, the zero tolerance policies that recommended a clean barrier between those who violated school rules and those who followed school rules was the prevailing discourse on how to discipline students. Those policies, according to research, often overlooked inherent economic and social factors since students of color and those with disabilities were typically disciplined at higher rates than their white peers. More recently, schools have tried to follow a gentler, more restorative approach to student discipline. The idea is to keep students in classrooms and extinguish conflict through conflict resolution practices and in-school suspensions. But in-school suspensions have had limited success in curbing behavioral issues, and it has received criticism, mostly from teachers, for letting students off the hook with few to no consequences. Educators have offered a number of explanations for deteriorating behavioral issues and those patterns, including habits that were developed during the pandemic when students were not bound by school rules or structures that have lingered on to this day. Another potential factor is the academic fallout from the pandemic, which put many students behind grade level on reading and math. In many cases, students often behave poorly to shield what's going on with them academically. The other main factor that teachers indicate is that students just aren't scared of the consequences anymore. They just do and say things to see if they can get away with it. Pre-kindergarten children are being expelled from their classes for behavior problems at a higher rate than students in K-12 schools, according to a recent study. For every 1,000 preschoolers enrolled in state pre-K programs, roughly seven are being tossed out of school compared with two per 1,000 students in elementary, middle, and high schools. Expuls rates are even higher for preschoolers enrolled in community-based programs. This puts the pre-kindergarten students behind in the benefits that preschool provides, and they may enter elementary school already behind their counterparts on cognitive, academic, social, and behavioral concepts. The likelihood is that they may never catch up these skills. It's important that program leaders of pre-kindergarten programs focus on the whole child, not just their behavioral issues, especially since pre-K programs are being expanded with the hope the children will acquire the skills they need for elementary school. What have been your experiences with students' disruptive behavior in the classroom? Let me know your thoughts by leaving me a text comment on my podcast website, k12educationinsights.budsprout.com. Here's how you leave that text comment. Go to the episode description page and click on the Send Me a Text Message link. Again, it's K12Education Insights.budsprout.com. If you enjoyed this episode, why not listen to another episode from my catalog? It can take as little as 15 minutes of your day. And remember, new episodes come out every Tuesday. Thanks for listening today. Be sure to come back for more insights on K-12 educational topics that impact you and your children. And remember to share my podcast with anyone that you think will find valuable. That includes your friends, family, and your community. Until next time, learn something new every day.