Why do some parents lie to teachers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP with kid seeing SLP.

1) This happens after school. 2) Obviously don't tell child not to say anything. It's like soccer practice to him--something he does after school. 3) Not for speech but for language and, no, apart from the kindergarten teacher who alerted me to a possible problem, which I took immediate steps to address outside the school system, teachers haven't caught on there is a language issue. If they had, I'd have been more than happy to discuss and describe what we are doing to address it.

So much for knowing my kid so well and caring so much.

You seem so angry. Why not homeschool or look for a more nurturing school environment?

Wow, what is up with you undermining a parent's decision about who needs to know what about their kid? Teachers are not parents. You seem to have this naive and invasive belief that the public school system is a coparent.

The fact is children bring EVERYTHING they experience and do into the classroom. Your mentality that what happens outside of school stays outside of school is just naive.
Classroom teachers are entrusted with not only the academic but the social, emotional development of children. We should be a team, not engaged in an adversarial relationship.

The more you push on this the more creeped out I am about your lack of boundaries. You are not a coparent. Do you also think you have the right to decide on my kid's diet, bedtime, and religion?

I was the PP, but it was my first post-thanks.

Parent and educator

PS thanks for helping me understand why my job has gotten so difficult in recent years and why teacher burnout rates are SO high.

Maybe you burn out because you don't understand the limits of what your job is? You are a teacher and your job is to teach. A child's social and emotional wellbeing is actually the responsibility of the parent ultimately. I think you will find that if you approach parents with respect and professionalism you will get all the information you need.

I do treat parents respectfully. It would behoove you to do the same. Instead of treating teachers as professionals, experts in our field-like doctors, you behave as though we are servants and should know of our place. Do you hear yourself? It takes a village.

[Anonymous]

10:56 back to say to OP that it's the "nice" families who will lie to you. My mom was the beautiful, smiling SAHM who'd roll up to carpool in a new car and drive me home to an immaculate, newly constructed home in a great neighborhood. I was the very quiet, never-disruptive student who'd try earnestly not to get any attention, positive or negative.

[Anonymous]

I am a K parent and this is eye opening to me. My child is in therapy and I had behavioral concerns, and I made an effort to be very open about all of this with the principal in discussing placement and with the teacher. I wanted them to know what to expect so that they could plan for and deal with it in hopes of heading off problems before they had a chance to get established.

So far I believe that this approach has been helpful. The teacher has done a great job of establishing expectations and managing behavior and my child is thriving. You all have me wondering whether I am naive or you are worrying about something that is not likely to be a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a K parent and this is eye opening to me. My child is in therapy and I had behavioral concerns, and I made an effort to be very open about all of this with the principal in discussing placement and with the teacher. I wanted them to know what to expect so that they could plan for and deal with it in hopes of heading off problems before they had a chance to get established.

So far I believe that this approach has been helpful. The teacher has done a great job of establishing expectations and managing behavior and my child is thriving. You all have me wondering whether I am naive or you are worrying about something that is not likely to be a problem.

It sounds like you have a good teacher and a good principal and also good outside supports in place. When not all of those things are true is when a parent has to be more careful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a K parent and this is eye opening to me. My child is in therapy and I had behavioral concerns, and I made an effort to be very open about all of this with the principal in discussing placement and with the teacher. I wanted them to know what to expect so that they could plan for and deal with it in hopes of heading off problems before they had a chance to get established.

So far I believe that this approach has been helpful. The teacher has done a great job of establishing expectations and managing behavior and my child is thriving. You all have me wondering whether I am naive or you are worrying about something that is not likely to be a problem.

It sounds like you have a good teacher and a good principal and also good outside supports in place. When not all of those things are true is when a parent has to be more careful.

PP with the K student here. I can understand that. It makes me sad to think about it though. I guess I am very fortunate in my situation, at least for this year.

[Anonymous]

PP again with child seeing SLP.

I did not mean for last line to sound angry: "So much for knowing my kid so well and caring so much."

I wrote that in reaction to the OP (or perhaps another PP) who got all gushy about teachers knowing the kids better than the parents and caring so much for them.

I think the real reason none of the teachers have given absolutely no indication that they thought my child had a problem is because he poses no behavior problems (too dreamy really to do so). In a large classroom a boy with perfect behavior can be seen as a gift for a teacher who has to spend so much of her time calming down very active boys.

But he does have a problem: He scored absolute rock bottom on the Peabody Picture test, indicating a very significant receptive language problem. But he was low normal on expressive language, which the SLP said indicated he was leveraging way out of bounds on the little receptive skills he had to express himself. And he actually learned to read in the first grade. The SLP said based only on seeing his scores, her professional view would have been that there was no way this child could have learned to read by age 7.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP again with child seeing SLP.

I did not mean for last line to sound angry: "So much for knowing my kid so well and caring so much."

I wrote that in reaction to the OP (or perhaps another PP) who got all gushy about teachers knowing the kids better than the parents and caring so much for them.

I think the real reason none of the teachers have given absolutely no indication that they thought my child had a problem is because he poses no behavior problems (too dreamy really to do so). In a large classroom a boy with perfect behavior can be seen as a gift for a teacher who has to spend so much of her time calming down very active boys.

But he does have a problem: He scored absolute rock bottom on the Peabody Picture test, indicating a very significant receptive language problem. But he was low normal on expressive language, which the SLP said indicated he was leveraging way out of bounds on the little receptive skills he had to express himself. And he actually learned to read in the first grade. The SLP said based only on seeing his scores, her professional view would have been that there was no way this child could have learned to read by age 7.

Interesting perspective. The kids with the externalizing behavior do get too much attention/judgment (easy to understand why) when other kids may have difficulties too. The mistaken judgments work both ways!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP again with child seeing SLP.

I did not mean for last line to sound angry: "So much for knowing my kid so well and caring so much."

I wrote that in reaction to the OP (or perhaps another PP) who got all gushy about teachers knowing the kids better than the parents and caring so much for them.

I think the real reason none of the teachers have given absolutely no indication that they thought my child had a problem is because he poses no behavior problems (too dreamy really to do so). In a large classroom a boy with perfect behavior can be seen as a gift for a teacher who has to spend so much of her time calming down very active boys.

But he does have a problem: He scored absolute rock bottom on the Peabody Picture test, indicating a very significant receptive language problem. But he was low normal on expressive language, which the SLP said indicated he was leveraging way out of bounds on the little receptive skills he had to express himself. And he actually learned to read in the first grade. The SLP said based only on seeing his scores, her professional view would have been that there was no way this child could have learned to read by age 7.

I'm OP and it was a different poster that wrote that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, some people just lie in general. They're not lying to you because you're a teacher, they're lying to you because they're liars.

Their children become even better liars.

Who's surprised?

[Anonymous]

I can't think of anything to lie about, but I have had teachers question the truth of what I"m saying. My DC was really sick last year and went to the hospital. I didn't bother saying he had been to the hospital -- just that he had been sick -- and the teacher said he seemed well, so odd....

[Anonymous]

The school communicates so little with us. No emails except for information on class parties or SOL tests. We never know when there is a substitute, who some of my child's teachers even are during the day, what is done in class, etc. and there is only one conference a year. There are little white lies told about school details all year long. So if someone wants to know why my child was five minutes late several times during the school year and it was really because we were having a rough morning or finishing some last minute homework, I don't feel the need to disclose all those details when no details are given to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a K parent and this is eye opening to me. My child is in therapy and I had behavioral concerns, and I made an effort to be very open about all of this with the principal in discussing placement and with the teacher. I wanted them to know what to expect so that they could plan for and deal with it in hopes of heading off problems before they had a chance to get established.

So far I believe that this approach has been helpful. The teacher has done a great job of establishing expectations and managing behavior and my child is thriving. You all have me wondering whether I am naive or you are worrying about something that is not likely to be a problem.

You r child will have many, many teachers. Most will be professional and helpful and all the things you want. A few, particularly in middle and high school, will be less professional and at least one will be damaging. I do not let my son's teachers know about any tutoring we have in place. I have had honesty backfire, and now say very little. This is a shame because we do have an issue right now with a certain kind of work/skill and I didn't trust the teacher to be a good ally. We might have lost a learning opportunity, but we might also have saved my son from some cruelty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't think of anything to lie about, but I have had teachers question the truth of what I"m saying. My DC was really sick last year and went to the hospital. I didn't bother saying he had been to the hospital -- just that he had been sick -- and the teacher said he seemed well, so odd....

Tell me about my it! And then make unilateral decisions about how much makeup time was needed with rules stricter than the school's own policy?

[Anonymous]

One annoying thing I find teachers do a lot is ask to talk to you if there is an issue but don't say what it's about. So you can't plan how to react well in the meeting. I would never write to a teacher and ask to meet with her without saying what it's about. I want her to be prepared. What's the reasoning behind having parents not being prepared? If you catch them completely off guard and they don't know anything about the situation, I could see where they'd be wary of being completely truthful when they themselves feel tricked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One annoying thing I find teachers do a lot is ask to talk to you if there is an issue but don't say what it's about. So you can't plan how to react well in the meeting. I would never write to a teacher and ask to meet with her without saying what it's about. I want her to be prepared. What's the reasoning behind having parents not being prepared? If you catch them completely off guard and they don't know anything about the situation, I could see where they'd be wary of being completely truthful when they themselves feel tricked.

Spot on. I think it must be sth legal. They avoid a written trail that the parent could point to.