The Rising Cost of Misbehavior

There will always be students who don’t operate by the rules that govern everyone else. There are many reasons students misbehave. Family problems, poor parenting, illness, hunger, and learning or emotional disabilities are common triggers for students with persistent behavior problems. Regardless of the etiology, the outcomes of ill-managed student behavior are costly to the achievement of the student and his or her classmates.

Every year, my educator friends and I experience student behavior that alarms us more than behavior the year prior. We agree the intensity of aggressive behavior is increasing and the age of the aggressors is falling simultaneously.

I’ve witnessed violently assaultive five-year-olds. I cannot understand how students can get that far out of control in such a short period of time. I understand tantrums or stubbornness, but the outright defiance and rage-filled violence towards others is hard to understand.

If this behavior was occurring primarily among emotionally disabled students, it would be easier to comprehend. However, many instances of violence involve children who have not been identified with a disability. More often than not, lax parenting is a major factor in students’ unruly behavior.

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