Layabout niece

missbiggles1

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I'm sure she was quite irritating in class, but going up in the lift with her mate who already had permission to use it, sticking her feet on the desk, eating a sandwich or saying 'school's s***' would have had very little impact upon the learning of other students. I would still discipline her, but quite frankly, my concern at work is making sure the little darlings don't try to kill one another, the kid with ASD doesn't hurt himself or anybody else during a meltdown caused by somebody sneezing behind them and nobody is sitting in silence because they haven't got a clue what has just been said and need it explained to them in a slightly different way to be able to understand it.

Your kids have, I think, special needs and generally allowed more leeway than those without.


Think about it - as an adult, at home on the laptop, you've probably got the telly on in the background, you've got a cup of coffee beside you and your feet are likely to be up. And you're still perfectly capable of functioning. And if somebody else is in the room watching that TV, remarking when a politician comes on 'that's rubbish', you just zone out and concentrate on correcting somebody you think is wrong on the Internet.


That's why it sounds more like a school than a college to me - going ballistic over such stuff is what you do with 11-15 year olds (most grow out of it by then, they don't suddenly do it overnight unless they've got severe problems at home and they're acting up because it's the only way they're ever noticed by anybody).

As I said before, college offers a more adult environment and expects students to respond appropriately - it's the niece who's acting like someone much younger.

Being chucked out by what sound like over strict parents who treated her like a primary school child, then demanding her back, then not having her back, dumped on an auntie who never anticipated such a thing happening, not knowing what's going to happen to her, siblings not being nice to her/in contact anymore - that sounds like a pretty major set of problems to me.

I just don't get it when adults insist on making excuses for young people's bad behaviour. Is it part of wanting to "get down with the kids" and being friends with them rather than taking the role of the responsible adult? Sometimes it's important to embrace the appropriate role, however dull it may seem, and accept that a teenage mentality within the body of a middle aged adult is just rather sad.

(Not aimed specifically at you - just a general comment.)

Andypandyboy

I agree with the above post. It is actually very hard to be excluded from college, it will only happen after repeated "offences", money talks and money is what students bring with them. Losing that funding source is unpalatable to any college and they strive to avoid it at all costs.

I think making excuses and playing it down is the very worst thing that you can do, and like the poster above I can't see why any responsible adult would go down that route.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I just don't get it when adults insist on making excuses for young people's bad behaviour. Is it part of wanting to "get down with the kids" and being friends with them rather than taking the role of the responsible adult? Sometimes it's important to embrace the appropriate role, however dull it may seem, and accept that a teenage mentality within the body of a middle aged adult is just rather sad.

(Not aimed specifically at you - just a general comment.)

Not as far as I'm aware. There is a significant proportion of kids with SEN in the place (because we're supposed to be good at supporting them, compared to other schools in the area), but it's still a bog standard comprehensive. The most difficult kids are, other than the occasional ASD meltdown, where there is very little you can do except make supportive noises from a distance/not add fuel to the meltdown by shouting (and hope that there's actually somebody in the LOD hub that can be called to assist), the standard 13-14 year old girls.

I think they've got the idea that, if I were to ever be pushed past my hitherto unseen limit, they wouldn't enjoy the results - possibly calmly telling the Hardest Kid in School to try using his head to smash the glass panel he was punching, rather than reacting the way he wanted/expected a member of staff to do, helped give that impression. They've also seen me obviously displeased with a member of staff who had lost the plot (he was fired shortly afterwards and only lasted three days in his next job before being fired again - hopefully he's no longer in teaching at all) and was bellowing orders at me, remain calm and politely ask them to do something, which they did immediately - I believe that was because they could see I was choosing to remain in control. And it would really annoy him if they were to do exactly as I asked when they had completely ignored his hysterical ranting (which only came about because he had not bothered checking his handout and some of it was printed in another language).

Mind you, they also saw he had been relocated to a glorified broom cupboard by morning - they just didn't hear the conversation that led to this; 'If you don't get him the [something] out of my office and away from me now, I will be forced to kill him'.



Whilst I'm generally pleasant and friendly towards the students, I look for reasons, not excuses, for behaviour - it makes it far easier to deal with both classes as a whole and individual students. Yes, I do personally teach more SEN kids than not (perk of the job, they're so much easier to deal with), but I get better behaviour than the shouty, zero tolerance staff who treat every aspect of teenage behaviour as a personal affront to their dignity.

I don't take the bait on low level stuff designed to get attention/cause a whole class disruption through a stand off with the teacher, preferring to concentrate on the more serious behaviour issues instead, such as being alert and able to head off the full blown attack from one girl when a boy said something mean about her in response to an uninvited comment about his mother, steering her straight into her Head of House before any blood was shed. And she was definitely going to go for blood.


I ignore accidental swearing or mildly remind them to use alternative words - I've promised one that if they research swear words in old or Middle English, they can write them on the whiteboard on one lesson - that gets the little git reading or watching Beowulf and Chaucer, for a start - even though English Lit isn't my subject - if it were to be directed at me, that would be a different matter. A Level texts generally contain swearing as well - if it's justifiable because it's 'literary', it's contradictory to forbid it in students who have to read it.

******************

The most overly matey staff seem to be the ones who are only a few years older than the students - they're closer in age to the kids than they are the rest of the staff, and the tendency for senior staff to speak to everybody like they are particularly dim children (which drives staff in their mid thirties crazy) just reinforces this. It's not so much that it's a bit sad, it's annoying and counterproductive that they're being treated as only one step up from the prefects at best sometimes.


Anyway, it's late, I'm warbling and I've got a Christmas thing at school to plan for tomorrow. I'll shut up now.

Pollycat

bluelass wrote: »

Why cant her parents deal with this?. Your niece was born to them not you. I would be telling them you created you deal.

Pollycat wrote: »

I think that's probably a very simplistic solution to a very complex problem.

missbiggles1 wrote: »

It would be a perfectly good solution for the OP because this really shouldn't be her problem.

But the OP made it her problem when she took the girl in.

If the OP had posted asking if she should take her niece in because her parents had thrown her out, bluelass's post might have been good advice.

But at the stage the OP is now - bluelass's post is a bit like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Curious to know what the current situation is - the OP was logged on just before midnight last night but hasn't been back to update.

missbiggles1

Pollycat wrote: »

But the OP made it her problem when she took the girl in.

If the OP had posted asking if she should take her niece in because her parents had thrown her out, bluelass's post might have been good advice.

But at the stage the OP is now - bluelass's post is a bit like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Curious to know what the current situation is - the OP was logged on just before midnight last night but hasn't been back to update.

Well, unless the parents have actually refused to have her back (or there's abuse involved) then she's still the parents' responsibility. The fact that she's living under the OP's roof doesn't make it her problem anymore than if the girl was her lodger. If she were her foster carer then it might also be her responsibility but, as it is, she's someone who's kindly offered the girl a bed for a while, not offered to adopt her.

I'm not surprised that the OP hasn't been back after people have criticised her so much - so much for being a good Samaritan!

Pollycat

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I'm not surprised that the OP hasn't been back after people have criticised her so much - so much for being a good Samaritan!

The OP has also had some decent support from posters as well as some good suggestions.

When you post on a public forum, it's possibly a tad naive to think you're going to get unanimous support.

missbiggles1

Pollycat wrote: »

The OP has also had some decent support from posters as well as some good suggestions.

When you post on a public forum, it's possibly a tad naive to think you're going to get unanimous support.

That's obviously true but a bit unexpected when you've done such a nice thing for somebody, I thought.

mel48rose

jellyhead wrote: »

I have the best discussions with my teenager when we are walking somewhere. I don't think he opens up as much when taken for tea and cake - he's not fond of conversation, and it's especially repugnant to him if there's a higher chance of eye contact!

We live in a town, so I appreciate that your niece might find it more difficult than my son to get a paper round or leaflet delivery job. I've had some good in depth chats about long term goals while out delivering with him - he does most of it himself but I help out for the bits he has trouble memorising the route for.

Do you have a dog she could walk with you? Or another reason to go for a walk?

Exactly how my 2 sons are. Find it better to walk and talk.

foolofbeans

A quick update while I have some privacy....
Thank you for the mainly positive responses. All comments have been pondered and I have realised that niece isn't the worst teenager on earth. I have to say her behaviour at home is very good so far. She doesn't answer back, swear, steal or lie. Of course I'm aware it is still early days and she is on best behaviour. So she behaves fairly well which makes it maddening when she didn't do so at college as she has the ability to do well.
The social worker was very helpful and although I get annoyed the help is only targeted at niece and not the rest of the family (who also have to adjust) and some perspective was found.
Apparently there is a January intake for courses so we shall look around at other educational establishments. Social worker discussed with niece and they seem to agree now that an apprenticeship may be a good route. Niece had initially had two very different career paths in mind and had chosen the care work one which seems to have brought up some old issues from her upbringing. Social worker pointed out that care work requires a mature person and if niece is not ready to pursue it now she can easily go back to it when older as it's a profession that is probably more suited to a more mature person with life experience.
We were told that niece could claim benefits (IS?) if she tells Job Centre she's staying with us temporarily. I don't like this idea as it is asking niece to lie and also the money goes direct to her and I'm fairly sure she'll be thinking she can keep it all and have more income then she has ever had.
We are having a talk later about the next steps, what is expected and an end date for punishments as I think she needs to know it's not for ever.
DH would rather we just sent her back home which isn't very supportive for me but hopefully we can show him that niece is better off here as she can then have a decent future.
I am coming to terms with the fact that I am expecting niece to be more adult than she is capable of as she has never had any freedom to grow up until now and now it must be bewildering to feel she has lost her family and friends and has been abandoned.
Wish us luck for the future and that niece will one day be the wonderful, well-rounded individual I know she has in her.

foolofbeans

mel48rose wrote: »

Exactly how my 2 sons are. Find it better to walk and talk.

I do love Jellyhead's idea and can see that walking and talking would hopefully allow niece to open up more and give some exercise and fresh air to aid positive thinking.