Rude awakening
The ripple effects of accepting rude behavior
Originally published in the Moultrie News.
My middle school child often comes across as blunt and rude when talking to teachers, especially when he’s frustrated. This stems from his ADHD, but the teachers continue to criticize him and threaten him with consequences, which leaves him feeling awful for being who he is. How can I make them stop?
Your instinct to protect him is loving. But what does protecting him actually look like?
Teachers should understand ADHD and help students struggling with emotional control. But that’s not the same thing as excusing behavior that will ultimately harm the child.
We can’t just consider what makes our children feel comfortable in the moment. Especially not when they’re exhibiting habits and attitudes that make life more unpleasant in the long run.
In this case, for example, don’t only consider how your son feels when he’s corrected about his behavior; consider how others are going to interpret his behavior as he gets older, and then do what’s in his long-term best interest.
Here’s an illustration. I still live in the neighborhood where I grew up, and I’ve always loved it — until recently. Many adults who have moved in are rude and self-centered, a judgment based only on my daily anecdotal micro-interactions with them.
I walk to and from school every day. 60 to 90% of the adults I pass don’t nod, make eye contact, wave, or say hello. They do not, in any way, acknowledge that I’m a fellow human being, though I always acknowledge them.
There may be valid reasons why each behaves so discourteously. Maybe they were raised that way. Maybe they were reared by parents who view all pedestrians as potential kidnappers and teach their kids never to acknowledge them.
If I knew that’s what happened, I might regard them less severely. Likewise, if I knew they had a condition that made them unable to connect with others, I wouldn’t be so harsh.
But I don’t have any of that background information. All I have are our interactions, and based on those, I think they’re astonishingly rude, making a mockery of the Golden Rule.
Before you think this is just a meandering detour, let’s return to your son. Over the course of his life, people are going to judge him the same way. He’s going to turn off a lot of people if he continues to speak rudely. They won’t know he has ADHD.
Even if they did, they’d still judge. ADHD is not a life sentence for incivility. He has the power to improve right now if you teach him.
But if you don’t, you’ll be condemning him to the knee-jerk judgments ordinary adults make all the time. That may cost him a job, a promotion, or even a happy marriage and family. Whatever may be at risk, the stakes will certainly be higher than in middle school, and the rudeness will be significantly harder to correct.
But there’s another reason I chose this illustration. It’s to show why you shouldn’t want to force his teachers to overlook crude behavior. Based on the trajectory, there may be plenty of adults who won’t be bothered at all by your son’s rudeness because they’ll be too absorbed in their own worlds to care how he acts. They’ll have learned to avoid conflict by avoiding each other.
Take it from someone who’s enduring a similar evolution right now: that’s not a world we want our children to live in. I don’t see contentment in the averted eyes of the pedestrians who glide by. How could peace thrive within a person who either spurns or is frightened by cheerful human contact?
And recent studies back that up, showing that brief interactions with passers-by boost mood, reduce loneliness, and increase a sense of belonging. But for it to work, the passers-by must be willing to interact.
So, instead of worrying that teachers are making your son feel uncomfortable by correcting him, worry that if he doesn’t develop a more respectful attitude toward humanity, he might one day find himself pushed out of it — not just by his own behavior, but by those who have become conditioned to ignore it.
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Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992 and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. To submit a question, order his books, or follow him on social media, please visit JodyStallings.com.
Right on again.