Common Sense Parenting with Pam

School's Back: Navigating Teacher Respect and Bullying

• Pam Palanza • Season 3 • Episode 1

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Back-to-school season brings familiar challenges for parents navigating the complex dynamics between children, teachers, and peers. Drawing from personal experience and professional expertise, I tackle two fundamental issues that shape our children's educational journey and character development.

First, we explore the critical importance of teaching children to respect their teachers. This isn't just about classroom management—it's about preparing kids for future relationships with authority figures throughout their lives. When teachers reach out about behavior issues, they're not doing it lightly. They're signaling genuine concerns that deserve our attention as parents. Rather than automatically defending our children or questioning teacher motives, we should first ask "What did my child do?" and approach the situation as team members working toward the same goal: our child's success.

The second half addresses my straightforward philosophy on bullying: walk away from verbal attacks, but defend yourself against physical ones. I tell my children that if someone throws the first punch, they have my full permission to protect themselves. Some might disagree with this approach, but I believe children must learn that physical aggression has consequences. Equally important is how I would respond if my own child was the bully—with serious home consequences, required apologies, and deep conversations about the underlying causes of their behavior. Because ultimately, hurt people hurt people, and addressing the root causes of aggression is as important as stopping the behavior itself.

Whether you agree with my perspectives or not, I invite you to follow my upcoming "What Would Pam Do" series on social media, where I'll tackle common parenting scenarios with the same straightforward, common-sense approach. Parenting doesn't come with a manual, but together we can share strategies that help raise resilient, respectful, and responsible children who thrive both in and out of school.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Common Sense Parenting with Pam, the podcast where we simplify parenting with common sense tips, real life scenarios and a little bit of humor along the way. I'm Pam and I'm here to help you build the skills and confidence you need to raise happy, resilient and responsible children. So grab your coffee, take a deep breath and let's tackle parenting one common sense tip at a time. Well, welcome. I'm glad you're here today and I'm happy to be back. I did take the summer off to enjoy some time with my family and relax a little bit. I still was working I'm always working but I did have some downtime. So that was great and I'm happy to be back. We're at fall, we're into a new school year. You know kids are excited or not about being back, and I thought I'd take this opportunity to just touch on a couple things that have been on my mind about back to school.

Speaker 1:

I feel very strongly that, as a parent, you should be teaching your children to be respectful of teachers Hands down. There's no reason why they should not be or would not be, and when I was growing up, I was taught that if you got in trouble at school, you were in more trouble at home. Now we weren't spanked, we weren't yelled at, but it was very clear that our teachers were the person who was in charge. We were not, and if we had an issue with the teacher then we would discuss it with our parent, who would then handle it with the teacher, because they're the parent and that's their job. And as a child I did not have the life experience, the skills, the emotional intelligence to be handling that on my own. I'm on my soapbox there for a little bit, but I feel very strongly about that. Please teach your children that the teacher is in charge they are not and that they need to be respecting that. And I often hear from followers who say my child doesn't have to respect that teacher and that, to me, is heartbreaking because that is setting your child up for such issues in life later on down the road. And let's just say I also hear from followers that say, well, some of these teachers are terrible.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's get real here. Maybe 3%, 5%, let's even go to 5%, 95% of teachers are there because they would love what they're doing, to be teachers and trust me, if they're taking the time to send you an email or call you about your child's behavior. There's an issue about your child's behavior. There's an issue with your child that needs to be addressed. They don't have all this extra time on their hands to be spending time calling you and emailing you. So pay attention. Now. Obviously, you listen to both sides of the story, right? You get your child's and you get the teacher's. I can just tell you if a teacher ever emailed me or called me about my child's behavior, my first thing was what did they do? It wasn't, oh yeah. What did you do to make my child do that, which I hear a lot of parents do today? It's what did my child do? And I would get both sides of the story, sit down with the teacher and we would hammer it out. Okay, because, bottom line, we're a team for working together for the best interest of my child.

Speaker 1:

Now, secondly, let's talk about bullying. So I did a couple reels about this. I've just done a Pam Show episode about it and I taught my children. Now you can agree with this or not agree, that's fine. You know I'm Switzerland here, I'm neutral. So you know you don't have to agree with me, I don't care, I don't get offended, I won't block you because you don't have to agree with me. I don't care, I don't get offended, I won't block you because you don't agree with me.

Speaker 1:

My children were taught that if somebody was trying to bully you like verbally bully you walk away. Try to use humor, just ignore them. You know if they don't get a reaction out of you it's not going to be fun for them, right, so walk away. However, if they physically try to bully you and they throw the first punch, you take them down. Take them down, finish that fight and then go to the principal's office and have them call me and I will have your back 100%. Now I know nowadays they say oh, we suspend everybody, fine, suspend my child, I don't care, they're going to defend themselves. If the school is not handling it, my child will. I feel very strongly about that. They have the right to physically defend themselves against a physical assault Because when someone punches you or hits you or slaps you, they're physically assaulting you and if they were an adult, you could press charges and actually you could call the police and press charges against the child, because that's assault. And children need to learn that their behavior has consequences, that every action has a reaction and if they choose to physically hit somebody, well then they better be prepared to get it back and face the consequences of those actions. So that's my view on this.

Speaker 1:

Now, what about if my child was the bully? And I've had people ask me this If my child was the bully, they would not be happy when they got home because now, I did not spank. We didn't spank our children, I didn't yell at them, you know, for the most part. I mean, I remember a time I went off on my daughter. She was a teenager, it was something bizarre, but anyway, meaning I yelled at her, not hit her, okay.

Speaker 1:

So my child would be made to apologize to the person they bullied, to anybody involved in that situation, to the principal for causing a problem at school, to the teacher, whoever's classroom she's in, write letters of apology, verbally apologize. They would have privileges removed at home. Consequences, like you know, doing extra chores, having things taken away from them. They would feel the consequences of their behavior. It wouldn't be as simple as going well, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's a starting point. But you are going to face and be accountable for your actions. Face and be accountable for your actions. And they don't have to like it. That's too bad, because if they're going to make the choice to physically hurt somebody and get into a fight, then they deserve what they have coming, and that's life. I'm sorry, that's just a life lesson they need to learn, and I'd rather my children learn at home than out in the big bad world where it could be much worse.

Speaker 1:

Now, first of all, I would be having the conversation with my child is why did you do that? What made you? I mean, sometimes they have peer pressure on them or they're trying to act like they're all big and bad and they want people to like them. So they act like they're cool when they're really not at all, and I get that Okay. But I would seriously want to know why are you doing this? Because it's hurt people that hurt, right? It's a child who's bullying. Somebody has either been bullied themselves or angry about something. They've been hurt. Maybe at home they're abused, they have suffered trauma, and so they're using that anger as an outlet against another person. That's not okay.

Speaker 1:

So for me, I'd say to my child what's going on. Maybe something happened that I didn't know anything about and it's causing my child to be angry or upset and they're lashing out by bullying somebody else. I would want to know about it and we would have a discussion about it. You know, a lot of times there might be something happening that requires me to take my child to therapy and get to the bottom of it Like what is going on. I would have no problem doing that because my child is going to learn in the safety and security of their own home that I love them unconditionally. But I will not tolerate that kind of behavior. No excuses, no reasons not happening. And even if something was going on that created that anger in them, then that still did not justify their behavior. That means we have to have a conversation about how you deal effectively and positively and manage your anger in an appropriate manner. You just can't go out in the big bad world and be having a bad day and haul off and punch somebody, because your consequences could be much more severe than they would be as a child.

Speaker 1:

Those are just two things that have been on my mind this week with school starting back with some comments. I'm hearing from teachers, from parents, asking me how to handle certain situations. Thank you for listening to me rant and on my soapbox a little bit, and also I'm going to be doing a series of reels on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube called what Would Pam Do, because I frequently get questions from followers saying how would you handle the situation with my child? What should I do? What would you do if this was your child? So I'm going to be shooting reels over the next couple weeks and posting them once a day about what I would do as a parent if this was my child. In my situation, what would I do? And again, you can agree or not agree, but I'm going to give you my opinion on it. So if you're not already following me on those platforms, jump on to one or the other or all of them and tune in, because I'm going to share my thoughts and opinions with you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Common Sense Parenting with Pam. I hope you enjoyed the episode and if you did, please leave a review. That helps other parents find us. And if you have friends who also have children and could use some parenting tips, feel free to share this. I'd really appreciate it and you know I love to hear from you, so you can always find me on my socials and until then, remember, hug and love your babies.