Teachers Bullied by Parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here at an area independent school. Most parents are respectful and kind. They volunteer and will write an email once in a while to tell you how much their child loved a lesson or if the child needs a bit of help with a lesson. And the occasional Bully Parent? The same every time. It's a mom, babies her child or spoils the child, thinks she knows more about education than a professional educator, typically doesn't let dad know about the obsessive insane emails she writes to the teacher, will send out a long winded emotional email followed up by a call to an administrator then later will send a second email that is somewhat apologetic, doesn't ever want to hear that her child either needs academic or emotional/social support. Her child is perfect and so is she.

Actually, I *am* that mom, to some extent. I have a smart child with some special needs that were not being served in the public school nestled in the expensive neighborhood we bought precisely to gain access to a great school. So I came to the private option with some expectations, and I have communicated them during the admission process. That background may or may not have been shared with the classroom teacher, but what you call "babying" is what me I, along with many ADHD specialists, call small classroom accommodations. I promise they are small. So small, in fact, that the public school refused to put them on the accommodations list because they are simply "good classroom management technique, non-specific to a disability". If I did send that long email, it is because you have refused to meet with me when things started to go wrong. Instead, you have berated my child for lack of discipline. Had you met me when I asked, we would have quickly caught a problem before it became a habit, and the conversations would have been much nicer. You, as a teacher, may well have an excellent knowledge about appropriate children development, but know little about this specific child. If I cannot work with the teacher to help provide adequate education for my child in a private setting school, I have no idea where to turn.

So please understand that if I'm a bit emotional, it is because I see my child falling through the cracks. It is because we're making huge efforts to afford the tuition that would allow for a closer home-school communication, and I see little of that. It is because I just lost my SACC spot for after-school in my old neighborhood school, so the new school *HAS* to work out, because it will be extremely hard to go back. At this point, you, the private school teacher, have an insane amount of power in your hand, and some of your decisions will impact my entire family's life tremendously. So please be patient with me as I explain that my child will need to know what to expect next week, so that she can come engaged and ready to learn. That she may learn in quirky ways, and rote repetition may simply not always be the best. That she needs the same reminders as a child a few years younger. Her maturity is simply not the same as her peers. While I admire you for trusting the children to raise to high expectations of self-regulation and independent work, this particular child cannot. Yet. She still needs the structure and reminders and nurture and positive re-enforcement that will, eventually, turn her into that responsible young adult we're both trying to create. But she's not there yet, and no amount of poor grades and public humiliation will change the present skill. Yet, she has her own ways to learn, and learn well. I am here, at your service, looking to make this a successful year. I come armed with strategies that work, and ready to take your input when something does not. But silence, when tests and homework come home covered in red, despite hard work at home -- that is not an option. I have to speak up. Please don't call me a bully for that. Just work with me.

This is NOT bullying. I'd welcome an email like yours to help me with what you know works best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here at an area independent school. Most parents are respectful and kind. They volunteer and will write an email once in a while to tell you how much their child loved a lesson or if the child needs a bit of help with a lesson. And the occasional Bully Parent? The same every time. It's a mom, babies her child or spoils the child, thinks she knows more about education than a professional educator, typically doesn't let dad know about the obsessive insane emails she writes to the teacher, will send out a long winded emotional email followed up by a call to an administrator then later will send a second email that is somewhat apologetic, doesn't ever want to hear that her child either needs academic or emotional/social support. Her child is perfect and so is she.

YUP ! Insecure women, but if a HOS allows that parent to remain in the community, then they are just abiding it for their entire faculty.

Parents like that should have their contract cancelled. SNAP. One or two examples would cure the entire school of this un civil behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here at an area independent school. Most parents are respectful and kind. They volunteer and will write an email once in a while to tell you how much their child loved a lesson or if the child needs a bit of help with a lesson. And the occasional Bully Parent? The same every time. It's a mom, babies her child or spoils the child, thinks she knows more about education than a professional educator, typically doesn't let dad know about the obsessive insane emails she writes to the teacher, will send out a long winded emotional email followed up by a call to an administrator then later will send a second email that is somewhat apologetic, doesn't ever want to hear that her child either needs academic or emotional/social support. Her child is perfect and so is she.

Actually, I *am* that mom, to some extent. I have a smart child with some special needs that were not being served in the public school nestled in the expensive neighborhood we bought precisely to gain access to a great school. So I came to the private option with some expectations, and I have communicated them during the admission process. That background may or may not have been shared with the classroom teacher, but what you call "babying" is what me I, along with many ADHD specialists, call small classroom accommodations. I promise they are small. So small, in fact, that the public school refused to put them on the accommodations list because they are simply "good classroom management technique, non-specific to a disability". If I did send that long email, it is because you have refused to meet with me when things started to go wrong. Instead, you have berated my child for lack of discipline. Had you met me when I asked, we would have quickly caught a problem before it became a habit, and the conversations would have been much nicer. You, as a teacher, may well have an excellent knowledge about appropriate children development, but know little about this specific child. If I cannot work with the teacher to help provide adequate education for my child in a private setting school, I have no idea where to turn.

So please understand that if I'm a bit emotional, it is because I see my child falling through the cracks. It is because we're making huge efforts to afford the tuition that would allow for a closer home-school communication, and I see little of that. It is because I just lost my SACC spot for after-school in my old neighborhood school, so the new school *HAS* to work out, because it will be extremely hard to go back. At this point, you, the private school teacher, have an insane amount of power in your hand, and some of your decisions will impact my entire family's life tremendously. So please be patient with me as I explain that my child will need to know what to expect next week, so that she can come engaged and ready to learn. That she may learn in quirky ways, and rote repetition may simply not always be the best. That she needs the same reminders as a child a few years younger. Her maturity is simply not the same as her peers. While I admire you for trusting the children to raise to high expectations of self-regulation and independent work, this particular child cannot. Yet. She still needs the structure and reminders and nurture and positive re-enforcement that will, eventually, turn her into that responsible young adult we're both trying to create. But she's not there yet, and no amount of poor grades and public humiliation will change the present skill. Yet, she has her own ways to learn, and learn well. I am here, at your service, looking to make this a successful year. I come armed with strategies that work, and ready to take your input when something does not. But silence, when tests and homework come home covered in red, despite hard work at home -- that is not an option. I have to speak up. Please don't call me a bully for that. Just work with me.

The bolded pretty much reveal the degree of distorted thinking.

Clearly, this woman feels powerless in her life, but it is NOT the teachers fault.

1) don't apply to a school you cannot afford
2) get some perspective : " your child is "slipping through the cracks" REALLY is she not learning the alphabet in spanish fast enough for you to brag about or what other devastating deficiency are we talking about ?

3) you come "armed" , yes, and I bet it feels that way

This is NOT bullying. I'd welcome an email like yours to help me with what you know works best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here at an area independent school. Most parents are respectful and kind. They volunteer and will write an email once in a while to tell you how much their child loved a lesson or if the child needs a bit of help with a lesson. And the occasional Bully Parent? The same every time. It's a mom, babies her child or spoils the child, thinks she knows more about education than a professional educator, typically doesn't let dad know about the obsessive insane emails she writes to the teacher, will send out a long winded emotional email followed up by a call to an administrator then later will send a second email that is somewhat apologetic, doesn't ever want to hear that her child either needs academic or emotional/social support. Her child is perfect and so is she.

That's am exact description of the parent I dealt with all year. It's better to communicate with a level-headed father than an unchecked mother who has a lot of time on her hands, a lot of money to throw around, an unchecked emotional state and a refusal to admit or hear that her kid needs help. If we tell you your child needs help its not to hurt your kid it's to HELP your kid!

I used to teach ok the area and this is SO true.

Oh, I've dealt with some nutty fathers over the years, believe me. One of the highlights was when a father who was a lawyer came in to a parent-teacher conference armed with my most recent test, and proceeded to go through it line by line to tell me how each question wasn't properly worded, was confusing, was ambiguous… yeah, that was a fun one.

LOL . how absolutely shameful ! Did the HOS cancel their contract ? Hope so.

[Anonymous]

It sounds to me like SAHMs are going into parent teacher conferences knowing their kid and feeling like the teacher is misunderstanding and underestimating them, and teachers are taking this as a kind of disrespect. Teachers have to manage twenty kids and, especially in the fall/winter with the elementary kids, they may see that there is a classroom problem but they don't really know the kid well enough to see the real root of the problem, whereas the SAHM probably really understands her own kid but may not understand exactly what is going on in the class to cause the problem with her kid.

But teachers, for all your experience and training in child education and development, you do not understand our kids as well as the parents do. You simply aren't around them enough. And I'm not sure I believe you really love them all, because I have heard teachers talk about "brats" in their classes before, and not in an affectionate way.

Sometimes you DO misjudge students. You are not infallible. You may think you have an excellent read on a kid, and you may be totally wrong. Just as some parents may have a totally wrong read on you.

But parents should always be respectful in discussions with you. Your job is so important and parents owe you respect.

[Anonymous]

Teacher here, veteran of public and private, and parents being rude in conferences happened in both places. It always stung me tremendously (teaching high school now, so no conferences--definite plus!) but eventually it faded, as did other things that frustrated me in life. Often there was a kernel of truth with regard to what the parent was complaining about, like that I wasn't connecting with the kids (I was trying!) or that I hadn't alerted the parent when her daughter's good grades started to nosedive (I had wanted to teach the girl some responsibility, but looking back, she was a bit too young for that and the parent would have handled the news well.) I agree with what a previous poster said about how everyone's jobs have horrible moments. If I were in your shoes, I'd try to simmer down, be honest with myself about whether there was anything I could have done differently and what I could do differently in the future, and also know that this parent is probably going to be a jerk in the future and just be glad that one of my run-ins with her had passed. Your equanimity can be a gift to her or not, but it can certainly be a gift to yourself.

Good luck! I know how much it stinks!!

[Anonymous]

Teaching is a nice gig. There is very little administrative supervision and to children in their classrooms they appear all powerful. They can praise and criticize at will. They can work hard and on other days just phone it in. Many become accustomed to teacher adoration. Those who succumb to the idea they should be adored should never have become teachers or anything else for that matter.

Teachers are not anymore altruistic than the rest of the population. Some are great and many are not. The notion that poor instruction should not be challenged is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teaching is a nice gig. There is very little administrative supervision and to children in their classrooms they appear all powerful. They can praise and criticize at will. They can work hard and on other days just phone it in. Many become accustomed to teacher adoration. Those who succumb to the idea they should be adored should never have become teachers or anything else for that matter.

Teachers are not anymore altruistic than the rest of the population. Some are great and many are not. The notion that poor instruction should not be challenged is ridiculous.

What are you smoking, or are you shooting it up?

[Anonymous]

^^^ PS, I'm not a teacher, there are no teachers in my family, but I have tremendous respect for teachers. I bet you couldn't do their job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh boo-hoo! Everyone who works in any profession faces this. Why should teachers be any different?! Just have to put your big girl/boy pants on and deal.

ITA. Sorry, teachers, but it comes with the territory. Of course it's not right, but most of us face unpleasant people all the time in our jobs. You should meet some of my clients...

I've been a teacher and I've also worked in a completely different field. This doesn't sit right with me. I do think that a parent who loses their cool in a conference has crossed a line beyond "comes with the territory", and that "dealing" might be more complicated or difficult in this situation than in a non-school workplace.

OP, sorry this happened to you. Stick to your guns; don't change the content of your message to the parent (I can't comment on your tone because I don't know what it was) in the face of pushback. Know your limits and options, and move forward however you need to, be it documentation about the child's issues to your administration, or whatever. Take the high road. Remember that the parent probably lost their cool because the news was difficult to hear.

[Anonymous]

NP, and parent here. I just want to say that I feel particularly badly for the people that said they got no support from the administration when a conference started to go downhill. In my opinion, on parent-teacher conference day, the administration should be "on call" ready to head to a classroom when things get heated. (In addition, I would hope that administration would encourage teachers to let admin know ahead of the conference if they suspect that a parent is going to come in upset and out for blood.)

When it's just parent and teacher in the room, it's too easy for the entire communication to break down, and for each side to only hear their version. In my experience, in the vast majority of cases the parent has an unrealistic request/expectation, etc. However, there are some cases like the PP described above, where a communication breakdown might have led to some accommodation not being met, etc. If the administration could be ready to discuss this issues right then and there, I think it could solve a lot of problems.

Again, this only works with good, supportive administration, but I know I as a parent want that kind of administration at my kids' school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teaching is a nice gig. There is very little administrative supervision and to children in their classrooms they appear all powerful. They can praise and criticize at will. They can work hard and on other days just phone it in. Many become accustomed to teacher adoration. Those who succumb to the idea they should be adored should never have become teachers or anything else for that matter.

Teachers are not anymore altruistic than the rest of the population. Some are great and many are not. The notion that poor instruction should not be challenged is ridiculous.

What are you smoking, or are you shooting it up?

Yes, some are great and many are not. Where do you teach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here at an area independent school. Most parents are respectful and kind. They volunteer and will write an email once in a while to tell you how much their child loved a lesson or if the child needs a bit of help with a lesson. And the occasional Bully Parent? The same every time. It's a mom, babies her child or spoils the child, thinks she knows more about education than a professional educator, typically doesn't let dad know about the obsessive insane emails she writes to the teacher, will send out a long winded emotional email followed up by a call to an administrator then later will send a second email that is somewhat apologetic, doesn't ever want to hear that her child either needs academic or emotional/social support. Her child is perfect and so is she.

That's am exact description of the parent I dealt with all year. It's better to communicate with a level-headed father than an unchecked mother who has a lot of time on her hands, a lot of money to throw around, an unchecked emotional state and a refusal to admit or hear that her kid needs help. If we tell you your child needs help its not to hurt your kid it's to HELP your kid!

I used to teach ok the area and this is SO true.

Oh, I've dealt with some nutty fathers over the years, believe me. One of the highlights was when a father who was a lawyer came in to a parent-teacher conference armed with my most recent test, and proceeded to go through it line by line to tell me how each question wasn't properly worded, was confusing, was ambiguous… yeah, that was a fun one.

Are your tests poorly worded, confusing, ambiguous, and difficult to decipher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here at an area independent school. Most parents are respectful and kind. They volunteer and will write an email once in a while to tell you how much their child loved a lesson or if the child needs a bit of help with a lesson. And the occasional Bully Parent? The same every time. It's a mom, babies her child or spoils the child, thinks she knows more about education than a professional educator, typically doesn't let dad know about the obsessive insane emails she writes to the teacher, will send out a long winded emotional email followed up by a call to an administrator then later will send a second email that is somewhat apologetic, doesn't ever want to hear that her child either needs academic or emotional/social support. Her child is perfect and so is she.

That's am exact description of the parent I dealt with all year. It's better to communicate with a level-headed father than an unchecked mother who has a lot of time on her hands, a lot of money to throw around, an unchecked emotional state and a refusal to admit or hear that her kid needs help. If we tell you your child needs help its not to hurt your kid it's to HELP your kid!

I used to teach ok the area and this is SO true.

Oh, I've dealt with some nutty fathers over the years, believe me. One of the highlights was when a father who was a lawyer came in to a parent-teacher conference armed with my most recent test, and proceeded to go through it line by line to tell me how each question wasn't properly worded, was confusing, was ambiguous… yeah, that was a fun one.

Are your tests poorly worded, confusing, ambiguous, and difficult to decipher?

Okay, I'll play along (I'm not the teacher who wrote this post, btw.)
If the test is written as badly as the father perceives it to be, I would expect that it would be confusing to ANYONE who read it, not just his kid. That means that the majority of the class should have done poorly on the test. Before I went in guns blazing, I'd try to feel my kid out and see if other kids were having the same problems.
I'd also be looking at the previous work my kid has done and what kind of grades he's received. Did this failing test grade come out of the blue, or were their warning signs in the less-than-great grades my kid was bringing home? Parent-teacher conferences are usually happening after about 6 weeks of school. If there had been issues/concerns, I would have contacted the teacher asap, not wait until I realized that we were nearing the end of the quarter and saw my kid was going to get a grade that might negatively impact the GPA.
Has my kid been telling me he finds the wording of the tests confusing, or am I just looking for a way I can negotiate a retest for my kid who bombed the first test due to lack of studying?
These are all things I would be asking/exploring before I went to Defcon 1 on the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Many assessment are poorly worded and deliberately ambiguous. This occurs primarily when teachers use off-the-shelf, publisher generated test questions. Knowledge is knowledge and one should be able to attain those same facts from any source. Publishers however word their questions in such a way that if the students have not memorized the exact phraseology used in their textbook students have title chance of answering the questions correctly.

Quality instructors write their own assessments or edit test bank questions to remove ambiguities.

Poor and lazy instructors barely read the questions and answers they cut and paste into assessments before they are assigned. They then proclaim indignation when they are not universally adored by student's and parents alike.