How to Hold Parents Accountable for Students' Discipline in the Classroom

Get parents to play a part in discipline.

While parents may not attend school with their children each day, they can still exert some control over their children's behavior. By creating a system in which parents are held accountable for their child's in-class behavior, schools can give parents increased motivation to work on teaching their children the norms of appropriate behavior. While this system can be difficult to implement, with proper structure and support it can be an effective way to obtain the behavior that you desire from your pupils.

Instructions

1. Create school behavioral rules and a clear consequence structure. Place these rules in the student handbook, on a behavioral contract and on walls around the school. Plan a consequence structure that is tiered, with smaller consequences for initial infractions and gradually increasing punishments as the severity or frequency of the behavior increases.

2. Meet with students and parents together before the year begins. Discuss the importance of behaving properly as a means of ensuring that students can learn effectively. Present your rules and consequences to both parents and students to ensure that they are fully aware of the potential results of inappropriate actions or educationally disruptive behaviors.

3. Create a behavior contract. Ask both the parents and the students to sign this document after reviewing the rules. Retain this signed document as evidence of the fact that the child agreed to abide by the listed rules and the parents agreed to work with the school to ensure that their child behaves properly and does not detract from the educational environment present at the school.

4. Communicate regularly with the parents. Inform parents immediately if their child breaks even a minor school rule. If parents are to play a part in ensuring that their children abide by these rules, they must know when a rule is broken so that they can deal with the behavior at home. Also, call the parents regularly and inform them of positive behaviors that their child is exhibiting to encourage them to keep up the positive behavior modeling.

5. Provide support to the parents. Offer parenting clinics or informative sessions about contemporary teen problems to enable parents to prepare themselves for dealing with problems that may arise. Encourage parents to attend these offered sessions by sending home fliers or calling parents to inform them of the offerings.

References

• National Crime Prevention Counsel: Strategy -- Holding Parents Accountable for their Children's Behavior