Bad Baby

I recently listened to This American Life's most recent episode Bad Baby. It is all about children who use their "power" to make their families' lives hell.  On the top of the show a mother speaks about her eldest son who tried to kill his little brother. Her eldest son also is violent and aggressive with his mother. The other two children are not at all aggressive.  The eldest son often asks to cuddle, but his mother claims that it is difficult to do so when he is a danger to her safety. She has to force herself to be affectionate, because she knows it may help with his violent and aggressive behavior.

What stuck out to me was when the mother explains how she is often blames. She must have done something wrong. This reminds me on how as teachers we often times have deficit based thinking when coming to students but also when it comes to families. When I have entered schools where many students come from low socio-economic households, the teacher always says well they have no support at home. We blame families, and then we refuse the culpability.

What if as teachers we aimed see parents not as lacking? Instead, we see them as people who care about their children, which in my experience is often the case. Sadly, some parents don't care about their children but this is rare, and when this does happen as teachers need to act. When have deficit based thinking the children who do need our extra support will be taken as seriously as we need to.  Rather we see them in a see of poor unsupported children.