The beginning of the school year is upon us, and for many parents and children alike the new term is a time of optimism, fresh beginnings and exciting opportunities. But some parents and children will be contemplating the prospect of a new school year with dread.

Recent reports suggest that the problem of post-lockdown bad behaviour is still causing problems in our schools, with the cohort of children who were badly affected at the time of the pandemic continuing to experience difficulties as they progress through the school system.

The most recent figures from the Department of Education, for 2022–23, show that the proportion of year 7 pupils who received at least one suspension rose from 3.5% in the year before the pandemic to 5.5% in 2022–23, while the rate of year 8 pupils suspended rose from 5.5% to more than 8%.

In years 9 and year 10 had close to one in ten of pupils receiving at least one suspension in 2022–23, which is well above pre-pandemic levels.

Schools have been struggling to deal with a range of anti-social behaviour and many teachers have found the deterioration of classroom conduct extremely challenging. There are reports of regular outbreaks of swearing, shouting, pushing, shoving, fighting, bullying and intimidating behaviour, even chair throwing and destruction of school property. It seems that some children have suffered badly from the lack of social contact during a formative period in their development. They are completely unable to regulate or control their own anger or frustration and, when this is coupled with a total lack of respect for authority figures, the results can be extremely distressing.

Many children’s bad behaviour is compounded by mobile phone usage, in particular access to social media. This digital substitute for real-life relationships sky-rocketed during the pandemic, and many children are now addicted to their phones. The endless bombardment of data, and the compulsion to stay on top of it, has fostered a high-octane, high-speed superficial style of consuming information, which has radically diminished children’s powers of concentration and focus, rendering them restless, bored and unengaged.

In ‘Behaviour in Schools’, published by the UK Government in 2024, schools are advised to focus on creating a ‘culture’ of respect and good behaviour, arguing that they should ensure “pupils can learn in a calm, safe and supportive environment”. To further this aim “Social norms and routines…should be encouraged throughout the school community”.

As well as encouraging “good behaviour and respect for others”, staff should “secure an acceptable standard of behaviour of pupils”, “promote, among pupils, self-discipline and proper regard for authority” and “prevent all forms of bullying (including cyberbullying, prejudice-based and discriminatory bullying)”. In addition to this demanding programme, staff should “uphold the whole-school approach to behaviour by teaching and modelling expected behaviour and positive relationships, as defined by the school behaviour policy, so that pupils can see examples of good habits and are confident to ask for help when needed”.

This is unarguably good and clear advice, but it places a huge amount of responsibility on the shoulders of teachers, who are already feeling beleaguered by the demands of educating their pupils and maintaining order in their classrooms. All these approaches need to be endorsed and supported by parents who “should be encouraged to reinforce the policy at home where appropriate”.

But parents can do so much more to help their children. It is the parents’ job to inculcate good manners and behaviour into their children at home and to send them out into the world, well-equipped to deal with challenges and opportunities and able to form positive relationships with both their contemporaries and with authority figures.  Here’s how parents can help:

How to Help Your Child

1. Teach good manners

It’s never too early to teach you child basic ps and qs – this is inevitably a child’s first introduction to manners and parents are haunted by the repetition of “say please/thank you!” for the first five, ten or fifteen years of their child’s existence. In this case the tedium of repetition is surely justified – a child who doesn’t mind their ps and qs, the most basic of good manners, is being given a poor start in life.

2.  Reduce device dependency

It’s up to you how draconian you want to be: you could institute a device-free evening or ban phones or digital devices in the bedroom. It is certainly recommended that you ban phones at mealtimes. Don’t just come in with heavy-handed prohibitions: discuss what you don’t like about device dependency and talk about your own struggles to control your usage.

3.  Encourage your children to play

This seems blindingly obvious, but if children have become too dependent on phones, laptops or tablets they may have lost the habit of imaginative play – role playing scenarios with other children are a brilliant way of stretching the imagination, and traditional games like Hide and Seek and Sardines never seem to lose their appeal. If you have older children, suggest playing board games or card games, rather than just allowing them to peg out in front of video games. All these activities involve social interaction, teamwork, competitiveness, losing, winning, cooperating – they are an excellent grounding in relating to other people.

4.  Encourage your children to read

Suggest children read books, newspapers, magazines on paper, not on their devices (where high-speed scrolling is almost inevitable). Take turns alternately reading to your children and asking them to read aloud to you. Participate in story hour at the local library. Reading will open new horizons, stimulate your child, developing their language skills, sense of empathy and knowledge of the world.

5.  Eat together

Try and have proper mealtimes as regularly as possible. While some families will find these routines are interrupted by shiftwork or working during anti-social hours, make eating together a priority whenever you can. Allowing children to help themselves from the fridge and graze in their rooms is undesirable for so many reasons: it means you are not monitoring their food intake, and they are liable to be choosing unhealthy options; they are not participating in conversation at the dining table and learning how to communicate with adults; if you don’t eat with them you are not able to monitor their eating habits and table manners – left unchecked these might deteriorate to the point of social embarrassment.

6.  Help to organise their social life

It goes without saying that children need to socialise with each other outside school hours and, especially when they are very young, it is down to you to ensure that they have plenty of exposure to other children, and that means playdates. You will need to befriend other parents at the school gates, liaise with them, and be proactive about your child’s social life. When your children are teenagers, your responsibility shifts to facilitating their social lives – this means having an open house, welcoming adolescent visitors, and being as tolerant and accommodating as possible. It is also likely to mean that you operate as a taxi service, so be prepared to offer lifts and shuttle your child and their friends from place to place – it’s all for a good cause, consolidating your child’s social skills.

7.  Go out into the world

Don’t stay cooped up in your home – take your children out and about as much as you can, even if it on the most mundane of errands. That means taking them on buses and trains to shops or supermarkets, cafés, the library, the leisure centre. Wherever you go, you are likely to engage in social encounters with bus conductors, ticket inspectors, cashiers, waiters and so on, and it is good for children to get used to these mini-interactions – they will be able to respond politely to small talk without descending into agonies of mute embarrassment, which is a great way of building their social skills.

8.  Encourage Physical Exercise

If your child is sporty and enjoys team games, this is to be encouraged as it is an excellent way of building social relationships. If not, it is still a good idea to encourage outside play, and to join your child in physical activities, such as swimming, cycling, walking, tennis, 10-pin bowling, roller-skating – playing, or exercising together, is a great way to bond with your child. And physical exercise is an effective way for your child to let off steam, and vent emotions such as boredom and frustration, rather than bottling them up.

9.  Have conversations

Talk to your child as much as possible, whenever and wherever you can. That means asking open-ended questions, such as “What did you do today?” (rather than “How was school?”, which can be answered with a monosyllable). Ask their opinions on everything, from foods and clothes to cartoon characters, tv programmes, movies, and books. If they ask you questions, do your very best to answer (even if the repeated “Why?” interrogative is driving you crazy). Give a running commentary on why you are doing certain things or behaving in certain ways – they are much less likely to be grumpy about visiting their grandmother, for example, if you explain that you are worried that she is feeling sad and lonely. They will learn about the world, and how to behave, through communication.

10. Lead by Example

It’s no good reproaching your child for being glued to their phone, or being uncommunicative, moody or distracted, if you are displaying precisely these behaviours. Likewise, if you’re on a short fuse and liable to fly off the handle and rant and rave, then it is very difficult to reproach your children for uncontrolled temper tantrums. Your children are learning from you every day, so it is vitally important that you do your best to model the type of behaviour you want them to display. Their teachers will be eternally grateful.