Teachers not liking you or your kid
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Anonymous
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Do you feel like sometimes your child's teacher doesn't like your kid or you for some unknown reason? I try not to take things personally but sometimes when so many little things add up, you just wonder!
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Anonymous
| It isn’t something I care about. I don’t need to be liked. Nor do I need someone to like my kid. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
| I don’t care at all if they like me or not. I don’t care a ton if they like my kid, but they do need to treat my kid fairly. If I perceive their dislike as crossing into poor treatment, that would be an issue. Those relationships matter for kids. |
Anonymous
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No, we haven't had that.
Why do you feel that this is true for you? |
Anonymous
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I don't feel like my kid's teachers have had any chance to decide if they like me or not, I'm impressed when they remember whose parent I am and wouldn't be particularly concerned if they didn't remember. I don't have a lot of contact with them outside of the occasional email or parent-teacher conference (I do occasionally volunteer, but it's usually just reading with kids so not much contact with the teachers).
My kid has had some teachers that obviously really "get" and like them--I can tell by how they talk about them in conferences-- and others not so much. But I wouldn't say one or the other was any more or less good at teaching my kid and all have been reasonably fair. |
Anonymous
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DS is twice exceptional (high IQ with disabilities). All these years, he's had progressive teachers who understood that he had his place in advanced courses, and who were willing to follow his accommodations plan. But this year as a senior, he has an old school, strict AP Calc teacher hailing from an Asian country (we are Asian too) who is very annoyed at having him in his class. He tells off DS for not listening to his rapid-fire lecture, not following directions, etc, when these issues are part of his ADHD and one of his accommodation is to have content repeated to him. DS needs to skip lunch to go to his office hours, which doesn't help with his afternoon focus.
I tell DS he'll probably come across college profs or others just like this guy, and that he has an opportunity to advocate for himself and try to make do, but it's not pleasant. |
Anonymous
| Sometimes, teachers may have legitimate reasons to not like you or your kid. Are you the pushy, entitled parent who is "advocating" for your child? Is your child the obnoxious-do-no-wrong over-indulged brat? If you been a teacher long enough, you can probably read these types from a mile away. Self reflect; it's a team effort to educate your child. |
Anonymous
| It happens. The best thing you can do is shrug it off and show that attitude to your kid. |
Anonymous
| Yes, happened to me. This teacher was nutso. Accused me of lying, accused my kid of lying, multiple times. Neither of us had any reason to lie. And then when she realized she falsely accused my son she didn't apologize. Just said "oh". I've never seen a teacher play such blatant favoritism before in a classroom. She had kids she liked and kids she didn't and she made it painfully obvious. |
Anonymous
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Yeah, my DD's 2nd grade teacher hated her, and me since I was related to her. DD was beloved by all the other staff.
It got to the point where I dropped DD at the classroom and then stood out of sight in the hallway and timed how long it took the teacher to yell at her. 47 seconds - for picking up a pencil that had dropped. You should have seen her face when I appeared in the doorway and asked why she thought DD deserved to be screamed at for picking up a pencil. She turned bright red, stammered, and couldn't answer. I went to the principal and told him (and this was after half a year of DD getting treated like crap) and said I would understand if he couldn't change her class but I'd appreciate if she didn't get a teacher who hated her again so she wouldn't hate school. He did right by DD and she just hates that teacher, but still loves learning. |
Anonymous
| Yes, it happens. Especially there tends to be more disdain toward boys. |
Anonymous
In a nutshell my feelings. The same goes for coaches, though it's harder to prove "fair" in that instance. And they know that. So they do abuse it, imo. And there's nothing to be done about it. |
Anonymous
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I've never felt like a teacher outright didn't like my kid. But they are never the favorite and I think sometimes teachers are frustrated that she can be a bit of a tough nut to crack -- she's slow to warm to new people and can be reluctant to try new things. She's not one of those kids who is just ready to go on Day One. In theory I think this makes her a rewarding kid to teach. She's very bright and responds really well to praise (I don't just mean that she likes praise, but that it's enormously motivating to her and when you offer regular praise, she'll really step up and give you her best effort and behavior).
But in a class full of kids, that's kind of high maintenance, and I think most teachers just gravitate to the kids who don't require that kind of work. It's fine -- she comes out of her shell eventually and gets alone well enough with teachers. But I do hope at some point she gets a teacher who just clicks with her and is willing to (and has at the bandwidth to) give her that little extra effort to see how truly great she can be. It doesn't have to be every year but I know it would be enormously formative for her. Maybe it will come in one of her extra-curriculars. We'll see. |
Anonymous
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I did one year, she didn't like us and we didn't like her. She was the type of teacher that causes people to go silent when they find out you had her because she had a reputation. Every other teacher has explicitly told me how much they liked my child so I don't think it was him.
FWIW, I am a teacher and have had a few cases like this in my career so I don't exactly hold anything against the teacher. |