Now that I got your attention, and probably made you irritated, (which my belief is no one makes you mad/irritated it’s your reaction), please let me clarify. First, every generation above us and every generation below us will state that theirs is best and the rest are “out of control”. I have daughters working in K-12 education, I’ve subbed and work with kids, and here’s why I feel kids are out of control but, let me back up to some experiences I had as a teen what would happen when one of us would act out against an adult.

I’ll leave the names out of this as I’m 55 and these examples are quite old, sorry my Gen X crew but we are old(er). In a class one time a friend of mine made a remark about another student that was mean, I can’t write what was said but here was the result. The teacher give him a good tap on the head and said “Apologize”, and he did. In that classroom there were no more instances of mean and disrespectful behavior. If we were caught swearing in the hallway, we got sent to the principal’s office or told to knock it off, and we did. The worst one, and my classmates will remember this, on the night before Halloween I believe it was, a group of students threw toilet paper and eggs at an administrator’s house. That administrator ran out and tackled a kid. The other details are fuzzy, but it did lead to a discussion for all students in the study hall the next day. But that too showed us as teens that if we stepped way out of line that consequences would happen that weren’t of the normal suspension. Here are some examples of what I’ve seen happen and have been told are happening in some schools.

Students are calling teachers names using an expletive as the preceding word. Students are ignoring teachers and using their phones in class, talking over the teachers, and some even getting violent with teachers when their phones are taken away. My belief is that smartphone use becomes an addiction, but that’s a story for another day. The worst area of concern is when a student bullies a teacher, in school or online. Yes, the teacher should set their account to private but in the real-world prepping to teach is first on their mind and not if a student is going to find their harmless account. Meaning, if someone found my Instagram, it’s filled with chickens, grandkids and pictures of myself, and I have no reason to hide it. What is happening is some students are commenting on the teacher’s looks, weight, choice of photos and life in general in a mean tone. For example, one I’ve heard of was a comment on the teacher’s page, “Leave some McDonalds for the rest of us,” with a laughing emoji. As a organizational psychologist and psychology professor here are my thoughts…

Okay I lied; these won’t be professional comments. Bullying, disrespect, hate begin at home. A child is born a clean slate. They will inherit a certain temperament, like my grandson has my son-in-law’s temperament as he’s a quiet observer. We are seeing a change in how parents of teens who commit violent crimes are also being charged. Maybe when a child/teen does something at school their parent(s) or caregiver is held responsible as well? I know that if the home life is terrible as this may be a correlation that the child may be at risk. But without accountability will these behaviors end? I’ve worked with families and children for over 30 years, and I’ve seen it get worse. The programs we provide aren’t a fix, they contain information that you hope they will use to change but change has to begin from within.

Brian Keith Foreman can be reached at foremanbrian4@gmail.com. His podcast on Swell is located at swellcast.com/bkforeman69 and his website is www.briankeithforeman.com.