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30 Folks Online Share The Wildest Cases Of “My Kid Can Do No Wrong” They’ve Ever Experienced
Speaking in front of an audience every day sounds difficult enough, but what if it’s in front of a bunch of kids? If that wasn’t difficult enough, what if their parents were also overly protective or could see no fault in anything their kids do?
That’s exactly what these teachers have gone through, and decided to share their experiences in a viral Askreddit community thread. You’re certain to have a gasp or a chuckle at these helicopter parents.
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I guess this is more "helicopter aunting," but I think it still applies. I'm a college professor, so 99.9% of the time I never hear from my students' parents--and, legally, thanks to FERPA laws, couldn't talk to them about their students even if I wanted to.
Last year, during the final week of one of the summer bridge programs for incoming freshmen I teach in, I got an email from one of my student's aunt. She wrote me a 5-page-long email (I copied it into Word because I was curious) detailing, line by line and comment by comment, why she disagreed with what I'd written on her niece's essay and the rationale I'd used to give it an F.
Every. Single. One of my comments (on a 5-page essay) had a short paragraph devoted to picking apart the comment and rebutting it. At the end, she lambasted my teaching and suggested I'd failed the student out of spite. (Totally untrue--the girl could barely string together a coherent sentence, let alone a grammatically correct one.)
When I told her I wasn't allowed to talk to her about her student's grades due to federal law, she called the program director and demanded I be fired.
The fun twist at the end of this story, though, is that we ultimately figured out why she was so angry with my comments: Turns out she'd been writing her niece's essays all summer and had taken my comments personally. Needless to say the niece was removed from the program.
(edit: forgot a word)
I work in a kindy in China. We have about 35 kids in each class, seated in 4 rows of 8 (with a split down the middle) facing the teacher.
We move the children about once a month; each child moves back one row, and the back row gets to sit in the front row.
One parent came in and told us that her child must always be seated in the front row. There's nothing wrong with the child's eyesight; she's just too special to be seated anywhere but the front row I guess. The parent did not request this; she ordered us.
Another time in primary the headmaster came to talk to me, aghast. We had one special group of children that was taught all in English for every subject. This is very expensive and all the parents are pretty rich (One guy has three porsches; a red yellow and blue one and drives whatever colour he feels like to school. He also has several Harley Davidsons.)
Anyway this VERY rich mother was upset because the other rich kids didn't want to play with her daughter. Her daughter, having servants at home, tried to order the other kids around and you can imagine how popular that made her.
This mother threatened to have the other children killed unless they started playing with her daughter.
Late to the post but I’m a high school counselor. Last year I had this student who was a total sweetheart but really needed intervention. This girl was a sophomore and had a grand total of 20 credits towards graduation under her belt. She should have had 90 by that point and was on track to fail 25 more that spring. She was failing miserably. Not only that but she would be constantly ditching class and often end up in my office because there was no where else to go. The school has only one way in or out. I did everything in my power to help this girl and eventually was able to get a parent meeting with myself, teachers, the school psych and school administrators involved. I explained to her parents in great detail how at this point it was mathematically impossible for her to graduate from high school at that school at the rate she was failing classes. I offered continuation school that has a much higher rate of graduation for students in her situation. I desperately wanted her to get tested for special education because it was obvious she had deficiencies and could have at least gotten some legal accommodations put in place for her in order to help her. Parents just said no to everything. No to continuation school because that’s where the “bad” kids went. No to testing because special ed had a “bad stigma.” No to after school tutoring cuz “she’s capable of doing all of this work.” No to working one on one with the school psych to sort out her emotional issues. No to everything. I’d never felt so defeated and knew then that I couldn’t save every kid no matter how much I wanted to.
Edit: Words. Clarification.
Wow that's super sad. Some parents shouldn't be allowed a say when they so obviously are ruining their kids lives
I had a student who was failing pretty badly, he had a pretty bad attitude and was extremely disrespectful. When I called his father, the response was “You’re a woman, he doesn’t need to respect you.” I handed the phone to a male mentor teacher pretty dumbfounded and explained the situation. The male teacher proceeded to ream the dad out and then had the kid transferred from my class to his class. The kid still failed and was still a disrespectful a*s. Not sure what the dad had to say about that but at least he couldn’t blame it on me being a woman.
An incredibly quiet student just flat out refused to engage in any discussion in class. She was an extremely pleasant girl, she just wouldn't speak. I brought it up with her mother during an interview and she told me she'd forbidden her daughter to express her opinion and to just listen to the teacher out of fear they wouldn't agree with her opinion and mark her down out of bias. I assured her that expressing an opinion wouldn't get a student marked down in my class and that developing one is important to her learning but she just said "I'd rather she didn't."
As someone who was encouraged to have an opinion but still can’t seem to form one a lot of the time, I dread to think how this student ends up.
Criminal defense lawyer here. I was talking to my 23 year year old client in the hallway before court. His mom walked up to me and said forcefully, “He is a CHILD, do you understand me? A CHILD!” Because she was upset that he was in trouble with the law.
I had a third grade student whose mother felt that I favored other students over her son. She would call me and yell at me about not treating him fairly and lying. She snuck past the office a few times to come into the classroom to watch me teach (which of course is illegal and I’d have to call the office). She’d tell me and the principal that she was trying to “catch me in the act [of being dishonest].” (Of course my principal always defended me and dealt with the parent.)
As a final straw, the mother bought a watch with a voice recorder in it and the boy wore it to school. He yelled out in the middle of class suddenly, “I’m secretly recording you and you won’t teach here for much longer!” (An 8-yr-old!) Of course the watch was confiscated and the child was moved into a different classroom, though the school district could have legally moved him into another. But the mother still never backed down and the next teacher had similar issues.
I quit teaching high functioning special education when I taught my middle school kids how to dial 911 & work with an operator for assistance and got criticism from 5/6 parents for "traumatizing" their children.
The irony? One of the parents had choked about a year before and needed assistance, but my student was terrified, didn't know what to do and ran away. The woman had passed out on the lawn and a neighbor responded. They had to send the police to help search for the student it had frightened her that much.
This is so important for them to learn though. My brother is high functioning but still at a mentality of like a 4 year old and I wish I could get him to learn this. When I was a waitress there was a very high functioning and very capable busser who lived with his mom. Unfortunately one day she had fallen at home due to something medical related while he was home and he didn't realize that he should call 911 and didn't know how to either; she ended up passing away. Had he been taught what to do in an emergency he could've saved her life instead of leaving her there all night. It was just fortunate that he never was blamed or made to feel guilty. It drove me insane and made me so sad for him because he could've learned if he was taught; he was very capable of learning and could read and articulate thoughts but just was never taught what to do in an emergency
There was a kid in middle school, who was caught selling substances. His mom gave the whole "my kid would never do such a thing" speech. The best part? His mom is a teacher at this same school.
Tbh, I did things at school my mum never thought possible. Not selling drugs, but she was horrified when I OD’d and she found out at the hospital that I’d been cutting myself for months.
I taught middle school for 1 year. We had a student who was being disruptive in all the classes. He was refusing to turn in work, or even do it. He was constantly causing trouble.
We had each tried several strategies to deal with the behavior in our own time. We had each talked to the parents numerous times, but they never did anything nor believed that the student was doing anything inappropriate. No one was having any success.
Eventually one of the teachers had enough so he suggested we do a meeting between all of the students teachers, the guidance counselor, a vice principal, the student, and his parents.
There are 6 teachers plus the vice principal and the guidance counselor all saying the same basic version of, student needs to pay attention, needs to do the work, needs to stop distracting other students, needs to be respectful, etc. etc.
The mother disbelieves us; its not the students fault. We all have it in for the student.
Nothing changed.
Teaching sucks
I work as a camp counselor for church camps. One girl I had in my cabin was an absolute brat. She would sass me, call girls in the cabin "idiots" and tell them she was better than them because she was in gifted classes, and she would punch some of the boy campers. She koalaed my friend who was a boys counselor, and ended up causing him to fall and bust his lip. When she was confronted about it, she just shrugged and said "he's the one who fell, it's his fault."
The final straw was when she got mad because I told her she couldn't go to the playground (we were literally eating lunch like, sit down and eat?) so she huffed and shoved my little sister into a chair screaming "GET OUT OF MY WAY BRAT". My sister only cries when she's mad. I looked over to her, completely shocked, and as soon as I saw tears welling up in her eyes I knew it was go time. I grabbed her, took her to my friend and as he tried to calm her down, I ran after this brat. I told her she had to apologize and she straight up went "my mom says I never have to apologize because people should be paying attention to me, when I get mad I blwo up, etc." Honestly I didn't hear her, I was seeing red because who the hell did this 10 yr old think she was hurting my sister? I ended up letting her get back to the cabin (she's crying and screaming at my older girls in the cabin now) and I got the camp director. He yelled at her, made her apologize, and told me to call her mom. Called the mom, and this lady seriously went "she didn't seem to do anything wrong, maybe that little girl should grow some thicker skin." ....excuse me? My sister is super thick skinned. Your brat just pissed her off, because who wants to be pushed into a metal chair like that?
wow sorry that's so long lmao. I've never been so mad at a kid before in my life. I hope this brat doesn't end up in my cabin again.
I'm a nanny on the upper east side of New York and while my boss is a good non-helicopter father, I routinely have play dates with other kids. I have a 4, 8, and 13 year old, so I've seen it all. My two favorites though:
A mother of one of my girl's little friends called my boss up furious and insisting he fire me because I let her child play with sidewalk paint. She was mad I made her seven year old use a paint brush, instead of doing the drawing for him after he told me what he wants. He could've poked his eye out with a brush according to her, and it was irresponsible.
The saddest part was that little boy told me before he left how fun it was we made the paints ourselves and then got to use them.
My 13 year old had a sleepover and I got a four page list of things one girl wasn't allowed to do or eat. When I asked her about it, she told me she was only allergic to hazelnuts, and everything on the list was there because her mom 'didn't want her getting fat.' I let her eat with the girls (we had build your own nacho/quesadilla thing) and I took them to our bodega that is legitimately less than 250 feet away (it's the bottom level of an apartment building on our corner and we're not even in the middle of the block) and got candy and soda to watch movies around 10 after they begged me to do so, and her mother informed my boss two days later her kid was no longer allowed to be friends with his daughter and it was my fault, as it was irresponsible for me to let four girls leave the house after dark, with a chaperone or not.
I also have a great one about my four year old's team hockey mom threatening to call cps on me so she could get my boss' attention, but that's less helicopter parenting and more pathetic.
OP sounds like a great nanny. I wonder if these parents realised how miserable they’re making life for their kids.
I had a parent swear I was targeting son and that he was failing my class because I was refusing to allow him his modifications (he was severely dysgraphic). That’s a very serious accusation and can result in sanctions against your teaching license and federal lawsuits. To prove that I was following his plan and that he simply wasn’t doing his work, I started sending him to the Special Education lab which allows kids with modifications and accommodations to have a quiet place to work and a smaller teacher to student ratio. He immediately decides to cheat on his work so his grades will go up and it will look like I was the problem but the teachers in the lab caught it and documented it for me. The mom insisted that he just felt pressured to perform (which he may have but it wasn’t coming from me). The mom and I clashed the rest of the year. The next year one of my students who had been in the class brought me a newspaper article where the kid had been arrested for drug possession and told me he was in rehab. Overall the kid was a terribly behaved turd but I still felt bad for him because he had to go home to his mom.
there no such thing as a incompetent, conceited, paranoid mot- ...
Volunteer at a library, a mom wouldn't let her 10 year old kid read "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" because "they sin".
I had posted this some time ago on r/childfree. When I was 21, I was still living with my parents. Our neighbours were just the worst kind of parents. They let their kids bully other children and harass people's pets. One time the kids were bullying the puppies of a stray dog that lived in our neighbourhood, pulling their tails, twisting their ears etc. Predictably and understandably, the mama dog growled and snapped at them. Some of the other neighbours tries to tell them that they shouldn't abuse animals. The kid's mom began yelling that a "dangerous" animal almost killed her babies.
One day they came to our place for dinner. I couldn't stand this family so I decided to eat in my room. Then suddenly I heard our puppy let out a painful yelp. Turns out the girl had kicked him. I ran downstairs immediately and picked him up while staring daggers at the kids. Their parents just smiled and said " oh the kids were just playing with your pup"
I lost my temper and yelled at them to get the f**k out. They left grumbling about how rude I was being. However, in just a few days, the mom asked my step mom, who is a teacher, to tutor her kids. Free of cost, of course.
I taught middle school social studies and we would watch Channel One news daily and write in our writing journals about what we saw and heard that stood out or was interesting. Then we would have brief 5-10 min discussions after and allow kids to read or respond. This was in 2013-15 when there were a lot of stories about gay marriage at the Supreme Court, transgender bathroom laws, Syria, protests, etc...
Well, I was mentioned several times on the school’s unofficial Facebook page that I had a gay agenda and that I was trying to teach students about the gay lifestyle. Two parents banded together and got other parents whose kids were not even in my class to confront the school board. They did official investigation and I was told to stay home for a few days. It all amounted to nothing after they interviewed the kids and clarified the situation and even read some of the journals. I basically got two days off with pay, but I did not like the scrutiny in a SS class where teaching current events is important.
Work at a Summer Camp and we told scary stories. One of the boys in the camp couldn't sleep for the whole week because of some of the stories so his mom demanded the scary stories be banned otherwise she would basically badmouth our programs. The next Monday the boy complained to me that we couldn't tell scary stories anymore and was upset about it... Tell that to your f*****g mom...
Had a father tell the principal that his son could call three Jewish brothers anti-Semitic slurs because they were of the devil and his son followed the true word of god. He claimed the school would be violating HIS (the sons) rights with any disciplinary actions. There were no disciplinary actions taken. 1980s.
Trust me, they wouldnt do anything today. Majority of Jewish kids in Public School have experienced antisemitism, some even from teachers (several school districts have been caught in scandals) and most are never dealt with, some schools were caught refusing to file any antisemitism complaints, so it wouldnt show up on their records. I mean 76% of Jewish university students have experienced antisemitism, but less than 1% of complaints are investigated. They wouldnt do anything today either
I work daily with kids in outdoor programs. I screamed at a kid who was about to run into the road while a car was coming. The only time I ever scream like that is when a child’s life is in danger. The child proceeded to have a meltdown because, as I later found out, he never gets disciplined and his parents never hold boundaries with him. His mother was there and comforted him. She wasn’t mad at me but she was saying “forest-ninja is sorry she yelled at you!” and I was like “No, I’m not. I stopped him from getting hit by a car.”
I’ve gotten to know this child over two years and he is so disruptive and is never held accountable. It’s pretty scary. Because I work in nature education I meet a lot of parents experimenting with alternative parenting and most methods do more harm than good. Be in charge, you’re the adult.
I told my kids, I'm not your friend, I'm your parent, all the time when they were growing up. Told them, my job is to send you out into the world to be a successful adult, we can be friends after that. They took it to heart, because now that they are successful adults, I see them more than I ever did when they were in high school, and they always want to do things with their mom and I.
Kid never did any work in class, was caught trying to cheat numerous times and overall was a disruption. I never like to just give a kid a zero so I’d given him numerous opportunities to make up work and redo the stuff he cheated on. Rarely took advantage of it and was missing a lot of work.
One day I got an email from his mother asking why his grade was so low and as to why I was ‘slacking off’ on putting his work into my grade book. Overall the email was probably 5-6 paragraphs long berating me, I was a student teacher at the time so “I knew nothing. “ The work she was referring to was stuff he had turned in about 2 hours before this email came to me (everything got turned into our school website in this class so it was all digital.) Needless to say I quickly figured out the kid bsed his work, told his mom it was all my fault that his grade was so low because I wasn’t doing my job, and overall I should feel ashamed for putting him in that position. I sent her a nice reply pointing out the time stamps on the assignment showing he’d only recently sent the stuff in and that I normally try to get everything in about 24 hours after it gets submitted, but that it may be a little longer when assignments are turned in late. Mother never replied back after realizing her son had lied to her about basically everything.
Less helicopter parent, more “my child is innocent” and a scam. My mom was kicked out of work (temporarily) from her underprivileged school until this case was settled. A kindergartener had just gotten her ears pierced and she took the earrings out in class because they hurt. The teacher sent her to the health secretary (my mom) and the little girl lost an earring somewhere along the way. Cleaned the ears and sent her back to class. Mother of the child sued my mom and filed a case with the school because I guess the earrings were solid gold and diamond. I guess that’s what Claire’s pierced with, seems legit. Tried to accuse my mom of stealing the earring, no chance that a 6 year old lost a tiny object. Of course the woman did not win in this situation and my mom got back to work but it was a whole bunch of baloney, accusing the teachers and office employees at the school for a lost earring and injured earlobe.
"no chance that a 6-year-old lost a tiny object" WTF MOTHER
Had a kid bite another kid, had pictures of the bite mark where teeth were clearly visible and the kid admitted to biting the other kid because he got in his way. Parents said he would never bite anyone and that the picture could be of any type of injury...
(Preschool teacher here) but one that comes to mind is this one particular one. We told this mom for YEARS her son needed to be seen by a doctor for his behavior, but she rugswept. And denied. And blamed. We went around in circles with her from the day he began at 2 yrs old until he went to kindergarten. Actually, we still do now and he’s in 1st grade and in our after school program. These are ACTUAL quotes that flew out of moms mouth as soon as we told her her son’s behavior for that day:
“Well, he had two servings of fruit last night with dinner” (When she was told he had an awful day, and could not keep his hands to himself nor listen to directions). This is my favorite excuse of all time.
“He had a play date (on Saturday)...those always rile him up” when told about similar behavior...on a Tuesday.
“Well, he’s been with his dad for two days” NOW THIS ONE- dad did not mess around. This child listened to and respected dad MUCH more than mom, because he disciplined him. He held him accountable. Mom’s interpretation of his behavior was his dads fault...not her son flying off the handle in her care because he knew he’d get away with it unlike at dad’s.
“Well when he’s with THAT child, his behavior gets worse”. No. It doesn’t. Similarly “Well what did THAT child (any child) do to him?” when told about altercations with other children.
You see the point. Nothing was her son’s fault. Nothing. And he knew that. When she told me he had been diagnosed with ADHD I wasn’t nearly as surprised as she thought I would be. He’s now in our after school program and our driver overheard his 1st grade teacher “Oh thank God” when she saw that she (van driver) was there to pick him up. Even his school teacher can’t handle him in class I have heard from the grapevine.
He also had a younger sister, who’s been kicked out of another school (and was well on her way to being kicked out of ours when I left) for her behavior also. She’s only 3. Examples include peeing on a teacher when she didn’t get her way, hitting and kicking other staff, etc. She is her brother except worse in some ways.
I have more stories about more children (and this child) if there’s interest.
While studying I work in an after school care.
One day a 9yr old was showing everyone his lighter by trying to set the shirt he was wearing on fire, I obviously took the lighter off him. When his mother came to pick him up I handed it to her and told her about him trying to set his shirt on fire.
Turns out it was her lighter, so I had "no right" to confiscate it and her son just wouldn't try to set his clothes in fire because "He's not an idiot", so I must be making that up.
Some time in 2012 (I distinctly remember it happening not long after Sandy Hook), a 4th grader I worked with was taking apart a highlighter at the sink and overflowing a cup. I asked him what his intention was and he said "I'm going to poison a girl I don't like with highlighter juice." I asked why he would do that and he said "I REALLY REALLY HATE HER."
I told my dunce of a superior about this and she said "oh he's just being dramatic" and blew me off. I told her if she did not escalate this i'm going over her head and she said fine. When his mom came to pick him up we explained what happened and she looked at him like "oh my did you really do this???" in a way like she's never heard him do anything close to this. This was not the first time we've had issues with this kid that involved telling his parents, but she just sounded so surprised THIS time.
The next afternoon I could hear the kid from across the room telling his friends under his breath how he hated me for reporting this. The kid fricken openly admitted he wanted to poison someone, and the cup in the sink was full of yellow water. For the rest of the week when he got picked up by mom she asked him how his day went and he gave her the puppy dog eye treatment as if plotting to injure someone didn't happen a few days earlier. She was so whipped. Parenting is awful these days I swear. I'm no longer in the field.
I'll give two examples. One suburban, one inner city.
Suburban: Kid asked where dogs came from. Not sure why, I was an English teacher. I said they were bred from wolves, and gave two common explanations for how human interaction may have started. Mom called the school, then called me, freaking out that I mentioned evolution. Turned into a whole thing.
Inner city: Teen sucker punched some poor girl, then punched me in the face when I broke them up. Ended up getting escorted off by campus cop. Dad, who was obviously a crackhead, showed up to the school and started threatening to kick everyone's a*s.
Htf is evolution still such a controversial topic in some places? Imagine how much further we could be if the whole world separated church and state!
Teacher here. We had a student, 5th grade, who was pretty sneaky at first. He acted innocent but he was far from it. I'll jump to the end. He stepped on someone when they were laying down during free reading time. He would constantly talk and prevent the class from getting to lunch and specials on time, and did this just to cause trouble. He hit someone with a meter stick. He would "accidentally" kick people. He stole stuff. He cursed. Mom came out and said we were singling him out and he would never do those things and told us to stop contacting her. Later he did something else, something like ripping up classroom decorations or something like that, and the principal saw it. Principal called mom. Instead of accepting her child does wrong she pulled him out of school. Since he hadn't been doing his work this kid that was actually quite smart had all F's as transfer grades.
A parent at my school worked for the district but in a different department. Her daughter was really average. Not an A student but not failing. There was no way this kid was a top performer in any way but probably had a solid college career ahead of her.
Well that wasnt good enough for mom and she wanted the kid to be valedictorian or nothing else. So she read the entire handbook on school accommodations and learning disabilities and began petitioning. She managed to get her kid labeled as needing accommodations and then helicoptered the teacher to make sure they were being met. If the kid got lower than an A she would find something that the teacher didnt do and bring it up with admin.
It became such a problem that the teacher was receiving emails almost 2x per day, and the admin was getting multiple calls per day. The teacher had to hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit for harassment with the union. The mom counter sued of course and things got heated for a while. I remember the superintendent even getting involved. Every f*****g person in admin knew she was full of s**t and making it up. No one could call her out cause she was crazy, had money and was ready to sue.. They managed to somehow settle with her. Basically wait it out until summer. The only consequence she faced was related to emails. Apparently she was using her work email to harass the teacher. They started monitoring her computer use and she was no longer allowed to communicate with the teacher in question.
TLDR: bats*it crazy mom read the handbook on school policy. Harassed the teacher for any supposed misstep. It got so bad lawyers got involved.
I once took a babysitting job when I was 17 too earn some extra cash, the 9 year old child wanted to play soccer inside, I told him many times not to do it and even took the ball away, he had another one and kicked the ball all around the house completely ignoring me, he broke a lamp, some picture frames after knocking down a shelf, and a window. When the parents came home they blamed me for the damages and thought I was screwing around in the house, why? Because the kid said I was doing that, never took another babysitting job after that.
Edit: The breaking things part happens in a span of 1 minute so there wasn’t much I could do especially since he would basically just play keep away with me
I babysat a kid like that, she threw a tantrum, broke a lamp when I wouldn’t let her eat only ice cream for dinner. Didn’t like dinner, wanted a sandwich instead. Fine, made her a sandwich. She threw it on the floor near the dog, which promptly ate it. Then started screaming that I’d given her sandwich to the dog, and hit her sister (who was super sweet). The parents luckily didn’t believe her when she said I’d done all the above, especially since her sister backed me up, but she also spread the story - and an extra detail of me hitting her instead of her hitting her sister - to everyone on the school bus and I ended up in the principal’s office. Surprisingly, I said “no thanks” next time they asked.
Had a pretty typical red/yellow/green behavior chart. One child was just transferred to me, not a completely terrible kid but had a habit of not know where the line was so it got him in trouble from time to time. Every time I flipped his card to a yellow or red would always let the parent know what happened and what we’re going to do to stop he behavior in future. She then goes off on how it’s the other little kid causing the problems and her child is perfect. I let here know that while there isn’t a perfect person in the scenario both kids could have acted in a different way. She then stated and I’m not kidding “I know that the other kid is a dirty foster child (still to this day don’t know how she learned this) and he assaulted my child! (Foster child pushed back after kidding hit by her child)” SHE DID THIS INFRONT OF THE OTHER CHILD! I told her to meet me in the office. Had a meeting with the director and she was no longer allowed in my classroom. However had to take down my behavior chart which kinda blew because of how well it was working.
😡The children in foster care deal with enough emotional trauma and other c**p. The parents of their classmates should not be adding to that list!
Note: this post originally had 38 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
A lot of these are really sad and frustrating. I feel bad for the sincere educators, counselors, and childcare workers who have to deal with entitled parents and kids. But, I also want to say that sometimes (rarely) people in positions of power over children ARE biased, bullies, or engage in other malicious behaviors. I think we've all had less than exemplary teachers. In fact, I think there's a post on BP about bad teachers. It's important to listen to any child who says that things aren't right in the classroom and do your best to determine if there's any truth to the claim. Kids do lie. Kids do cry wolf. They do make things up, but on the flip side, abuse--big and small--happens, too.
I have nothing but respect for what teachers do. It's important to take your kid's version seriously and back them up, but do it respectfully and be prepared to learn they're not being that truthful, but if they are it's important to show them you care and want to deal with it. Teaching is like any profession, unfortunately there are always some bad apples. My mum knew I was being bullied, my Dr knew I was being bullied, but they couldn't figure out who it was, and I wouldn't share. It was in my last couple of months of class that my mum realised it was the teacher, not one of the kids, doing the the bullying. She tried talking to the principle about it, they shut her down and said if I had a problem I should move schools (with 2 months to go before I moved into highschool). I didn't, but at least I knew mum had my back. That teacher ended up physically abusing a student a few years later and was finally let go. We learned she had a long history of that behaviour. Mum dealt with everyone involved respectfully, but fortunately she knew me well enough to know there was genuinely something wrong (and I never told her, she figured it out herself when something clicked at a parent/ teacher night. It was only then I admitted what I'd been going through). I was lucky that my mum was so amazing.
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I used to help organise a work experience programme for high school students who were going to apply to medical school. Places were limited, so we took students recommended by their school. They spent 10 days in hospital, in clinics, talking to patients, going to see procedures and operations (with patient consent), joining in ward rounds etc. I had one student who was the rudest, most patronising, entitled little s**t I've ever met-he was supposed to spend a morning workshadowing another healthcare professional (nurse, midwife, physio, speech therapist etc) to get some idea about teamworking and interprofessional patient management. He never bothered turning up because that would be a waste of his time. He was openly dismissive of staff who weren't doctors, just awful really. I had to do a report for their school on every student once I'd collated all the feedback, and his was not good. His mother phoned the hospital a few days later and demanded I was sacked for ruining his career.
And these are just some of the reasons why getting the parents involved with a kid's education is not always a good idea.
A lot of these are really sad and frustrating. I feel bad for the sincere educators, counselors, and childcare workers who have to deal with entitled parents and kids. But, I also want to say that sometimes (rarely) people in positions of power over children ARE biased, bullies, or engage in other malicious behaviors. I think we've all had less than exemplary teachers. In fact, I think there's a post on BP about bad teachers. It's important to listen to any child who says that things aren't right in the classroom and do your best to determine if there's any truth to the claim. Kids do lie. Kids do cry wolf. They do make things up, but on the flip side, abuse--big and small--happens, too.
I have nothing but respect for what teachers do. It's important to take your kid's version seriously and back them up, but do it respectfully and be prepared to learn they're not being that truthful, but if they are it's important to show them you care and want to deal with it. Teaching is like any profession, unfortunately there are always some bad apples. My mum knew I was being bullied, my Dr knew I was being bullied, but they couldn't figure out who it was, and I wouldn't share. It was in my last couple of months of class that my mum realised it was the teacher, not one of the kids, doing the the bullying. She tried talking to the principle about it, they shut her down and said if I had a problem I should move schools (with 2 months to go before I moved into highschool). I didn't, but at least I knew mum had my back. That teacher ended up physically abusing a student a few years later and was finally let go. We learned she had a long history of that behaviour. Mum dealt with everyone involved respectfully, but fortunately she knew me well enough to know there was genuinely something wrong (and I never told her, she figured it out herself when something clicked at a parent/ teacher night. It was only then I admitted what I'd been going through). I was lucky that my mum was so amazing.
Load More Replies... I used to help organise a work experience programme for high school students who were going to apply to medical school. Places were limited, so we took students recommended by their school. They spent 10 days in hospital, in clinics, talking to patients, going to see procedures and operations (with patient consent), joining in ward rounds etc. I had one student who was the rudest, most patronising, entitled little s**t I've ever met-he was supposed to spend a morning workshadowing another healthcare professional (nurse, midwife, physio, speech therapist etc) to get some idea about teamworking and interprofessional patient management. He never bothered turning up because that would be a waste of his time. He was openly dismissive of staff who weren't doctors, just awful really. I had to do a report for their school on every student once I'd collated all the feedback, and his was not good. His mother phoned the hospital a few days later and demanded I was sacked for ruining his career.
And these are just some of the reasons why getting the parents involved with a kid's education is not always a good idea.
