Roles and Characters

I went to my children’s Parent’s Evening session recently, where parents are invited to meet with their children’s teacher and discuss about their children. This has been the 6th time that I went to one of these I think, since coming to the UK. It is quite useful, and especially very important early on as it served as a formal time and place for me to ask whether my children were doing well at school. Normally the teachers were still accommodating and available to answer questions after school, but this allocated session helped to establish rapport with the teacher. Also the dedicated time slots makes you feel less rushed and feeling imposing on the teacher’s time.

This year was even better as the school has realised that the 10 minutes time was not enough and has increased the time to 20 minutes per child. Also this year we were more familiar with the process and more relaxed, and the children have been able to adapt to the school so there was not much to be asked or discussed. There was still the aspect where the teacher commented about the child and it was something a bit different to what the parent would normally feel their children would do. One of the teachers once said, “Parents always get surprised when I tell them that their child has the best behaviours and very kind and very etcetera, and they would say to me, ‘Are we talking about the same child?'”

It seems to be the same with almost every parent’s experience. We felt the same previously, but this time it was less of a surprise. In previous sessions, my children would be a bit reluctant to speak up at school, so their manners are different when compared to when they’re at home. But I think nowadays they’re a bit more comfortable so they show more sides of themselves to the teachers so the image at school aligns better with their behaviour at home. Also I’ve come to realised that children, much like adults, have or are learning to adapt to the social norms and roles. At school they are students and they are also friends, so they become those roles. At home they are sons or daughters, as well as siblings, so they revert to those roles. If the roles are so different in characteristics, for example they are normally loud at home but too shy to speak at school, the repress would cause them to almost revolt when they revert to their role. At least this is how I sometimes feel or remember feeling when I was child, and what I can see with my children.

It would be interesting to read papers or books about this, which I assume would be in parenting or pedagogy books, but for now I am putting my observation here.

Thank you for reading.