Problems in my class...

[Dalum]

I've got a low level karate class offered by an organization that I work/contract for. Now in a hypothetical scenario...
Let's say that I've got a child of 4 years old that is hearing impaired. Cannot speak, cannot hear, very unresponsive to most everyone. I allowed this student in the class because he shouldn't be denied the opportunity that he can bring with him throughout life. The first few weeks was nothing but running around and being distruptive to the rest of the class. A few weeks in, the mother was asked to stay for the next session (following week) and to see if (with her being the parental figure) help with his focus. Now let's say that the following week went great! Let's also say that said child stayed in line most of the time and she kept him motivated. Let's also add that after class was dismissed mother was greeted with a positive report by me. It all sounds great, huh?

On the way home from this hypothetical class, I was informed that the reasons that he was focused was because when mom was being sneaky behind my back and hiding her motions from me; that she was actually bringing out a brown leather belt and waiving it at him. Not only was this being waived at him, it was also to the class since she was behind me.

I have a multitude of issues with this, but here are my main concerns...

1. Who does she think she is doing that in my class?
2. How many students will not be returning next week because they told their parents?
3. This doesn't jive at all with the cirriculum that we teach kids to be safe and learn what "Stranger Danger" is.
4. Most importantly, what is happening at home with this poor boy?

I've been going nuts in my head since I was made aware of this. I feel horrible that I didn't catch it as I was dealing with a room full of 4-11 year olds. I'm glad that the rest of my staff did. I've been in contact with my home office as to see what our next steps should be. They said that this would be taken care of in the fasion of "Parents called us after they both witnessed and their kids told them..." scenario. As you can tell the whole scenario has moved fro mthat to actaul reality.

I'm a long time registered lurker of this forum and hate to make this one of my first posts. Though not my first post, still a bad way to start out. How does everyone feel about this? I feel like a heel and want to make sure that not only he is safe but both of the other 2 brothers that I know of directly. (I don't know if there are other siblings.)

(Oh yeah, mods: Sorry if this is in the worng place. Please move it at your discression.)

 

[Flying Crane]

Holy smokes. I am practically speechless. this sounds like a complete nightmare.

Maybe you can have a discussion with the mother. Keep it calm and respectful, but find out what was happening behind your back. Be frank with her about what you were told. Don't give her an easy escape route. Tell her what you were told, explicitly, and see what she says. Depending on what you find out, you may need to call social services.

If you notice dropoff in your other students, you may need to do some quick scrambling, contact the parents and inform them of what you are doing to deal with the situation. Good luck, and don't lose heart!

 

[Kenpobldr]

In my opinion most 4 year olds are to young to study martial arts. In our dojo they must wait till they are at least 5 even if they have a older brother/sister that attends our school.

If the behavior was to continue I would speak to the parent about waiting untill he/she is older.

As far as the mothers behavior that is certainly disrespectfull and she should be spoken to in private. Her actions are a sign of abuse and a cause of concern.

This is also why I believe that there should be a specific area seperate from the class that parents need to wait in.

I am not a Lawyer or Police Officer but her actions could warrent a complaint being filled with DSS. I am not sure if a belt would be considered a weapon within the law or not.

If the same thing happened in ths school system the teacher would be required by law to report such an action from the mother.

Her actions should be delt with ASAP, and mabey the 4 year old is to young to study Martial Arts at this time.

This is quite disturbing.

 

[terryl965]

First off You as the Instructor of your class should have the right to address the parent of said child and inform her of her mistakes during class, secondly she should not be allowed back in until she is understanding of they way you run the class.

The last part is about dignity and honor as a school a injustice was done, we as instructors owe it to the parents of childern to let them know what has accur inthe classroom during there child stay with us. It is not when someone confront us we tell, wrong is wrong, I would go back to your instructor and tell him the proper thing to do is let parents know what has happen and theproblem was corrected and should not happen again.

My deepest wishes

Terry Lee Stoker

 

[Dalum]

I'm glad everyone's reactions are in the same vicinity and we are on the same page. The problem with the age is that I am governed by people above me. I need to roll with their rules and criteria. They say 4 years old is fine. I am obligated to abide by thier rules.

Kenpobldr: I totally agree with everything that you say. Especailly about the part with a teacher in a school. Till I hear otherwise, I'm going to let the home office deal with it. That is till Monday end of business. If I don't hear anything back from them I'm going to tell them what my set of actions are going to be. The DSS may be a part of it if they don't give me anything that I can work with.

Discipline is one thing, terrorizing a child into submission is another.

 

[Bigshadow]

The whole situation is very touchy. First off, parental discipline can be a very personal and emotional issue. How discipline is handled is up to the parent (as long as they are not abusing the child). Having the belt may cause alarm, but at the same time does NOT necessarily mean the child is being abused. So rather than go into the quagmire of that issue, I would reconsider at what age you really want to start teaching children. As was stated in a previous post, it just may be that he is TOO YOUNG to train. Maybe you should offer this to the mother as solution to the problem and respectfully ask that she waits until he is older. I mean the real issue is the child disrupting the class, not how the parent disciplines the child. I think it is important not to shift the focus to the wrong thing. Just my opinions.

EDIT: The previous post was added during my writing of this. My apologies.

 

[chinto01]

I find the actions of the mother very disturbing and shocking. If that were to happen in my dojo I would have put a stop to it immediately ( on th side after class ) explaining to the mother that the kind of discipline that she is using to get he child to behave at home is not an accepted way of disciplining our students for poor behavior at the dojo. I as a parent would no even think of acting the way she did. It also sounds like you may have to do a little damage control with the other students parents. The unfortunate thing is that you may need to ask this student and parent to leave because of what happened.

Good luck and hope it all works out for you.

In the spirit of bushido!

Rob

 

[Kenpobldr]

The whole situation is very touchy. First off, parental discipline can be a very personal and emotional issue. How discipline is handled is up to the parent (as long as they are not abusing the child). Having the belt may cause alarm, but at the same time does NOT necessarily mean the child is being abused. So rather than go into the quagmire of that issue, I would reconsider at what age you really want to start teaching children. As was stated in a previous post, it just may be that he is TOO YOUNG to train. Maybe you should offer this to the mother as solution to the problem and respectfully ask that she waits until he is older. I mean the real issue is the child disrupting the class, not how the parent disciplines the child. I think it is important not to shift the focus to the wrong thing. Just my opinions.

EDIT: The previous post was added during my writing of
this. My apologies.

I respect your opinion and I can certainly understand that parental discipline can be a personal and emotional issue. Some parents may choose punishment, spanking or a time out but what this parent did was make a threat with something that could be considerd a weapon and she did so in public. Like I stated earlier a school teacher, nurse, or doctor is required by law to report such an action.

 

[arnisador]

Something must be done. Can an assistant instructor eitehr watch the mother next time, or teach the class so you can watch her?

This kid could use the influence of martial arts training in his life. I hope you make an effort to help. That effort may well have to include a call to child welfare services, asking them to investigate the household situation. Raising a disabled child can be stressful, and parents can run out of ways to cope with teh child's behaviour and to make him or her "behave" in social settings. This could be a well-meaning mother--after all, she's taking him to this activity--who has run out of good coping skills in a tough situation. She may benefit--really benefit--from the "reset" and counseling of such a visit. I don't know enough to be able to say if you should call--but, give it some thought.

 

[Loki]

Arnisador and Flying Crane made especially good points, I think. While I think kids can start learning at the age of four (I instruct such a group myself), I agree on the other points. The group we teach consists of four yeard olds only, so this may be why our opinions differ. I agree a four year old would have a hard time in a group with older kids.

I once had a kid (though he was at least six) who clearly wouldn't make it far in martial arts due to behavioral problems, but with time there was a noticeable improvement in his functioning in class. My instructor made it clear to the parents that under different circumstances (highly disruptive, worse instructor-student ratio) we couldn't accept him, but conditions remained favorable and we helped him with what he could. He even trained through his mother's death.

Like you said, terrorizing a child into submission isn't an acceptable form of parental discipline, definitely not terrorizing other people's children in the process. I agree with confronting her after one of the lessons and ask her to explain her actions as well as make it clear that you don't condone it in your dojo. If you get the impression that the child is being abused, get in touch with the child welfare services.

 

[Ceicei]

Let's look at a different issue you brought up. You said the child doesn't hear, doesn't speak? A person who cannot hear verbal instruction will lose concentration very quickly. I assume the child may know sign language? Do you know any sign language, even simple signs? If you do and you try to use it while you teach, you will be able to hold his concentration better and allow him to communicate more with you. If he stays, he may come to enjoy martial arts more and actually want to learn.

Regarding the mom, have a frank discussion with her. If you are direct, honest, and non-judgmental, you will be able to draw out her concerns and let her know of your school's policies and principles. Find out how she usually communicates with her son. What are her reasons for selecting martial arts for him?

If she feels you can be trusted, she may be able to let you know more of the struggles. Martial arts doesn't just effect the student, it effects the whole family. She may be willing to consider other solutions.

Many deaf children start school really early (the philosophy of the educators is if they start early, they could circumvent the educational lag that frequently happens with deaf children). Some start as early as 18 months. (I started at 2 years old as my deafness was discovered late.) As such, group settings usually aren't new for a young deaf child. The key is to make sure the deaf child has a way of communicating besides the "monkey see, monkey do" method.

- Ceicei

 

[Dalum]

Oh my! Thank you everyone for your responses and insight. The boy just started school this fall and knows nothing about sign language. I try to give him individual attention as needed but cannot give 100% for obvious reasons. When he is able to follow along, we all give him the thumbs up to try and show him some positive reenforcement. The wife of my assistant instructor knows sign and she tries to support where the 2 of us can't give even most of the time being one on one. My GF, who also helps with the class, says that if it's bugging me this much that I should take steps. I'm not sure that I should so far. I was thinking of doing what I had said before with waiting for the home office to make their move.

 

[Kamaria Annina]

Dear lord, I'm so sorry, that sounds absolutely horrible. I would talk to the children about the matter, than perhaps personally call the parents explaining the situation, the main way to solve this problem is being absolutely truthful!

 

[Andrew Green]

Sadly the biggest problems in childrens classes are often the adults...

Confront her, warn her. If she does it again, ban her. Someone else can bring the kids or she can drop them off and come back at the end.

Chances are you will loose the kid but that's the way it's got to be. You can't let a parent disrupt your class.

Also be prepared for her to say some rather nasty things about you to her anyone that will listen to her after you kick her out

 

[Jonathan Randall]

That is a chilling story.

Now I'm not opposed to a moderate spanking of children - particularly in areas of safety (those TOTALLY opposed have never had a two year old pull an electrical cord from its socket or run into the street), but to constantly threaten a handicapped four year old with a belt is beyond what I'd considered discipline.

This is a hard subject. In truth, there are limitations as to what you can do. I once lived next to a woman who would scream obscenities at her 18 month boy. One time, when the police were called, as they often were, because of domestic violence, I let a police officer know EXACTLY what was going on with the child. It made no difference. The husband was arrested, as he should have been - he was a wife beater, but the child remained with the abusive mother.

This was many years ago, but it still haunts me.

 

[MJS]

I've got a low level karate class offered by an organization that I work/contract for. Now in a hypothetical scenario...
Let's say that I've got a child of 4 years old that is hearing impaired. Cannot speak, cannot hear, very unresponsive to most everyone. I allowed this student in the class because he shouldn't be denied the opportunity that he can bring with him throughout life. The first few weeks was nothing but running around and being distruptive to the rest of the class. A few weeks in, the mother was asked to stay for the next session (following week) and to see if (with her being the parental figure) help with his focus. Now let's say that the following week went great! Let's also say that said child stayed in line most of the time and she kept him motivated. Let's also add that after class was dismissed mother was greeted with a positive report by me. It all sounds great, huh?

On the way home from this hypothetical class, I was informed that the reasons that he was focused was because when mom was being sneaky behind my back and hiding her motions from me; that she was actually bringing out a brown leather belt and waiving it at him. Not only was this being waived at him, it was also to the class since she was behind me.

I have a multitude of issues with this, but here are my main concerns...

1. Who does she think she is doing that in my class?
2. How many students will not be returning next week because they told their parents?
3. This doesn't jive at all with the cirriculum that we teach kids to be safe and learn what "Stranger Danger" is.
4. Most importantly, what is happening at home with this poor boy?

I've been going nuts in my head since I was made aware of this. I feel horrible that I didn't catch it as I was dealing with a room full of 4-11 year olds. I'm glad that the rest of my staff did. I've been in contact with my home office as to see what our next steps should be. They said that this would be taken care of in the fasion of "Parents called us after they both witnessed and their kids told them..." scenario. As you can tell the whole scenario has moved fro mthat to actaul reality.

I'm a long time registered lurker of this forum and hate to make this one of my first posts. Though not my first post, still a bad way to start out. How does everyone feel about this? I feel like a heel and want to make sure that not only he is safe but both of the other 2 brothers that I know of directly. (I don't know if there are other siblings.)

(Oh yeah, mods: Sorry if this is in the worng place. Please move it at your discression.)

You may want to supplement private lessons instead of the group classes until the child gets older. Whenever you're dealing with a large group of young children, its hard to give everyone equal attention. Offering privates in place of group classes will allow you and your staff to work with this student in a more 1 on 1 fashion, which IMO, is what they need.

When you said that the childs mother was waving a belt at the child, was she doing this from the seating area or was she out on the floor with you and the class? The mother, IMO, is just as much of a distraction as the rest of the small children. The correcting/discipline during class should be done by the instructors, not the parents. I understand that the child has special needs, but you have someone on staff that can assist you with this.

Let us know how things turn out.

Mike

 

[shesulsa]

Oh my! Thank you everyone for your responses and insight. The boy just started school this fall and knows nothing about sign language. I try to give him individual attention as needed but cannot give 100% for obvious reasons. When he is able to follow along, we all give him the thumbs up to try and show him some positive reenforcement. The wife of my assistant instructor knows sign and she tries to support where the 2 of us can't give even most of the time being one on one. My GF, who also helps with the class, says that if it's bugging me this much that I should take steps. I'm not sure that I should so far. I was thinking of doing what I had said before with waiting for the home office to make their move.

Another thing you can do is try to get a volunteer to sign interpret for you (if you don't sign). Would be great if you could find a martial artist who also signs or you could trade lessons for the assist. This can help assure that the eyes & ears of your student are NOT on Mom. I also like the idea of having an assistant keep an onobtrusive eye on her. I really don't like the feel of this. Keep your eyes and ears open and like Andrew said - don't be afraid to ban Mom.

Please let us know how things are working out.

 

[Dalum]

Well, tonight's the night. I am at work right now and am going to call my home office to see what they had done from when I gave them the info. If they did nothing, Mom is getting kicked out to start. I really can't say what the deal is till I talk to them.

 

[arnisador]

Good luck with this difficult situation.

 

[Dalum]

Well, got off the phone with the home office. They say they tried to contact the parents before class was put on tonight. They were able to contact dad and explain everything to him. Since he wasn't a part of the whole thing, I don't think he grasps what the whole range of the issue. He did say that they DON'T beat him and he would take care of mom's actions before going in tonight. They also reinforced that those types of things are not acceptable in class and only deconstructs the idea/feeling of safety that's being built at every class. This goes for both the individual student AND the rest of the class. I'll let everyone know what happens tonight at class. I've got a bit of anxiety to be honest. I don't want a scene in front of all the children. Wish me luck!