The first thing to do is start off the tutoring relationship on a positive note with the parent in the hopes that when discipline issues come up, the parent will be more supportive. The way I handled this as a tutor was to send home a “progress report” each tutoring session. On this paper I would make notes about what we did, what I noticed and what the parent could do at home to further learning.

I always attempted to make a positive note in the “what I noticed” section, as well as any academic observations. Often the academic observations were made in a way to validate the parent’s concerns and reasons for hiring me in the first place. I also attempted to make the “for further study” section as simple and straight forward as possible so that any parent with any amount of involvement could do.

When I had a discipline problem I would note it on the progress report but would make a point to mention the problem to mom or dad in person. Often this gave me a great idea as to how helpful the parent would be in managing the difficult behavior.

Often, behavioral problems stemmed from frustration with the skill we were studying, so when the student would begin to act up, I would often stop and put the blame on myself:

“ok, wait a minute, let’s stop and back up, I don’t think I taught that very well. Let’s look at this part here a little closer.” and I would break the steps down even further or explain it again using different angles. I often employed the use of simple analogies as this seemed to help my students see a complicated problem in a more simple light.

If this doesn’t work, I’ll prompt the student to ask a question so that I can know what to teach.

If this doesn’t work, I’ll try changing the approach, do something new for a bit or adjust the final goal for that moment down a bit. So for example, if the student has to write a paper and I said ok let’s write the first paragraph now, I would say ok wait, lets just talk about the first sentence, how can we grab the reader’s attention?

By addressing behavior problems by drawing the attention back to learning, I kept the focus on the lesson at hand and developed the standard of never giving up and always trying.

Related posts:

1. Home Visits May Reduce Discipline Issues
2. Three Classroom Management Mistakes
3. Classroom Management: Lack of Parental Support

The topic of praising students is a sticky subject and some teachers disagree with praising students for doing things they should do out of respect, and only thank students for going above and beyond the call of duty.

The problem with his concept, though, is that the job of teaching children to act appropriately in different situations, as I did my daughter at the post office, belongs to the parent. While many parents are willing to take the time to teach their children these skills, many put their children in daycare instead, and let someone else will take care of the discipline. Day care workers are not substitutes for parental teaching and many teachers find themselves with students who are not trained to act appropriately in the classroom.

In a recent post on why saying “good job” is bad, I addressed the idea that praise needs to be specific in the classroom. Indeed, praise needs to be specific, and hold the double purpose of both creating a positive classroom atmosphere and teaching the children the appropriate way to act in the classroom.

Do your students benefit from parental discipline or does that job end up falling to you as the teacher? Share your stories!

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2. Home Visits May Reduce Discipline Issues
3. Classroom Management: Lack of Parental Support

1. Raising your voice.

Raising your voice will only serve to escalate the problem. Even if the students quiet down or listen for a moment, it is only a temporary fix and will in fact cause more classroom management problems down the road.

2. Ignoring students.

This is different than ignoring student behavior, something that is sometimes necessary. Instead, a teacher who ignores students, or who is checked out, not caring about what happens in her classroom, is doing her students a huge disservice. If this is you, it is time to find a new job.

3. Relying on Parents.

This one is a sad truth about the culture of America today and in some situations is not true. While some parents are involved and do discipline their children, even for actions done at school, the age of a parent backing a teacher is in the past. It is time for teachers to find new ways to discipline children because threatening with a note or phone call home is becoming a useless act.

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1. Maintain Classroom Management Without a Voice
2. Sarcasm in the Classroom
3. Success Story: Whisper Teaching

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Now, teachers struggle to gain parental involvement and support for the positive things their children do, much less support their disciplinary efforts. This requires teachers to discipline children often without any support from home at all. It is important for teachers to understand this, and know for sure whether a parent is supportive of disciplinary efforts so that efforts in the classroom are not undermined.

A teacher who does not follow through with a warning or threat of disciplinary action will be the teacher that student know as the push-over. While many parents become push-overs and create classroom management issues for teachers by raising spoiled children, teachers need to be consistent and follow-through on their words.

If the teacher knows that the parent will not back a disciplinary action up at home, it is important that the teacher utilize some other strategy of discipline. Children who know that their parents will not discipline them at home do not care whether a phone call home or note home happens.

For more information on the lack of parental support, read about the drop-off generation.

More related information:

Increase parental support in the classroom

Home Visits Help Improve Parental Involvement

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1. Using Praise for Basic Discipline
2. Home Visits May Reduce Discipline Issues
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School of Hard Knocks: Getting Behavioral Help for Teachers in the Classroom

by Elisabeth Wilkins, EP Editor

Brandi Franks Second Grade Teacher Texas

When one of Brandi Frank’s second grade students was expelled for punching another teacher in the stomach, Brandi was ready for his return to her classroom six weeks later. “I sat down in community circle in the morning and talked with the other students and explained that this boy, *Kyle, was coming back to the classroom. The number one thing I established was, ‘There’s no excuse for abuse.’”

“It’s very frustrating, because teachers want help so badly. You spend the day putting out fires, and unfortunately, scores go down because the kids are not learning everything they need to learn.”
—Brandi Franks
Second Grade Teacher

Kyle’s acting out behavior was a well-known fact at Brandi’s school in southeast Texas. He often threw things, pushed other kids, broke their personal items and called them names. But Brandi turned things around. “I told my class, ‘I can’t abuse you and you can’t abuse me, period. And that goes for *Kyle, too.’”

What happened to change everything in the six weeks before Kyle’s return? Brandi had started using the Total Transformation Program at home with her own son, Noah, and had seen results within a couple of weeks, so she decided to adapt it to her classroom. “I thought, if this works with my child, why won’t it work with second graders?”

The fact is, many teachers report that they are not taught how to manage classroom behavior while in college; rather, their education focuses solely on academics and teaching methods. That means when you start teaching, “They say, ‘Here’s the class, you take care of them, and the less we see them up front, the better,’” says Brandi. “ It’s very frustrating, because teachers want help so badly. We’re having to teach kids how to behave in class, and that takes a long time. You spend the day putting out fires, and unfortunately, scores go down because the kids are not learning everything they need to learn.”

Brandi said she was so desperate for help with her class that she “went to every workshop you can imagine, but I couldn’t find anything that worked,” until she got the Total Transformation for her son.

And when Kyle got back into her classroom that first day, Brandi was ready for him to act out. “He didn’t want to do math, and started with the mouthy behavior. I said, ‘This is what we’re doing,’ and I got him started on the assignment. I told him, ‘I’ll be back in 5 minutes to check on you.’ Then I turned around and walked away from him instead of responding to his backtalk. He was left without an audience, and he realized I wasn’t going to get caught up in his web.”

By using methods from the program, Brandi succeeded in turning around Kyle’s behavior that year. He ended up passing her class, “and became a totally different kid,” says Brandi with a smile. “His mom started getting the happy phone calls instead of the ‘you have to come get him because he just hit someone’ calls.”

Other teachers at Brandi’s school started asking how she maintained order in her classroom. “They noticed that my kids were very well-behaved in the halls—even the substitute teachers thanked me,” Brandi laughs. “The assistant principal came to talk to me and asked me what I was doing differently. He’d noticed that Kyle’s twin brother, who had similar behavior issues and was in a different classroom, had not changed at all that year, and wanted to know what my ‘secret’ was. I told him it was the Total Transformation. It’s the only thing that works that I’ve used,” says Brandi.

Jan Moore Middle School Teacher Utah

Jan Moore was also having problems with some students in her middle school art class in northern Utah. Although Jan enforces rules and consequences when her students don’t follow directions, she still has students who push the limits from time to time. Like Brandi, Jan also ordered The Total Transformation for help within her own family—in her case, for her two grandsons.

“It was working well with my grandsons, so I decided to try it with students in my class,” Jan said. “Before I would ask them, ‘Why aren’t you in your seat?’ Now I don’t ask ‘Why’ questions anymore. Instead, I say, ‘What are you supposed to be doing right now?’ Or ‘What is my rule about talking when I’m talking?’ And my students tell me. I can walk over and say ‘Where should you be?’ and my students go right back to their seats.”

Things turned around in Jan’s class as well. “When I started using The Total Transformation in the classroom, it was kind of like a miracle,” says Jan. “I also like it because it helps me come up with phrases that solve the problems with my students almost immediately.”

Using the program has also changed the way Jan observes parents and their children interacting during parent-teacher conferences. “One mother actually said to her child, ‘I’ve been told you’re just like me, and I wasn’t a good child… and you’re not a good child.’” Jan was stunned. “I realized that there are so many ineffective ways of parenting. I wanted to tell that mom to get the Total Transformation.”

Not only is Jan seeing changes in the classroom, she’s also seeing changes in her grandsons when they come over to her house. “Now they’re going, ‘Wow, we get it. Grandma is going to spend time playing with us, and if we want to continue, we have to behave.’” The last time they came to visit, Jan says she didn’t have to discipline either of them at all. “Before my grandsons left, the older one gave me a hug, and said, ‘Thank you Grandma, for letting me come to your house.’ It was great! It’s working and I’m grateful.”
*Not his real name.

Elisabeth Wilkins is the editor of Empowering Parents and the mother of a 6 year old son. Her work has appeared in national and international publications, including Mothering, Motherhood, and The Japan Times. Elisabeth holds a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine.

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The purpose for visiting parents in their homes is to develop relationships that allow teachers to provide tips and tools for the parents to work with their children. It is also to simply impress upon the parent the importance of education. The better the relationship between the parent and the teacher, the more likely the parent is to impress upon their children the importance of paying attention and following directions. Parents are also more likely to take a note or call from the teacher regarding behavior seriously.

Learn more about home visits.

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3. Classroom Management: Lack of Parental Support

Motivating a student is not often a simple task. Many students do not want to be in school and do not care about learning anything. Motivating these students is the most important task a teacher has. While the task of motivating students will be a life-long learning process for teachers, there are some strategies that teachers have found to be helpful.

1. Make learning fun. Students who are not motivated to learn often think that learning is boring. While it will take extra creativity and enthusiasm to draw these students in, making learning fun is the most important thing a teacher can do to motivate students to learn.

2. Ask students what they want to learn about. When students are not listening, being respectful or willing to learn, asking them what they want to learn may shed light on creative ways to motivate them. The music teacher who cannot interest students in music in the curriculum may find that the student’s desire to learn about rap may in fact fit with the curriculum with a little bit of creative tweaking.

3. Use mini-rewards. Extrinsic motivation for learning is often frowned upon as it squelches the intrinsic motivation to learn and continue to learn outside of the classroom. The bottom line, though, is that students need to learn when in the classroom so teachers may need to resort to rewarding students for the act of learning. It is important that the reward offered students is indeed motivating enough to give the desired academic result.

Finally, holding parent conferences can often help motivate students. If the parents are involved in their children’s lives, they often can hold sway over cooperation and willingness to do the work that teachers assign. While this is not an option for every teacher and many times the unmotivated student has the uninvolved parent, it is always worth a try.

Read more ideas for motivating students.

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