This breaks my heart! Some people should not be allowed to have children!
Being a teacher and having done a placement in one of Scotlands most roughest areas, I have viewed parental neglect at its utmost worst. In a class of around 30 students I have to say I was astounded at the attitudes and behaviours of the parents. Some of the children were allowed to walk to school alone across busy roads, others could not do their homework as “mummy had a party” and the state some ot their clothes were in was enough to make me cry. The few encounters I did have of some of the parents was enough to shock me to the core and the class teacher who was in charge of this class while I did my training was at her wits end with the behaviour of this class.
The children whose parents just did not care, clearly were the more misbehaved and this was seen as there were regular fights, bad language, truancy, and worse still one of the children throwing chairs at the secretary! It has to be said that most schools afe doing their best to combat behaviour problems but how can they achieve anything when the root of the problem is often at home. All the good work done by teachers is gone the minute they reach their own front doors!
I have to say though that not all children display behaviour problems due to the neglect of their parents as I have seen the few that appear to try and better themselves and have to grow up a little faster than others. However these children usually always seem to have poor confidence, lack of self-esteem and are very reserved. So it is clearly seen that parental influences do affect children in a significant way and the only thing that can really be done (bar get rid of our ever growing drug problem) is to ensure that their is enough support available for those children that do experience bad childhoods, whether it be through more social workers, more counselors, support workers, drop in centres etc so that these children get the help, support and care they deserve.
