“My baby cries”, “Mine has nightmares”, “Mine beats wrists”: all teacher’s fault

When a creature comes to life, it cries desperately, but if by chance it does not moan, it is urged to do so with increasingly forceful lashes until it begins to breathe. Contrary to what is usually thought, the first “blows” received are therefore for a good purpose and the first cry bodes well because it reveals the beginning of the newborn’s pulmonary ventilation.

In the coming months and years, crying will continue to be the main communication tool that will help the baby to draw the adult’s attention to their needs (hunger and thirst), fears, moods, sensations (hot / cold, humidity) . / dry …), demands, dissatisfactions, minor accidents, setbacks, etc. The mother, as well as the kindergarten educator or teacher, will find herself learning to “read” crying to understand whether it is an omen of a real need or if it is a mere whim. At this point, it becomes extremely important to understand the differences between the roles of mother and those of educator or teacher. The child who enters the preschool world is in fact subject to the new experience of peer socialization and relationships with adults who are strangers to the family. Teachers are the only ones with experience in socializing children, while parents (and researchers, as we will see later) will use their own limited family experience as a unique clue to reading the facts. The reactions to these unprecedented experiences of “remoteness” of the little ones, as well as at birth, are usually mediated by a cry that will stop at a variable time, also based on the more or less protective education proposed by each parent. For her part, the teacher will also have the exclusive and delicate task of interacting with parents (who have now become increasingly “unionists” of their children than of their educators), convinced that they have the just and only educational model- pedagogical existing in the world. However, the reality is quite different because each family comes from different social origins, to which the different ethnic group is often added by virtue of the globalization process that took place in the third millennium. Further complicating the lives of the entire professional category of teachers are new technologies, social networks with the infamous WhatsApp groups between parents that host comments, gossip and spirits of educational pedagogy as well as the inevitable cooking recipes. “My baby is crying”, “Mine has nightmares”, “Mine hits the wrists”, “Mine doesn’t want to go to school”, “Mine is peeing on the bed”, “Mine is back in Latvian “: Certainly all the fault of the teacher!

With the air blowing, therefore, it is not surprising that in the last six years (2014-2019) the complaints and criminal proceedings against teachers have multiplied by fourteen but, to all this, there is another problem: interpretation of crying children in the reading of audio-video interceptions by researchers (who are not really pedagogues or in any case professionals). In almost all the documents related to the criminal process of Presumed School Abuse (SPM) we read that “the crying of children is caused by the climate of fear and terror created by the teacher”, but the reality is more complex due to the multiple messages which can convey the crying of a preschooler.

To try to provide some clarity on the subject, an investigation was carried out on 200 teachers asking them to indicate, in descending order, the reasons that can lead a child, or the whole class, to cry. The most significant impressions and experiences are listed below.

Teachers’ responses

1. Children cry especially because of the separation from their mother, because they experience it as an abandonment, because school is the first new environment that they live after the family one. Sometimes the tears are tripled when seeing the teacher because her arrival coincides with the separation from her mother.
2. The smallest are experiencing the first socialization with the outside world and this implies comparisons, clashes, small jealousy between equals. The degree of egocentricity of the child, as well as his temperament and family upbringing, is determining. Possible signs of regression such as the return to the use of the pacifier or bottle or even enuresis.
3. Around 2/3 years there are phases of opposition and also disputes between equals. Undoubtedly, the nursery school child is beginning to understand that he is no longer “omnipotent”, that there are companions, that “they do not” appear, that there is a “rule of thumb”, but all in a climate of meaningful relationship with the educators. . Sometimes parents are the first to not accept the rules of coexistence as they “limit” their child.
4. Crying is normal and it is good that there is, otherwise it would mean that the child is not sensitive to the mother’s detachment, it would mean that he has not been well with his family until he enters the new educational environment.
5. Crying from hunger, malaise, pain, tiredness, waking up or just a whim.
6. A three-year-old girl cried for a long time and then we realized that she had learning difficulties. With the right support, he got better over time, but crying was the expression he used when he was in trouble for his delay.
7. One child did not even eat the snack that was brought to him from home. Her parents were separating and her gesture was a clear need for attention that remained so even after the parents’ final separation. A rejection is worse than crying.
8. Some find it difficult to establish relationships with their peers. They often do not want to share games and are very dependent on the adult, seeking refuge in the arms of the teacher who cannot always satisfy the request for obvious reasons.
9. A child who receives a rebuke almost never cries if the rebuke is justified. There are also those who do not accept the call and cry stubbornly: they are mostly children who have hyperactivity and are opponents. Unfortunately, in recent years, there has been a sharp increase in similar cases that put pressure on the teacher.
10. For older children (3-5) crying and tantrums due to the difficulty of accepting the school rules that often collide with too much “freedom” left in the family (absence of rules). The exasperated egocentrism makes the child of this age refractory to the rules and the relationship with his classmates and teachers, not accepting the times and sharing games and things. On the other hand, a child accustomed to the rules and raised in educational balance adapts easily to school life. Finally, there is the unstoppable crying for the child’s inability for self-control, this in the presence of delays in affective-emotional development.
11. The dispute with other children is triggered by a thousand reasons, if only for a “piece of paper.” Most of the only children do it because they are not used to sharing: “At home it is all mine, I do what I want with it, I throw it, I bite it, I tear it …”.
12. Birth of a sibling, relocation, separation or dispute between parents. Morbid relationship with one of the two parents. Everything can cause discomfort in the child who reacts with crying.
13. Children who have siblings at school can repeat the dynamic adopted at home. For example, biting the other to induce them to quit the game, pulling their hair or simply adopting cheeky behaviors such as hysterical crying, kicking, hitting the ground, etc.
14. There are “correct” rules that everyone must follow especially for their own safety and that of others. The adult must always anticipate and prevent any potentially dangerous situation. At school the teacher has to do it for all the children (up to 29), not just for one as in the family.
15. A cry that can last for hours or days? It is difficult for the teacher to have anything to do with this situation. Sometimes crying is not a bad thing because it means that the baby is growing. Bad thinkers will look for a negative explanation, for example something the teacher would have done to the child. Often they also change sections but the story is always the same.
16. In my experience, crying can be due to: the birth of a baby brother (sometimes even a cousin), performance anxiety due to an overly suffocating presence of parents, spoiled children who are not used to handling their frustrations, separation from parents often conflict, serious illness or grief in the family, abuses that they witness or suffer directly.
17. The most distressing cases are those of children with disabilities. They may find it difficult to express their needs, even just to go to the bathroom. Or the oppositionist-aggressive: crying is usually the end of the violent moment.
18. Childhood teachers, especially older and old-fashioned ones, yell a lot more and are less empathetic than younger ones, obviously we cannot generalize but many times we have had the opportunity to notice this criticality.
19. Crying can be caused by a feeling of inadequacy in carrying out assigned tasks that lead to the development of autonomy (for example, putting on shoes, jacket, going to the bathroom alone …).
20. The cry of a child may be due to not wanting to eat and not wanting to participate in the activities proposed by the teacher: so many times it ends in a choral cry. This also happens with primary school children in the first year of school.
21. Choral screams of the whole class are quite rare and are mainly caused by contagion. Triggering causes can be the most disparate and unpredictable, such as reading a scary story or simply conjuring up the “mother” in that distant moment.
22. There was a choral scream from the class with a teacher who always had the blinds down and the desks removed from the doors and windows that were sealed because the woman was convinced that she was being spied on and presented persecutory delusions and hallucinations. In that case, the manager suspended the teacher and sent her correctly for a medical examination. The class did not understand the strange behavior of the teacher and the consequent disorientation triggered the phenomenon of collective crying.

The multiple experiences collected by teachers and educators highlight the many causes that can induce crying in preschool children. It goes without saying that teachers cannot always, or not all, be responsible for the warm tears that children shed at school. It is also true that many times it is convenient to project responsibility for the child’s behaviors or attitudes that upset or disorient his parents outside the family.

Here, in the context of a criminal proceeding for PMS, the non-expert investigator who attributes to the teacher, exclusively and without appeal, the responsibility for the crying of one or more children without having sought the causes will make an error. or have examined environmental interceptions in a selective and decontextualized way. Second, it would be one more mistake for the researcher to always and exclusively consider a child’s crying as an anger at the teacher. This reaction (crying), although very frequent in the life of a preschool child, understandably produces an experience of suffering and pain for the adult (parent or researcher), but it must be framed within a physiological educational dynamic. In addition, crying often represents a manipulative tool for the child that tries to make the adult feel compassionate so that he can repeat his own inappropriate behavior. Over the years, the child will acquire the ability to avoid inappropriate behaviors, but only if the adults / educators do not give in to their “expressions of despair.”

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