Case
Bad Influence

I have two students, both girls, who have started to become friends. One, Amelia, is a genuinely good student, tries her best, and always listens. Or, until recently. The other is Amanda. Amanda is a new student, and has been a constant disruption to the class since her arrival. Shes quite the class clown, is nearly always off tasks, and talks back to me. Amelia became friends with her and since then, the two have been engaging in these off task behaviors together. So I decided to inform them I was going to call home. Amelia starts sobbing and screaming "No! Please don't call home, I don't want my Dad to hear, please!" I can understand the child being upset, but she was.. beside herself. I let her off the first time and told her she would instead lose half of recess (I did the same for Amanda too) and they would both write a reflection on their behavior. Their behavior started to deteriorate again, so again I mentioned calling home and got the same reaction. Obviously I cannot let the behavior continue, but I've never seen a child so terrified of a teacher calling home. How should I handle this?

Posted on: 02/23/15 | Views: 1353
Solution #1
A possible solution is to figure out why Amelia is so worried about you calling her dad by asking her some questions and having the school guidance counselor talk with her. At the same time you could contact Amanda's parents and try to focus on solving the issue with Amanda because it seems Amelia will follow suit if Amanda straightens out. Once you discover what is going on with Amelia's dad, follow the correct procedure.

Excellent suggestion!

This sounds like a great way to go about this situation, I would follow these steps in my classroom.

I enjoyed reading this idea.

16 0
Solution #2
I would privately ask the student as to why she did not what her dad to be informed. Maybe there is underlying abuse that needs to be addressed with the correct officials. After this conversation, if there was abuse then I would not call home, inform DCF, separate the students, and also explain to her that Amanda is not really her friend because she is causing her to get into trouble. I would explain to her that if this happens again she will not be going out for recess for a week. However, if there is no case of abuse at home, I would call home and inform the parents. To be effective you need to do what you said you would do, or the students will know that they can get away with what they want. Plus, you already let her off the hook the first time and it did not work.

I think that it is important to talk to the student to make sure there is no abuse at home with her dad. I agree.

9 6
Solution #3
The first thing I would do in this situation is find out why Amelia is so terrified of you calling home. This behavior raises a little bit of a red flag for me. After I was sure that there was nothing going on at home that shouldn't be I would definitely call Amelia's and inform them of the situation. This is obviously something that Amelia responds to and doing it once might be enough for her to stop misbehaving all together. I would also focus my attention on Amanda. She is the ringleader of the group and if I could get her to fall in line, Amelia would follow her.
0 0
Solution #4
I would talk to the two girls either individually or just you and the two of them all together. They need to know that their behavior is unacceptable and that action will be taken immediately. Try to figure out why Amelia is so afraid of you calling home, but also if she deserves it, notify the home anyways. The most important thing is that you have a personal relationship or at least a personal one-on-one conversation with them that their behavior is really discouraging you and messing with your classroom.
0 0
Solution #5
If you told her that you would call home if the problem persists, then you need to follow through and call home. She may be more worried about losing her friendship with Amanda if her Dad finds out about her behavior, and that is why you are seeing such a dramatic reaction to a call home.
0 0
Solution #6
You could talk to Amelia and let her know that her behavior had changed very much and if she did not want her father to get a call from her teacher then she would really need to start behaving.

Hebehu's advice is 👌 on point

Nice Suggestion.

1 2