Blaming the parents: school experiences of

‘troublesome’ children and their families

Val Gillies

Families & Social Capital Group

London South Bank University

•Lack of concern

•Lack of social responsibility

•Ignorance/incompetence

•Low aspiration

I mean, the run up to James actually getting sent down, me and him [husband] were at, not loggerheads, but there was nothing there, and it did look like we were actually going to break up, because of, mainly because of what James had done to us. I mean, if I got a phone call from the police, “Right, we’ve got him. We need you to come and ” I’d drop everything and I’d go, and it’d even be a case of I’d ring him at work, “Well, you need to come home, I need to get to James”. “What do you mean, you need to get to James?” “He’s been arrested”. “Well, leave him”. I was like, “No, I can’t leave him! I have to be there” and I would literally break my neck to get there. So yeah, it has been a bit, it’s been really hard. Really hard.

he’s not very police-friendly, and that is because of what we have been through with James I mean [he’s] come home from school, and I’ve had 20-odd officers in my house, tipping my house upside-down, so he’s not very police-friendly, and I’ve tried to get it through to him that, “If they stop and search you, ‘Yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir’. But … that did kill me, when he brought these four coppers to my door. Well, I’m just reliving, it’s like being back four, five years ago, with James”. And it’s scary. It is scary to a point that I can, I can see how it’s going to end, and it’s not going to be pretty. But then I look at him, and I think, “There’s no way he could do some of the stuff that James has done to get him to where he is today”, so I kind of back off then, until I get that phone call,

I get a phone call ‘Dawn, Marcus is down the road. He with a group of boys’ and I’ll be there in two minutes. I’ll get in my car and go. Two minutes, I’m there Even now, there’s a little gang up the road that he finds his self up hanging around with them sometimes. I hear he’s up there, I walk up there and I drag him away. …I go ‘get your backside home NOW.

The parents get let off very lightly when it comes down to responsibility a lot of the time. If parents want to stick their heads in the sand - these are the same parents Oh bless their hearts' - I'll hold sympathy with them but the same kind of parents that when the kid gets shot in the street cos he's been messing about with gangs, will sit there and go 'My boy was a good boy! ''Really, why was he running around the street at two o'clock in the morning with guns then? If one of my boys got caught for something then they'd be dealt with, simple as! I'm the parent and it's my responsibility. And I've actually had a phone call with a parent before, the boy was really kicking off in class , I phoned the parent and the parent said 'The Government pay my Benefit, the Government can sort him out.

I’m just trying every avenue there is for my son’s life…. because if he carries on like that, he will be going to prison. He might be that person that pulls that trigger, and he might be that person who receives the bullet, so I’m desperate for him, and I’m grabbing every which way to get help.

After the second lesson, it was the best thing that ever happened to me!. …. I came out of that first meeting, and [he] was an angel compared to these [other] kids. And I came home and I grabbed hold of him, and I gave him the biggest hug and he kind of looked at me like, “What’s wrong with you?” And I went, “Do you know what?” I said, “You’re an angel, son”. And he went, “Yeah, all right, Mum. What have you been drinking!”