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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The parents are to blame for not teaching discipline and manners and following through. Put the blame where it belongs: at home.[/quote]

While I do think parents need to do more, [b]kids often act different at school than at home[/b]. We absolutely would back any punishment a teacher doled out.

My middle child is very difficult at home, but apparently is an angel and even a leader at school. It boggles our mind. The kid that the teacher sees is not necessarily the kid that the parents see.[/quote]

The bolded, combined with the fact that teachers rarely communicate clearly about kids' behavior in the classroom. We've liked all our kids' teachers, but the way they describe classroom behavior is a mystery. We literally always ask "how is her behavior in class? are there any issues we need to be addressing?" and the teachers will respond with some word salad that simultaneously makes me concerned there is misbehavior but fails to give me any sense of what the problem might be or what I might do.

Like regarding my kid who is really well behaved like 90% of the time but sometimes has random meltdowns when she's hungry, I'll get "Nope, no issues. Not really. Sometimes she gets frustrated. I'm encouraging her to express herself but at appropriate times. But really nothing to worry about." What does that mean? What is happening? I'll follow up and be told "no no no, she's so great, don't worry." My spouse and I have decided that likely there are some issues but because she's mostly great, they don't want to harp on it too much. I also get the sense there are always a few kids in any class who have tons of issues, so our kid who might have some issues looks great by comparison? But it also seems like teachers are loathe to just state directly "this is a problem, yes it would help if you could work on xyz at home." I've never had a teacher tell me something like this directly. It's like they'll obliquely reference an issue but not describe it well and then reassure us it's no big deal. But then why did they bring it up?

So at some point, I'm just like "okay, well let us know if there is anything we should know about." And we get self-reports from the kids of course but who knows how accurate those are. Both our kids complain a lot about school, but most of the complaints are about peers and stuff that sounds really petty to us ("I wanted to play on the swings during recess but Larla wouldn't give up her swing even though I asked really nicely!"). So who knows. Maybe our kids are terrors at school. We do our best.[/quote]

I don’t know about private schools but my sister is a public school teacher and the degree to which it is not possible for adults in elementary schools to be direct with each other in addressing issues/concerns is mind-blowing. Every single slightly negative statement has to be dressed in a praise sandwich and delivered in the most “could we possibly think about” “would it maybe be possible to…”. It’s not just the kids and parents, it’s like no one can take an ounce of critical feedback even when it’s kind and constructively provided. [/quote]

I think private school teachers are often discouraged from saying anything negative, especially to parents who are big donors or considered highly desirable members of the school community. There can also be weird dynamics when the parents of a kid are both extremely well educated and successful -- it's intimidating. Private school teachers often have to weigh the likelihood that parents will challenge any negative feedback. It's not always worth it.

Both public and private school teachers are discouraged from being direct, especially about negative issues. If a problem is severe enough, admin might get involved. Though in publics, the admin will also go into CYA mode.

Sometimes parents are the problem, but the lack of clear, actionable feedback to parents on kid's classroom issues is a real problem. Of course parents are apt to defend their children (this is actually positive, kids need advocates) but most parents would be willing to work with a school to address an issue. Most parents don't want to raise problematic people. [/quote]

Ok how do I low key make it very clear that I'm team teacher and I want to hear all the shit on my kid so I can make sure they aren't the teacher's problem? (I say this as a mom of an almost 3 year old whose kid just told her he hit is friend at school today and then he said sorry and hugged... and then he changed the story to he got hit by the friend... teacher said nothing.  It sounds like it was handled, but I definitely would rather the teacher over tell me than not because I support the school financially...)[/quote]

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