School children need to face the consequences of their actions
And so it came to this. After years of reporting increased aggressive and entitled behavior by some parents in schools, private school principals are asking parents to sign clear codes of conduct, contracts or behavior agreements to curb these unhelpful interventions.
Phillip Heath, principal of Barker College on Sydney’s north shore, is asking parents to sign a contract agreeing to support the school’s decisions.
He told our reporter Emily Kowal that the contract was necessary for legal advice and detailed the increasing trend of some parents to “weaponise” disputes by calling lawyers or the police when they are unhappy with the school. Parents are using AI to save them time preparing complaints, which is likely eating up valuable school resources.
Heath said parents wanted maximum discipline to be applied to other children, but their children were treated with kid gloves.
The outstanding Geelong Grammar School in Victoria reportedly He asked the parents of girls who left his private campus to go to a bar and sign a contract affirming the school’s right to punish their children as it saw fit. Girls whose parents do not sign will not be accepted to school.
This came after the mother of one of the runaways complained that the punishment chosen by the school – making misbehaving students sleep in isolated tents for five nights – was contrary to Article 37 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. What would it find if the school ran an AI detection device on his submission?
Geelong Grammar charges $94,000 for its year-long Timbertop programme. There is no doubt that the deep pocket fees of many elite private schools create an expectation among some parents that, as paying customers, they are entitled to expect a certain level of service from retailers selling them a prestigious consumer good.
However, disrespect towards school leaders and teachers is unfortunately not limited to private schools. NSW’s upper house is now considering legislation that would give headteachers the power to ban parents from school grounds if they engage in unreasonable and harmful behaviour.
The proposed laws will cover the public, Catholic and independent sectors and are a response to routine bullying and harassment from parents. A small proportion of parents engage in this behavior, but the impact it has on the mental health of those exposed to it is huge.
Of course, sometimes parents need to advocate for their children, and no school is perfect. A serious response may be required on serious matters. But often the best thing to do is to work with a school to resolve the issues.
Using parental power to protect your children from the consequences of their actions will not set them up for success. This will not help them develop the resilience they need to cope with life’s blows and will send the wrong lesson that they are entitled to special treatment.
Parents need to be willing to accept that sometimes their children may be wrong, and that a truly valuable education often requires the invaluable experience of learning from your mistakes.
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