How bloody dare they!

[Snoopy]

Wasn't it the Jesuits that said "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man" Teachers and peer pressure will have an influence on the child but how much will depend on what the parents put into place in the early years.

'Cactly .... take the child away into eight hours a day of state controlled environment from the age of 6 months and the child is lost to the parents forever ..... and that is what they do.

[Snoopy]

This I think makes a point better than I about  Children knowing their "rights" without having the maturity to handle the responsibilty.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/22/nsmack122.xml

I think that the school is wrong, that the police have shown some sense for once and that the eldest boy ought to be taken behind the woodshed by his father and taught a lesson that will last him for life.

[Nick]

I inherited The Boy at 4. Much of the damage was done!

[Nick]

Oddly, the Boy tried something on with the neighbours earlier.He got one hell of an earful.He is quite chastened now.

SHould I report them to Social Services or give them a medal?

[Snoopy]

I suspect it has become a battle of wills between you.

You have removed just about all his privileges, TV etc so what has he left to lose? Having reached zero tolerance he is pushing to see what you can do next.

He will continue to take his revenge on you for what I suspect he feels is the revenge you have taken on him.
Somehow, and here I have no idea how, you have to break the cycle. (And I don't mean putting his bike under the front wheels of Mrs Nick's car).

Perhaps the neighbours have done you a favour by demonstrated to him today that not everyone is prepared to be "reasonable" or "make allowances".

None of us, no matter how much indifference we claim to feel, actually wishes to be disliked and The Boy is no different. Press home your advantage but find some time for forgiveness as well. The table can be repaired. Get in a French Polisher (OK it will cost you) and make sure The Boy is there to see the repair work being done. (i) This will impress him no end as French Polishing is an art and well worth watching and learning (ii) It will demonstrate just how much trouble he has put someone else to (iii) All of the old boys I ever met who are/were French Polishers have infinite patience (because it is a job that requires skill and patience)and would be willing to talk him through what they are doing, how it is done and even let him try his hand at it. Many of life's lessons can be learned from such people.

[Nick]

suspect it has become a battle of wills between you.

You have removed just about all his privileges, TV etc so what has he left to lose? Having reached zero tolerance he is pushing to see what you can do next.

On point one, it has.

One the second point, he also has incentives to earn back privileges, both short and longer term. But presently he is a whisker away from being permanently expelled from school (again).

We are on the brink of the medication route

[Snoopy]

suspect it has become a battle of wills between you.

You have removed just about all his privileges, TV etc so what has he left to lose? Having reached zero tolerance he is pushing to see what you can do next.

On point one, it has.

One the second point, he also has incentives to earn back privileges, both short and longer term. But presently he is a whisker away from being permanently expelled from school (again).

We are on the brink of the medication route

Well I know of others it has worked for but the danger is it may also stiffle the vital spark that makes him special.
I do wish I could help more but I cannot.

[chuntering again]

I think the point now is that the children are made aware of their rights before they have the maturity to accept the responsibility that goes with those rights.

Government policy increasingly over the past twenty or so years has been to get mothers back to work before the child is weaned. Now they say that they will not actually teach them anything before they are seven. So School has become a play scheme and child minding service. "Civilised" societies do not even take them into schools until they are seven but we push them into the system still in nappies. It is plain wrong.

More and more psychologists now agree that the first seven years are when the parents have the most influence over their children, between 7 and 14 it is almost entirely the school teachers and some degree of peer pressure that has influence and from 14 to 17 it is almost exclusively peer pressure that influences behaviour. Take away the parental role between birth and age 7 by placing them in state nurseries so that the Treasury can tax the earnings of the mothers as well as the fathers and you have a recipe for what we now see. Modern yoof has no foundations on which the schools may build because the state has removed the parent from the equation. Some, like the Nicks, The Snoopys and Uncle Mort are fighting but frankly our backs are to the wall and there are those teacher's "leaders" and politicians who are determined to undermine our efforts.

As for six of the best .... without an ultimate deterrent you have no sanctions that will work. BUT that is only my opinion. Everyone has their own way of dealing with a situation.

Love the first paragraph Snoops but have to disagree with the point about nurseries. My daughter finds nursery a wonderful experience, and gets the opportunity to interact with other children and take part in activities, such as messy play, that we are unable (or unwilling!) to provide at home. By comparison, my mother used to take me to a play scheme for an hour a week and the rest of the time I was running around her legs while she was trying to do the housework. I don't think I learned anything from that experience, except to depend on my mother, which made me a shy child.

[Snoopy]

I know what you mean but I feel that we have got the balance all wrong.
I attended a private nursery "school" mornings only and then had the afternoon with Mum and baby brother, that solved the problem of my being underfoot, enabled me to develop with other children but I was not incacerated from 8 am to 6pm 5 days a week and ignored for the other two days .... which seems  to be the modern way with many. I am not pointing a finger here .... just saying what I see at our local school

[chuntering again]

I don't think my daughter - or indeed any of her peers - are "incarcerated or ignored from 8am to 6pm 5 days a week" (*mental image of a Romanian Orphanage* ) Most of the parents seem to put the kids in from 7.30-8 till 3.30-4, and I don't know of a single one who does five days a week (my daughter does 4).  I'd say a far bigger problem is the parents who leave their kids with the grandparents, because they can't afford the ripoff fees: the vast majority of kids at my daughter's nursery are left with a grandparent at least one day a week. A friend of my wife took her son out of the works nursery and now leaves him with her parents five days a week - so his daily routine revolves around Countdown and Deal or No Deal. This can't be doing him any good.

As you no doubt know, there is only so much attention you can give a small child before you tell them to bugger off and play nicely. At nursery, my daughter gets the attention of a keyworker during the day, a childloving bint whose sole raison d'etre is to lookafter kids and entertain them with organised activities appropriate for their age, and when she comes home - and at the weekend - she gets our "quality time" (for want of a better phrase) too. And, better still, we keep our sanity and a roof over our heads.

I would certainly accept there is a certain amount of variability between nurseries, but if you get a good one I reckon it's a lot better for kids than getting under mum's feet.

YVMV