I've given this a lot of thought over the past decade or so
Like Lynn, I have an autistic son (mine is 13), although mine is much higher-functioning and is mainstreamed. He can be really really frustrating to work with (emotionally immature with weird gaps in his understanding of the world). But no way are the teachers allowed to yell at my kid. (If I'm not allowed to yell at them, they can't yell at him; seems fair to me!
)
I think the standards for parents and the standards for teachers (or caregivers) are different -- teachers, IMO, should *never* react to a child in anger. It's their job to put on a "Prozac smile" and maintain control of themselves. We pay them money to find alternative ways of dealing with unruly kids. The school has systems in place for that and staff to assist teachers.
In my book, parents get a lot more leeway, even though ideally they shouldn't react with anger. For one thing, parents are *much* more emotionally invested in the child to start with. They also spend a lot more time with the child, (often including sleepless/disrupted nights, which really erodes temper control) and often there's no readily available help.
So, I give parents a pass on raising their voices, assuming it's not their default mode of communicating with the child. And saying something like "I'm angry with you because you disobeyed" can be valuable to younger kids, because 1) they need to be taught to identify their own emotions, and 2) it's tremendously positive to communicate "I am very angry but I
choose not to react out of that" (and therefore you can choose how to react to your emotions, too).
Or as I like to put it, parents were drafted; teachers volunteered. Standards are higher for the "professionals."
PJ
