Nov 22 2009
If Your Kid was Scolded at School
The days of teachers caning pupils at school are long gone. Even public scoldings are happening less and less. Being disciplined these days means being ushered into the teachers’ room and scolded privately, if at all. Unlike the past, a lot of parents nowadays wouldn’t tolerate teachers caning, slapping and even scolding their kids at school.
This week my son came back from kindy and told me that the teacher scolded a classmate very loudly in class. Needless to say, the classmate cried. These are 4-year-olds we are talking about here and it made me think whether publicly scolding a 4-year-old boy in front of his classmates is the way discipline should be carried out.
I know it’s hard being a kindy teacher when you have 20 kids in a class and all are barely able to sit still for a few hours at a stretch. This particular kid is a little hyperactive and refuses to do his work most of the time. So, I guess the teacher just lost her temper the other day.
But if you are the parent, what would you do? Would you call up the kindy and ask for an explanation? Or would you let the teacher to discipline your kid in this way? I know different people use different methods to discipline their kids. Some are more harsh while other use the soft approach. It just depends on your kid and your own parenting methods.
But I still feel that discipline at school, especially when it involves young kids, requires a little more patience and sensitivity. Of course, kids need to be disciplined when they are naughty but I’m sure there is a way to do so that doesn’t hurt their ego and leave them with a dislike for school.
interesting topic…
I think 4 years old should be able to take instruction pretty well.
And teacher scolding pupils in public is sometimes inevitable.
I would told my child to apologize to the teacher the next day, but at the same time also telling them that the teacher shouldn’t have scold them that loudly in public, but my child must have made the teacher so angry, and ask them try to behave nicely in the classroom, so the teacher is happy to teach them properly.
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