Unmindful Mistakes Done by Parents
By JOHN REBATO NERI
Teacher III
Butuan City Special Education Center
A school is a home away from home where peace, love, and security abide. Teachers have great responsibility to make the learning fun and safe for learners against any form of physical and mental violence, bullying, harassment, and maltreatment. Accordingly, pupils who feel safe in school tend to have better emotional health and are less likely to engage risky behaviors, (Kidsdata org, 2021). Hence, schools should establish favorable environment for learning where skills and ability are being nurtured.
The Department, as a duty-guardian, is mandated to exercise every effort to defend the education rights of children and promote the well-being and enrich better opportunities for a useful and happy life (R.A. No. 7610 [1992], Section 2; Presidential Decree 603 [1974], Article 1). The best interest of children shall be the paramount and primary consideration of the Department in all actions concerning children. Therefore, the welfare and safety of the children are the utmost concern of teachers while pupils are in the school.
One of the prevailing issues in some schools is the tolerance of wrong actions of some parents that cause a harmful effect on the emotions of the child such as reprimanding, lecturing, confronting, or disciplining other kid due to some trouble or misbehavior. When it comes to disciplining someone else’s child, we must be sensitive with the child’s feelings and the child’s parents, because we might offend parent’s personal norms. It’s not intruding on another parent’s territory when you’re protecting your own child when it is done rightfully, constructively, respectfully and cultural sensitivity.
Clearly we were on different sides of the issue, when is it OK to discipline someone else’s child or to correct their manners? Is admonishing someone else’s kid OK?
According to Michele Borba, EdD, a Parents advisor and author of No More Misbehavin’, “the right response depends on the circumstances”. In school, whenever there’s aggression or a safety issue and the cause is about to happen, it is appropriate to discipline or lecture someone’s child by another parent for as long as the parent/s never yell or hit the child, but use a firm tone and explains the reasons or rules. Teacher should further explain the grounds and the urgency why certain parent comes in without any consent from the teacher. If the parent of the child is present, it is best that we need to inform or call the parent and nicely tell them that we need his/her help to discipline his/her child.
Moreover, when the disrupting behavior is done in the house of a parent, basically “my house, my rule applies, there are rules in placed thus everyone is expected to respect and abide certain rules and I think a parent can discipline but we should handle things a little more tactfully with other people’s children so we won’t offend other feelings.”
When the violence or trouble is done in the absence of teacher and parent, it is necessary to always set boundaries between school and house. The person who is in authority to discipline the child is the teacher considering the circumstances. Never a parent will admonish another kid in front of a teacher or even in the absence of a teacher. It is necessary to inform the teacher and discuss the situation thoroughly so that the problem can be addressed appropriately, fairly, and rightfully.
In school, we teach the child how to settle things meaningfully and responsively with good norms. Remember that our pupils look up to us to be their role model. They see how we behave and if we allow things to escalate or just happen then that is what they learn and how they behave and treat others as well. They might think that its ok to be aggressive and lose our temper easily. We should never send wrong information to the pupils or else they will live by it.
Ultimately, the goal of the Department of Education, as the teachers being the prime movers, is to protect the welfare of the children particularly on their emotional development while they are learning in school because emotional problems are difficult for to detect. When we wrongly reprimand, scold, and embarrass the child, emotional safety of the child is also affected. After all, there’s a fine line between being cautious and being critical, and the one thing worse than a troublesome kid is a wrong action done by adult. ###
