Kids can’t read.
Kids are out of control.
Kids don’t care.
Kids are violent.
Friends love to send me teacher-related videos, and in recent years, the most common are those in which a teacher is complaining about how unruly the kids have become.
I’ve made some similar generalized statements on more than one occasion.
I started teaching almost fifteen years ago in what was essentially a prison camp for children. The conditions were not great for learning, but since then, I’ve taught at various levels, and I have never shied away from the kids other teachers avoided.
Nevertheless, I’m noticing an academic and social decline at all level.
I’ve complained in the past about the low standards we’ve set in the past. When I first started teaching, a passing grade was a 70 or higher. Now, a kid only needs a 60 to pass. On top of that, any child who scores below a 51 is immediately given points until they are at a 51. Additionally, if a child ends with a 58 or 59, we are expected to give them those points to get them to a passing grade.
It rewards minimum effort, and kids usually figure out the system before they graduate.
The school report card is more important than actual learning. It doesn’t matter if the kid learned anything; pass them on and keep moving.
Administration isn’t consistent. They show favoritism — actions that once led to an expulsion are now a detention at worst.
However, the decline in expectations is not the biggest issue. The “bad” kids are not the most pressing matter. Kids are kids.
The biggest issue, and I hope I don’t make too many new enemies by being so blunt, is parents.
Parent my kids
I teach high school, but I know several elementary school teachers who say parents expect the teachers to do the jobs once attributed to parents.
For example, some parents expect schools to teach their children how to tie their shoes or socialize with children. Yes, school will reinforce good habits, but these skills are not the focus of a 30-child classroom.
I think most damning is the expectation that schools will potty-train their children. A 2025 survey reveals that 6 out of 10 parents believe it is not necessary to potty train children before they start school. We are talking about 5-year-olds still wearing diapers because the parents couldn’t be bothered.
I understand life can be busy and hard, but this type of thing should be a priority, and it is disrespectful to the teacher and a disservice to the child to fail to potty train them before school.
This is just an example of a bigger problem. Actual education is not valued.
Gentle Parenting
The dread of walking into the backyard to select a “switch” to be beaten with is more painful than the actual whipping. It was crucial to pick one that was not too big or too small. The secret was to get one that wouldn’t hurt too much but was effective enough to not have your mother deem a different tool necessary. All of this had to be decided within a suitable time frame, or you would receive extra licks for taking too long.
Many of the kids today could not handle that pressure.
This is not me advocating for corporal punishment, but I can’t say I’m completely against it either, as I think about how kids behave now. I will say I am against it for anyone who does so out of anger.
When I yell at my class, it is never out of anger. I pretend to be angry because it is the only thing I know they will respond to in that moment, but it is always with a clear head.
Spanking should work the same way. There should be no cursing, name-calling, or excessive force.
However, it should be a last resort. The word “no” can go a long way, and if the child is old enough, conversations can follow.
However, even “no” seems to be foreign to these children. Everything is a negotiation at best.
Students will ask, “What do I get if I do this assignment?”
“The grade you earn,” is my usual response.
“Bruh, I need some candy or something.”
They expect a prize for doing the bare minimum. They usually are already failing badly when they start negotiating for candy, so they are actually doing less than the bare minimum.
According to a 2024 survey, 75 % of millennial parents practice gentle parenting. There isn’t a ton of research on the subject, with some suggesting benefits such as improved emotional regulation, but as someone living in the trenches of education, I’m just not buying it.
As YouTuber, Teacher Therapy points out, gentle parenting and permissive parenting are discussed as if they are separate entities, but both end up with low expectations when it comes to rules and behavior.
This leads to children who tend to have poor academic performance and aggressive defiance.
Aggression
We are four months into the school year, and multiple principals have been hit by students at my school. Multiple teachers have been cussed out by kids.
This level of aggression has been on an uptick for some time, and I admit all of it is not related to gentle parenting. For the purposes of this piece, I want to focus on three situations directly related to the style of parenting.
First, I want to talk about a kid I’ll call Maddy. She was especially sweet to certain teachers, but only if she thought she could benefit from it. When a teacher told her no, she was quick to become disrespectful and tell her mother.
She also moved this way with her peers, usually instigating disputes and physical confrontations for her own amusement. She was as close as I’ve seen to the “mean girl” stereotype.
However, during parent-teacher conferences, her mother did not hear the Math teacher’s concerns. She didn’t care about her daughter sleeping in class or being disrespectful. Apparently, Mom heard enough when the Math teacher refused to accept Maddy’s excuses.
Mom decided to fight the Math teacher, who was clearly not a fighter. Mom’s boyfriend had to pick Mom up and carry her out of the school. Maddy continued to move exactly how she wanted, daring any teacher to call her on her mess.
Although the fighting is uncommon, the Mom’s thought process is the norm. So many parents view teachers as the enemy. “Not my baby!” is a common response when I call a parent to tell them about their child’s failing grades or behavior.
Sadly, I’ve heard more disturbing stories about home life. Let’s call our next kid Jack. Interestingly, Jack has a twin who is his complete opposite. As far as I can tell, they were raised in a similar manner. Jack’s twin is respectful to her mother and is motivated to succeed.
Jack is not.
Jack is respectful when teachers speak to him directly, but he regularly skips class and refuses to work outside of class. He is almost 17 in the ninth grade, and this is my second year teaching him.
He is naturally bright, but always has an excuse not to work. He has been placed on homebound for various reasons over the last two years. Homebound is used when students are not able to attend school regularly. This is usually for stuff like surgery, but for kids like Jack, even anxiety can be an excuse if a doctor signs off on it.
I was also Jack’s homebound teacher, so I was able to see firsthand how he ran the household. If he didn’t want to come out of his room, he wouldn’t. Some days, I would have to work with him from around the corner because he didn’t want me to see him, and Mom would just go with it.
Mom has told me how Jack yells and screams at her, but last week, he took it to another level when he aggressively ran at her. We had to cancel our meeting because she left, fearing her child would hurt her.
Jack’s mom is a talker, and I know she regrets having such an easy hand with Jack. She is confused because her daughter is doing so well. She also blames her parents because they stop her whenever she tries to be firm with Jack.
Jack takes advantage of this, and the stuff that once seemed harmless as a child is now terrifying in someone nearing adulthood.
The final kid I would like to discuss is Melody. Melody had a hard life when compared to the previous kids. Her mother made some mistakes, and Melody’s anger toward her mother is warranted.
However, her mother is terrified of Melody. The child beats her mother when they can’t afford DoorDash or if Mom refuses to buy an expensive homecoming dress.
Mom rarely says no, and when she does, she changes her mind after receiving a few harsh words or a physical attack.
I’ve given Mom all of the obvious advice, including having the child arrested for the violence.
For all of these kids, many factors are at play, and perhaps gentle parenting isn’t the exact culprit, but a softer style of parenting is a major factor.
What should parents do?
I’m not a biological parent, but I am a teacher, and I did raise three teenagers who had varying degrees of motivation before moving in with me. While they were with me, they were all honor roll students. Expectations and consistent consequences go a long way, even when it comes to older children.
There was another student, we’ll call Shay, who was always in trouble when living with her father. She had no rules and no boundaries. She was out all night and slept in class all day. She didn’t even bathe consistently.
When Shay temporarily moved in with her cousin, this all changed. She was clean, awake, and made the honor roll for the first time in her life. This all happened within a few months of a changed environment.
The father insisted on getting the child back, and do you want to guess what happened? Shay sadly went back to her status quo. All of that good work was undone almost instantly.
It is a frustrating story, but it is also one that shows the power of parenting.
I don’t have the answers, but something has shifted. It is my generation raising kids now, and I imagine the scars of switches and swears impacted how we decided to raise our kids.
Every parent-child relationship is different. In the end, it is up to each individual parent to know what their child needs. However, and I’m not saying the older generation was right, but maybe, just maybe, as a society, we should rethink our current popular strategies.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of LG Ware's work on Medium.