The last several months, I have started my day eating breakfast and watching “Leave It to Beaver”. The show started in 1957 and ended in 1963. I was born in 1959 so it wasn’t something I watched as a kid, at least not that I remember. I get it a kick out of watching it for a number of reasons, one being that as a mom of boys I can relate to a lot of craziness they get themselves into, but mostly because despite boys being boys, (forgive the stereotype), they are expected by the adults in their lives to be kind, ethical and respectful. Very different from what I see from some young people as an educator today.

I don’t blame the young people. After all, young children especially imitate and repeat what is heard from and modeled by others. Maybe it’s from the adults in their lives, maybe it’s from what they see from TV, the media, or video games. All this to say, somewhere, adults are not being careful about what they say or do around the kids in their lives.  

I’m not just talking about language, although that’s definitely part of it, it’s also sharing information that isn’t appropriate for the child’s age, things that are violent, sordid, unkind, unethical and disrespectful. Things the child takes to playdates, into the public and into school. One of the things that jumped out at me in particular occurred after recent presidential elections where the lack of tolerance for others’ thoughts and feelings are disregarded in class and on the playground. Places where children should be learning and playing. Kindness was thrown out the window replaced by name calling, bullying, anger and fear. Children began saying things that were anything but childlike, mimicking things that they had obviously heard from some adult somewhere.  

Things have only gotten worse as we’ve all dealt with a pandemic, changes in school, families struggling with finances and relationship issues and nobody is protecting the children. Unlike my little Leave It to Beaver family, which works to teach, protect and prepare children to become kind and productive adults, we have allowed ourselves to believe that children are just little adults who can handle anything we can and this is simply not true. Because when children don’t feel safe and protected by the adults in their lives, they act out, and in some cases, they act like the adults they see and hear.

I know there are many young parents and other adults who think I’m living in the dark ages, but these are the same adults who complain their kids are using bad language or talk back to them or don’t follow directions and don’t realize that they are merely imitating what they are allowed see and hear. It’s the whole “do as I say, not as I do” idea. It just doesn’t work. Think about how children learn as babies and toddlers. They imitate sound, watch and learn movement, imitate behavior. It’s how we all learn.  

Over the years, I have witnessed a steady decline in appropriate behavior from some of my students, however in the last 5 years or so, inappropriate behavior has increased to the point where educators now have to focus solely on helping students function in an age appropriate way so academics can be addressed at all. We refer to what students have gone through the last several years as trauma. It sounds a bit over the top, but students are behaving in similar ways to those who have suffered from violence and abuse. They’re not eating correctly, they don’t get enough sleep, and they don’t feel safe because the adults in their lives share everything with them rather than protect them.  

I totally believe kids are kids and I love them. However, I have been called inappropriate names, told no when I give directions, told inappropriate stories/jokes, watched kids push and shove each other, bully, destroy property and not care. This is in and out of schools. If a ten year old is behaving this way, it didn’t happen overnight and changes won’t be made overnight. Teachers who work with students who struggle in this way are being at the very least discouraged and at the very most, being abused. And people outside of education wonder why teachers are leaving in droves. It’s not all about the money, it’s about the constant conflict, violence, abuse from children to others. There’s more to this, but of all the issues I see in education today, after talking with teachers around the country, behavior issues are the biggest reason educators are exhausted and finding something else to do.

What does this say to kids? One, they have the power to push a teacher away and two, when they do push a teacher away it demonstrates to them that it’s just another adult who doesn’t want to deal with them. Kids want adults to set boundaries and set expectations because it creates a safety net for them. And they’ll do whatever they can to prove otherwise. Being an adult in any child’s life is hard and it means we have to be the exemplar, modeling the kindness, ethical behavior and respectfulness we would want from anyone. For those who complain about how awful people behave, it will only change when we as individuals work to make ourselves the best we can be, working hard to keep the worst out of the mouths of babes.