Who should teach a child manners?

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33003, 24 August 1972, Page 7

Who should teach a child manners?

(By

HELEN HOWARD)

LONDON. If your child arrived home from school with a leaflet setting out a code of good behaviour, plus a note telling you to make sure it was carried out, how would you react?

Would you congratulate the teacher on his interest in the child’s welfare? Or would you regard a child’s behaviour outside school hours as none of his business? It’s a question that’s well worth some thought — for you may have to answer it soon. In America, the teacher’s responsibility for “all aspects of his pupils development” was recently endorsed by a national educational conference, and the trend is fast catching on in other countries. “The way a child behaves at home has a direct bearing on the way he behaves at school,” says Dr David Fenner, of the Child Educational Study Group, and to that extent it does concern the teacher. “Anti - social behaviour tolerated at home can seriously affect a child’s progress at school. The teacher would fail in his duty if he did not try to remedy the situation.” Not al) parents agree. Recently when a British headmaster devised a sixpoint code which laid down the type of television programmes children should watch at home, there was an angry reaction from parents. Said one mother of an eight-year-old: “We don’t need him to tell us how to bring up children. He should confine his authority to the school.” Another mother declared: “If he had written only to parents of badly-behaved children, it would have been understood, but to tar every child with the same brush is a disgrace.” Just why do teachers feel the need to take over the job that is traditionally done by parents? SLEEPING IN CLASS Another secondary school headmaster who sent a circular to 300 parents, explained that he did so because of bad language, vio-

lence—and a tendency for children to doze off in class. "We discovered that children under nine were regularly watching television until 10 and 11 p.m.,” he said. “There was absolutely no censorship of television programmes, hence the bad language and violence. ‘‘Children are great mimics. If they get the impression from television that violence and bad language are normal among adults, then they will do the same.”

VIOLENCE ON TV Another leading authority, Professor Maynard Belling, told a conference of children’s psychologists in New York recently that many parents abdicated their responsibilities by not censoring television violence. “Violence and bad language,” he declared, “are becoming habits, even with the youngest children, which parents, cannot, or will not, curtail.” Are parents really as lax as the experts claim? Studies carried out since 1965 by family research groups in Europe and America appear to confirm their fears that: Never have parents been so reluctant to chastise their offspring. Never, in modern times, has there been less orthodox discipline in the family. Never have children been so

spoiled. In the latest study, 30 per cent of mothers and 45 per cent of fathers admitted that they indulged their youngsters too much. BATTLE OF WILLS "Children tend to mistrust family equality,” says Dr Wolfgang Lederer, an authority on child-parent relationships. “The truth is that from the earliest age there is a battle of wills in every household which parents must win with consistency, firmness, and perhaps even with the occasional smack.”

Other studies bear this out. An analysis by a psychologist, Dr David Magnuss, involving 300 children aged from six to 16, showed that although children claimed to dislike strict parents, they were actually much happier with a set of strictly defined values. And if parents don’t provide them, perhaps teachers can be forgiven for stepping into the breach. MANNERS CHARTER Yet when they do, it invariably causes trouble. Recently, parents in a London secondary school protested fiercely when the headmaster devised a “good - manners charter” for parents. It included such recommendations as: Send children to bed at a reasonable hour. Discourage children from fighting. Avoid buying them guns or other violent toys. Insist that they speak correctly at all times. ■ Limit pocket money, to teach children the true value of money. Justifying his actions, the headmaster declared: “I offered this discipline simply because so many parents fail to provide it. Of course, it is a father’s job, but if he doesn’t do it, someone else has to.” According to Dr Michael

Herchal, a children’s psychologist at Chicago’s HardyMoncrief Institute, the more responsibility a man has at work, the more he is inclined to opt out of his obligations at home. He cites a father of three who told him: *T’m disciplining people all day at work. I can’t be expected to start all over again when I get home.” “If a father feels like that,” says Dr Herchal, he can hardly complain if someone else takes over the job for him. — Features International.