Help Your Child Cope With Problems at School
DETERIORATING world conditions affect all of us, including our children. God’s Word, the Bible, accurately foretold that in our day “critical times hard to deal with [would] be here” and that “wicked men and impostors [would] advance from bad to worse.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5, 13) Thus, schooling today is fraught with difficulty as pupils wrestle with situations their parents rarely experienced. What can parents do to help their children cope?
Peer Pressure
Most children experience peer pressure at times. One young French student laments: “Parents and society do what they can, but it is not enough. Young delinquents drag along other youths. . . . Parents who do not control their children are not parents.”
Responsible parents try to help their children develop spiritual qualities that supply them with the inner strength they need to withstand damaging peer pressure. “We put forth earnest effort to help our children build self-esteem,” explains one father, “so that they will not find it necessary to have the approval of their peers. If being like other children is not important to them, they will find it easier to say no when they are supposed to say no.” To teach his children how to handle difficult situations, this parent makes time for his family to engage in role-playing, actually acting out difficult situations that could arise and demonstrating ways to cope with them. Be a supportive parent, and help your child develop self-assurance.
Bad Language
As moral standards decline worldwide, bad language becomes more commonplace. In many lands it is heard frequently on so-called prime-time TV. Thus, school playgrounds, corridors, and classrooms echo with obscenities.
Some teachers justify their own swearing and cursing, arguing that their students can then form their own attitudes toward such speech. But such a policy simply allows pupils to adopt these depraved expressions as part of acceptable everyday speech.
A wise parent explains in a kindly way why uttering such words is not allowed in the family. He can also forestall the problem of bad language in classwork by checking the school syllabus to learn what books his child will study. If any of the works chosen contain bad language or feature immorality, perhaps he can request the child’s teacher to choose an alternative book with acceptable contents. A balanced approach demonstrates reasonableness.—Philippians 4:5.
Immorality and Drugs
Surveys reveal that many parents acknowledge being “too shy or embarrassed to tackle the topic [of sex education] at home.” Instead, they rely on school to furnish their children with accurate information. But The Sunday Times of London reports that, according to one senior teacher, today’s bumper crop of teenage pregnancies has “more to do with morality than the mechanics of contraception.” Parents are in the best position to establish the standards of conduct they expect their children to maintain.
The same is true with drug abuse. A lack of parental direction makes the problem worse. “The more family life appears unappealing to the child,” observes Francoscopie 1993, “the greater is the tendency to find himself a substitute. [Taking] drugs is often one of them.” “It is hard to be a parent,” acknowledges Micheline Chaban-Delmas, president of the foundation Toxicomanie et Prévention Jeunesse (Drug Use and the Protection of Youth). “You have to be constantly on guard; drugs are often a way to alert parents that something is wrong. If the adolescent feels that his mother or father is not paying attention to him, when he is offered drugs, they could seem like a magic solution to his problems.”
One Canadian parent explains how he and his wife take a real interest in their teenage daughter’s schooling: “We drive Nadine to and from school. Frequently, after picking her up, a conversation ensues that reveals what her day was like. If we discover something of a rather serious nature, we either talk to her about it then or bring the subject up again at supper time or during a family discussion.” You can likewise express genuine concern and love for your child by keeping the lines of communication open.
Bullying and Violence
Bullying is “one of the most insidious of school problems,” states Maureen O’Connor in How to Help Your Child Through School. She also notes that “however much misery it is causing to the victims, they are often unwilling to tell an adult about it for fear of being branded a ‘sneak.’”
Regrettably, some teachers view bullying as normal behavior. But many others agree with educator Pete Stephenson, who believes that bullying is a “form of abuse” and maintains that “it is not in the best interests of the bullies to allow it to continue.”
What, then, can you do if your child becomes the victim of a bully? “The first line of defence,” writes O’Connor, “has to be the adult community in which [the victims] live.” Talk matters over with a sympathetic teacher. This will reassure your child that both of you consider such aggressive behavior to be unacceptable. Many schools have adopted a clear policy against bullying, which teachers discuss openly in class.
Natalie became a victim of bullies on account of her religion. “Because I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I was insulted, and my things were sometimes torn up,” she relates. To solve the problem, she talked matters over with her parents, who suggested that she speak with her teachers. This she did. “I also took the initiative to telephone the parents of two of my classmates who were bullying me,” she adds. “Because I was able to explain the problem to them, things are much better now. I thus gained the confidence both of my teachers and of most of my classmates.”
At times, parents discover that their child is the bully, not the bullied. They do well, then, to take a close look at what goes on at home. “Children whose aggressive behaviour is more pronounced tend to come from families where the parents don’t solve conflict very adequately,” reports The Times of London, adding: “Violent behaviour is a learnt process.”
Violence in some places reaches epidemic proportions. When political unrest renders schooling well-nigh impossible, children who value neutrality have, on occasion, found it wise to stay at home. But if the trouble breaks out when they are at school, they prudently slip away and return home until calm is restored.
Poor Teaching
Good communication between your child and your child’s teachers can help when poor teaching causes problems. “We always encourage our daughter to have a positive attitude toward her lessons,” comment one couple. But when teachers fail to make a subject interesting, children quickly lose interest. If your child finds this to be so, why not encourage him to talk to the teacher privately?
Help your youngster prepare questions that, when answered, will make it easy both to grasp the point of the lesson and to learn how to use what is taught. This alone does not guarantee a genuine and lasting interest in the subject, though. Much depends on your own parental example. Show you care by discussing lessons with your child, and offer to help with research projects the teacher assigns.
At school, there are children who come from broken homes, or who live under abusive and neglectful situations, and who therefore often lack self-confidence and self-respect. They mingle with children who may have better circumstances. Most parents realize they need to persist in helping their children cope with problems that arise at school. But what of parents’ dealings with the teachers? What kind of relationship should they cultivate, and how?
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Is Your Child the Victim of a Bully?
EXPERTS advise parents to watch their child for telltale signs. Does he or she show a reluctance to go to school, avoid schoolmates, come home bruised or with torn clothes?
Encourage your child to tell you exactly what happened. This will help you know whether bullying is really the problem. If it is, then talk with a sympathetic teacher.
Help your child cope by suggesting that he stay close to reliable classmates and avoid places and occasions where bullying can recur. A child with a good sense of humor and who knows how to talk his way out of a difficult situation will often manage well.
Avoid being overanxious, and do not encourage retaliation.