What you do and say at home has an impact on your children. It may sound too obvious to bother to write about yet there are increasing numbers of children showing violent and-or other concerning behaviour in school.Most children spend anywhere between six and seven hours in school each weekday. According to Latisha Lister, a family therapist with Child and Adolescent Services, this means that teachers are co-parenting children.Ms Lister works with children and their families. She uses the term ‘family’ in its broadest sense anyone who is involved with the care and safety of the child.In many instances that includes teachers.“I see children in the school environment because it’s actually a more realistic environment for them,” she said. One of the main reasons she may visit the school of a client is to meet with staff.“I also go to the schools to help staff understand what is happening with a child,” she said. “I have met with guidance counsellors, with teachers, whoever needs to understand what is going on with this child, with parental permission, so they know how to work with the particular child.”The problems children face are wide-ranging.Ms Lister said she’s had child clients who purposely cut themselves, who have attempted suicide, who find it difficult to cope with their parents’ divorce, who are addicts, or who suffer with mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.“There is no point in me building up a child in isolation. Then at school, if they do something that is a little bit off-curve, everyone goes: ‘what am I looking at?’. I need to let them know what they are looking at.”Every child is different, she said.“Depending on what is happening, some children may never appear the way other children do. That’s their normal.“If you [the teacher] don’t have a context for what you are looking at then it’s scary to you.“We are scared when we don’t know what we are looking at. If you know what you are looking at and can gauge how a particular child will react, then you understand: this is good for Johnny today then there’s some ebb and flow that happens.”Bermuda Union of Teachers secretary Mike Charles agreed it was important to include teachers in such instances.“Sometimes a child comes to school and if you don’t know what is going on with them socially or emotionally, it can be very difficult to deal with what is going on in the classroom and the playground,” he said.Informing primary school children’s teachers is especially important, he said.“All teachers at that level are intensely interested. In middle school and the senior school level, teachers spend about 50 minutes with students. In primary school they are with their one teacher all day.”Many children spend more time with their teachers on a daily basis than they do with their parents, Ms Lister said.She said the average working parent might spend five hours a day with their child.“Teachers see children for a solid seven hours,” she said. “I work with teachers because in a way they are co-parenting.”Mr Charles said: “When I was at one primary school the teachers got together and fed some of the children.“We had about three or four children that needed that so we made sure they had breakfast and lunch. We would buy food and put it in the fridge and they would come and take it as they needed it.“I remember we had a trip to England and we took one of the children. We had to get everything for that student even clothes to wear there.”There are many examples of teachers taking on some parental responsibility for students, he said.“I know one teacher who takes home a student’s gym clothes to launder. If the teacher didn’t do it, the student might not come back with his-her gym clothes. Our teachers do whatever it takes, and yes, they are co-parenting.”