I am not condoning crime, but I do think alternatives to jail exist as consequences for criminal behavior. Foster care does not provide a substitute for the loved one that the child has lost. There seems to be a real disregard or lack of thought about the children who are left without a mother or a father, and jail does not correct the failure of parents to realize the damage they are doing to their children. So little is understood about child development by the general public.
Teachers get erroneous ideas and draw on them when dealing with children. For instance, teachers who participated in the Virginia studies indicated that high school children handle having an incarcerated parent better than do children who are in elementary school. My experience with the focus group shows a different part of the story: High school children are better able to repress or deny their troubled feelings and their distress over the loss of a parent.
These children are truly hurting, and this behavior on the part of their teachers might hurt them more. In another quote from the paper, "... several (n = 10) noted that they have witnessed colleagues being ‘unsupportive,’ ‘unprofessional’ and expecting less from children with incarcerated parents."
Don’t Discount Child’s Impressions
When one of our own children or one of our patients says, "My teacher doesn’t like me," our first tendency is to try to dissuade the child of his impressions. We know realistically that not every teacher treats every child the same. But for one teacher to note that another teacher is acting badly toward a child is quite an indictment, and those of us who are outside observers regarding schools are shocked and saddened to know that a child’s education can be harmed by his teacher.
However, the Virginia researchers discovered new hazards for children. Without extrapolating to other social-emotional issues in the child’s life, we can imagine how critical the child-teacher relationship is for the child. If the child, like these children, is searching for a parent substitute, the attitudes uncovered by these authors point to a real tragedy. This is particularly evident in elementary school, where in many schools, children have the same teachers all day long.
In previous columns, I have railed against the culture of punishment in which modern children often find themselves. They are punished in school, at home, in the school yard, and in the streets with bullying. They live in a world where they are always on the defense. Parents and teachers have to be aware of the stress that our children are enduring. But it’s very hard for us to educate an entire nation – or world.
Remember, several states in this country still allow corporal punishment in schools. This is much worse than a teacher sneering at a child perceived as someone who won’t achieve. Children cannot stand being humiliated or disrespected. And they feel it in the schools, where fear is generated and maintained to keep them in line. We must find ways to get adults to talk to, not yell at, children.
Imagine a world in which a child would go up to his teacher and ask "Why don’t you like me?" indicating that she has feeling and is hurting because she has become, in a subtle way, a victim of low expectations.
It might help teachers face up to their insensitive behavior toward a child who is already feeling the great loss of his own mother. We don’t live in a world where children can feel comfortable being candid with a powerful adult, but they know, they feel, and they hurt.
I have often said that it I ever write a book, it will be titled: "But She’s My Mother." Throughout my career, people have been totally unable to acknowledge the amount of hatred they felt for a parent who treated them cruelly or badly, and they assumed that it was their own fault. But they never blame the mother. One woman I have treated for several years told me repeatedly that her father was very negative toward her and very positive toward her little sister. She cannot understand it but will never acknowledge the negative feelings she has had for him for more than 50 years. Similarly, the only way children can rationalize an adult’s negative behavior is to feel they must have done something to foster that behavior. I hear people say, "I’m no good," "I’m worthless," "I can’t do it," which is the result of experiencing a system that leads them to feel less than the other children in the class.