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The art of parenting has been slipping slowly from the hands of parents and into the laps of "professionals" for many years now. From Dr. Spock in the 1940’s to today’s reality show Super Nanny parents are increasingly looking to others for guidance on how to parent their children. Whether this shift is the result of a conscious downloading of responsibility or a genuine lack of parenting knowledge it is a burgeoning problem in the homes and schools of the nation. No one seems to be at the helm of the Good Ship Kiddy Wink and a fierce storm is on the horizon.

This phenomenon usually rears its ugly head in today’s schools at parent teacher conferences or by phone call with parents pleading for help with their child.

"What can I do with him, he just doesn’t listen?"

"How do you deal with his behaviour in your classroom?"

"Do you have any strategies on how to get her to…?"

My most recent encounter with this ever-growing lack of parenting skill was precipitated by a phone call home with regard to a child’s behaviour. Little Bobby was being a constant irritant to everyone in the room and all my management strategies had been exhausted.

The call went home and I left a message on the answering machine. In less than 24 hrs I got a response by Email from the mother explaining that she had forwarded a message to little Bobby’s father and he would be calling me.

My first question was why she didn’t just pass on the message at the dinner table but who was I to be questioning a family’s means of communication. At least there was a glimmer of hope that dear old Dad might have some clout.

Later that day I got a call from daddy and he immediately started to awkwardly field questions to get an idea of what his child had been doing. After about a ten-minute conversation he thanked me and said he would be speaking with Bobby’s mother and they would decide what they would do.

The next morning there was a message on my voice mail from Bobby’s father:

"My wife and I had a good discussion with Bobby about his behaviour but we haven’t given him any kind of punishment yet."

"We just wanted to ask if you might be able to advise us as to what would be an appropriate punishment?"

Whether it was intentional or not, these parents were trying to download the disciplining their child to me. Talk about parenting without the hard part, not being the bad guy.

Man if only it were that easy.

That is your job not mine Part II

Classroom management, such as it is, is much different today than it was in days past. Gone are the menacing management styles that were once used to terrorise and suppress the student body and in its place a far more kind and gentler management system has taken its place.

In today’s classrooms children are managed through goodwill and understanding between teacher and student. It is understood that the only thing that really keeps a class in order, is the goodwill the students collectively grant the teacher. Outside of that the teacher has nothin, zippo, zilch at their disposal to maintain order in a class. Teachers have been metaphorically castrated in the past twenty years and have nothing other than a lesson plan, a sparkling personality and if they’re lucky an allusion of authority.

The only vestige of days past that teachers still have in their quiver of management tools is the phone call home and even the effectiveness of this has changed in recent years. At one time this was the hammer that was only unleashed when all else had failed in the classroom. It would frequently result in a sound whooping when dear old Pappy got home and/or a month in solitary confinement. This phone call was the single greatest fear a child had and would usually only have to be made once in any given school year to straighten a child out.

Today, more often than not, even the call home has little to no effect in modifying a child’s behaviour. Thankfully, with some families it still carries some clout but for the most part it simply opens the teacher up to criticism about their skill and serves only as a conduit for verbal abuse on behalf of the parent toward the teacher.

A recent phone call home by a colleague garnered a comment from a parent that sums up how many people feel about being asked to assist a teacher in modifying a child’s behaviour.
After trying every anaemic means of modifying the child’s behaviour at their disposal, including report card comments, letters home and voice mail messages the teacher finally contacted the child's father by phone one eveneing. Irritated by the intrusion the father summed up the ever growing sentement of today's parents in two short sentences.

"I don’t call you when I have a problem with Johnny at home so don't be calling me when you are having a problem with him in your classroom. He is your problem not mine!"

With that, the father hung up and absolved himself of any responsibility for his child’s behaviour in the classroom.