PARENTS SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR SOCIAL PROBLEM.

This is an idea that has been floated by some education reform advocates (mainly
conservatives) who believe that the problem of childhood discipline in the classroom cannot
be remedied unless parents themselves are acting at home to engender good disciplinary
habits in their children. The idea was briefly enacted in both Florida and Michigan. In
Florida small fines were imposed on parents and in Michigan coveted parking permits were
suspended when children misbehaved. Both programs were promptly discontinued due to
parental outcry. In the United Kingdom there have been cases of parents being jailed for
failing to stop their children being truant from school.[1]

Future iterations of this idea in the United States may involve charter schools where parents
of children with track records of disciplinary problems voluntarily enrol their children in a
school with such a contract. Charter schools can state explicit requirements of students in
terms of behaviour in their charter which can then be legally enforced.[2] Modelling the
debate in this fashion may help avoid some of the parental consent issues of the debate,
although it is by no means necessary for proposition to take this strategy in the debate.

Another version of this debate is to hold parents liable for the criminal actions of children
during school going years. For instance, if a child is caught shop lifting, one might impose a
fine on the parents in addition to punishment handed down to the child. Some of the
arguments below are tailored more specifically to this version of the debate, although the
arguments considered can be modified to fit into either debate.

The assumption behind this brief is that by and large the children being discussed are those
with chronic discipline problems.

1. Parental Incentives

POINT
Addressing the behavioural problems of children requires active parental participation.
However, in many cases, parents are either not fully aware of their childrens problems, or
more importantly, delay the active disciplining of their children.

This is critical, as for the cycle of negative and positive reinforcement to be effective in
behaviour modification, there must be a temporal link between misbehaviour and any
potential punishment. In a desire to avoid future fines, or whatever the penalty the parents
face, there is an active incentive to not only intervene in the childs misbehaviour, but also to
do so in a timely way, which is the most proven way to change childrens behaviour.

Moreover, if there is any tendency for parents to overlook or avoid the problems of
chronically unruly children, this serves as an impetus for keeping up with discipline notices
and paying attention to the childs infractions.

A lack of parental involvement has for example regularly been cited as being partially to
blame for the riots in the UK during August 2011.[1]

[1] Gentleman, Amelia, UK riots: Being liberal is fine, but we need to be given the right to parent,
guardian.co.uk, 10 August 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/10/uk-riots-liberal-rightparent

2. Collaborative Approach

POINT
In order for a childs misbehaviour to be successfully remedied, the child must receive a
consistent message on what is appropriate both at home and at school. In many instances
parents may condone behaviour that schools and teacher find unacceptable. In other
instances, professionals at schools can aid parents in targeting specific behaviours to work
on in a specific order in a program that integrates the childs behaviour at both school and
home. Moreover, uniform and consistent rewards and negative reinforcements from school
and home are tremendously useful for helping rehabilitate a childs behaviour.[1]

When initiating such programs, the major problem is often that the parents give in and do not
adhere to the agreed upon program, which serves to teach the child that unacceptable
behaviour is sometimes condonable. Its understandable that parents, who must be with the
children a majority of the time, sometimes may find it easier to simply give in and pacify the
child and inadvertently award destructive behaviour. Therefore, a system of parental
investment, as proposed here, will ensure that the parents have something riding on sticking
to a disciplinary program as well, which ultimately aids the child.

In the case of parents being penalized for criminal offenses by children, one can modify this
argument to fit by noting that often juvenile facilities will use schools as part of a behavioural
modification program, therefore the consistency noted above is still critical.

[1] Robinson, Virginia, Bridging the gap between school and home, Raising Achievement Update,
July 2008, http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/bridging-gap-between-school-and-home-4094

3. Children Held Accountable

POINT
Often, children who have been trapped in a cycle of lack of discipline and disciplinary
problems tend not to care about their punishment.[1] Detention may be seen as a welcome
respite from classes, and other punishments over time may cease to make an impression on
the child. After all, there is only so much that an institution can do to discipline a child.

Using this mechanism opens up a far more effective repertoire of discipline. More
importantly, while the child may cease to regard any punishments handed down on him or
her, often there will still be a desire to avoid actively harming the parents, which occurs
under this system.[2]

The argument also extends in the case of criminal punishments. In the psychology of a
child, he or she may not fully internalize the effects on their future a shoplifting arrest may
have. However, the thought of their parents being punished in such an offense may lead to
the deterrence necessary to prevent such actions.

In effect, the argument is that when punishments to the child him or herself fail to act as a
deterrent, the child seeing punishments imposed on the parents as a result of his or her
actions may reinvigorate the deterrent effect.

In addition, this allows an extra tool in the teachers arsenal, and the mere thought of
perhaps triggering a parental punishment may help bring some children into line.

[1] Pawel, Jody Johnston, Child Abuse of Discipline: What is the Difference?, Parents Toolshop,
http://www.parentstoolshop.com/HTML/tips8.htm
[2] Mother jailed for girls truancy, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1984502.stm

4. Parental Responsibility

POINT
In most cases, in which the child is not subject to some sort of constitutional problem
(genetic condition or otherwise), the disruptive behaviour of a child is a reflection of in
adequate parental intervention over time. A normal child under normal circumstances
should be expected to conform to behavioural expectations, and the failure to do so
represents a partial inadequate job by the parents.

The result is a cost that is transmitted to society. Children that are disruptive in school or in
society via the criminal justice system cost the system extra money either in school
resources and time or judicial-police resources as well as in the more obvious costs such as
fixing vandalism and graffiti.[1] Even worse; if a student drops out as a result of his discipline
problems the cost to society has been estimated as $232,000-388,000.[2] Given that the
parent is in part to blame for failing to control the childs behaviour, in the time during which
the parent is the primary custodian of the child, it is fair to pass on a measure of this cost to
the parent.

[1] Batten, George, The Main Cause of School Budget Problems is School Discipline, School
Discipline Made Easy, http://www.schooldisciplinemadeeasy.com/?p=42
[2] Hymel, Shelley, and Henderson, Natalie Rocke, Helping Students who are Experiencing
Persistent and/or Serious Discipline Problems to Succeed in School: The State of the Evidence,
Ontario Ministry of Education Research Symposium, 18-20 January 2006,
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/research/hymel.pdf

http://www.nl.idebate.org/debatabase/debates/education/house-believes-parents-should-beheld-responsible-their-school-going-childrens-discipline-problems

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/parent-teacher-collaboration-richard-curwin