Stanislav Navrátil, Jan Mattioli
In contemporary times, we are increasingly and more intensely encountering expressions of impudence, vulgarity, defiance, anger, unwillingness, aggression, extortion, lying, cheating, and so on among children and youth in families, in schools, and in public. These make it difficult, or even impossible, to achieve mutual understanding, comprehension, tolerance, cooperation, and mutual assistance between children, youth, and adults. As a consequence of the described situation, which is not limited by country or by the borders of individual states, there is an increase in one-sided or mutual negative personal relationships characterized by antipathy and anti-authority, disagreements, and the resulting conflicts between the groups in question, as well as a deterioration of the climate in family and school environments. Already in 2004, we asked 228 elementary school teachers in the Ústecký Region what caused them the greatest problems in their pedagogical work. The responses were unequivocal. All respondents agreed that the key factor that does not make it easier for them to manage teaching, achieve expected educational outcomes, and fulfill obligations in organizing extracurricular and out-of-class activities is students' inappropriate behavior. Eliminating it must require time and effort, which then are inevitably missing when addressing the tasks that society expects from them during students' school preparation in the 21st century. Teachers' statements in 2008 corresponded to the conclusions from 2004. At the same time, they emphasized the persistent increase in frequency and intensity of inappropriate behavior by children and youth, both in their interactions with each other and in interactions with teachers and educators.
Problematic behavior of children toward parents is becoming an almost daily accompanying phenomenon of contemporary social life, which we can observe in shopping centers, theaters, cinemas, etc., when sons and daughters ignore even repeated firm commands and prohibitions, forcefully insist on imposing their wishes, cause disruptions, are vulgar, damage facilities, etc., even though they are under parental supervision. From manifestations of children's inappropriate behavior toward parents in public, one can conclude that a similar situation can be expected in the private life of many families as well.
Problematic behavior of the younger generation is beginning to be understood as a phenomenon that, through its increasing intensity, negatively affects social life and thus becomes one of the key objects of public attention. Primarily, parents, teachers, and caregivers, who are most often in contact with children and youth, are forced to deal with the problem daily as to how to remove or at least greatly reduce its manifestations of inappropriate behavior. However, they themselves in many cases state that the results do not correspond to the effort expended. Such personal experiences increasingly force a growing number of them to seek answers to the questions: “What are we doing wrong?” and “What should we do differently?” either directly from experts or in professional monographs.
With this publication, we too want to help parents, teachers, and caregivers find answers to these questions.
Dimensions: 14×21 cm 120 pages ISBN: 978-80-247-3672-3 Catalogue book number: 27003