Teachers - tell me about your unhinged parent experiences.

[NC28]

Purely for entertainment purposes , of course.

Inspired by the thread about the teacher who got an email from a kids mum because the staff didn’t buy her daughter flowers after the school show…what other unhinged, entitled or downright crazy things have parents moaned about at your school?

Parents are fucking lunatics at times, so I hope you all have WhatsApp groups with your colleagues to laugh at them in your spare time.

Parent at DD's junior school complained her DS was being bullied when DS had been at the school for two weeks. The dates she gave to the head teacher were when her DS was in infants, a school on the same site but with its own head teacher and governors. Junior HT investigated and found numerous bullying allegations against her DS when at infants. She also found instances of DS bullying at junior school. Mother was invited to meet the junior HT, several times, but didn't turn up. Instead, she went go the local press with the story 'X juniors is a bullying school. That's why it has an anti-bullying policy.' The story included a picture of her very overweight DS in the family home.

Unfortunately teachers are also ‘fucking lunatics’ at times. 👍

I worked on a residential once as a teaching assistant and the parents of one 10 year old booked the hotel nearest the youth hostel we were staying at in the Peaks, just to keep an eye apparently. It was mortifying for the poor kid. They’d trail behind us on walks and wave from a distance when they saw us out and about. They obviously knew the itinerary and they appeared wherever we went. Never made contact, just looked on. So weird. They travelled back in their car behind the coach and even stopped at the same services en route home.

I was an infant teacher for 40 years - none of the unhinged parent stuff was ever actually anything to do with education!
Amongst others the things that I remember most are…
Being held totally responsible for giving children nits - As if I had a tin of them in my cupboard somewhere maybe!
Insisting to the headteacher that I be sacked for telling daughter to put her coat on for playtime as it’s was drizzling.
Being told multiple times by parents that I had to buy new sweatshirt as I’d lost it.
Being told at the end of the term/year that I hadn’t given a proper decent present to their child - they obviously didn’t realise anything like that came out of my own pocket.
Being told I was selfish to have a baby and go on maternity leave, I should have planned it so that I’d give birth in the summer holidays.
And so on

I'm not a teacher but - one time during Covid my DC’s class was having a virtual meet up with a theme but it was cancelled the morning of. One mum in the WhatsApp group lost her mind ranting how horrible it was and that her daughter was all ready to go and so upset. She just kept going on and on about how terrible the teacher was. Within minutes it was announced that the teacher was really unwell and had been hospitalised. The mum said NOTHING and left the WhatsApp group forever 😅I understand being upset, but the woman left no room to hear an explanation before going off on one. Hopefully, she’s less impulsive now.

A long time ago before I gave up teaching.
Very expensive private girls school let’s just say I am working class. Which has nothing to do with the story.
The mums used to competitive park outside so by 3.30 it was like a gathering of luxury vehicles. One day there was a lone dad.
I used to do playground duty and he approached me for a word. His wife was too shy to ask but she wanted new boobs for her 40th… could he have the name of my surgeon for a surprise for her?
I did joke and say they were NHS and he was non-plussed.
I replied… a few packs of the pill and a few too many Mars bars, mate!
To be fair he was mortified.
A disgruntled mum had told all of her friends at the golf club that a rich older gentleman paid for my upkeep.
No idea why I was driving a Ford Escort with no arse end on it.
She also told her friends I had worn a Dior suit to parents evening.
Back in the day, Next online was Next Directory and they had a little upmarket range and it had a ‘D’ on the buttons.
Still at least the rumours had me leading some exotic life which was nothing to do with me!!!

Another- I haven’t worked as a teacher in the U.K. but I did work abroad. In Italy one summer it was about 29degrees and a lot of the kids were running about and getting hot. One lad had a cardigan over his t shirt so he asked me if he could take this off. I just shrugged and said, sure, thinking blimey, he must have been warm. At pick up his Dad was absolutely livid with me, yelling and causing a scene. I was only 23 and he was really intimidating. He phoned the grandad and he came to the school to have a go too. Most of it was too fast Italian for me to comprehend but my colleague said it was to do with getting hot then sweating but not having enough layers on and you get pneumonia. I checked to see if the kid had health issues I was unaware of but he didn’t. They were convinced he’d be on his death bed by the weekend as I’d let him get chilly.

That we’re all paedos and that he’ll take the whole school to court and tell everyone that we’re paedos and we’ll all go to jail !
For telling his daughter that she can’t have blue hair

At the end of a lockdown lesson with SEN kids one of the mums, who sat in on the whole lesson and made it very hard, declared that she had come up with a dance for us to do (at a school event when it was back on).
This was a bit random and not relevant to the lesson.
She then proceeded to perform the dance which took over 10 mins and we all just sat there with our mouths wide open!
Strange times.

I didn’t provide a left handed pencil.

Her child didn’t hold a snake in class. - she didn’t want to and I wasn’t going to make a 4yo hold a snake.

Their son had a hole in his jumper - they wanted me to buy him a new jumper.

Oh boy. Sorry, this got long. Cut and paste from the other thread:
I had a parent come to me at the beginning of the year, (y4) to say little Johnny has never had a decent part in any production and could I please bear it in mind. Very polite, fair enough. Come Christmas time he actually had a really good audition, so I gave him a good part - not the 'main' part but a line or two in almost every scene. He was happy, practice was going well. Cue mum sending a scathing email asking why, after our talk, he didn't have the main part. He deserves to shine etc.

I calmed her down but every week there was a different complaint. His costume looked stupid, practise was boring, the production was on at an inconvenient time, mum wanted to come in and 'supervise' practise because I wasn't doing it right... The boy was embarrassed of his mum's behaviour and just wanted to get on with it. On the day of production mum was staring at her phone the entire time!

Honourable mentions:

• The mum who went straight to the chair of governors because her child had lost his £50 trainers (they were found in an empty locker, put there by child and forgotten about.)
• Mum who justified her child shoving me against a door and bruising my back - he couldn't possibly be expected to wait with the rest of the class in a line. He had not had access to his water bottle for break time (he forgot it) and hadn't had water for a whole 15 minutes.
• Dad who bought the whole family to shout at me because I had encouraged child to have a go at a trickier times tables challenge.
• Mum who followed us to the Tate Modern without speaking to us and hovered like the Woman in Black the whole time. She hadn't been randomly selected to come because she was batshit.
• Dad who sent an email to headteacher because I had given his son a pink yoyo for a Christmas present.

I’m a teacher and had an unhinged teacher experience at my child’s school. An extremely angry woman who petrified her young class and parents, all very nice middle class social workers/teachers/police force. Knowing a bit more, I suspect she had a personality disorder and the stress of the role was too much.

I wish there was a 😲 reaction emoji!

I got a complaint in one school because I didn't have enough textbooks for one each, they were one between two (fairly standard). The TA's daughter thought because her mum worked at the school she should have a textbook of her own. Her equally deluded mum went to the HoD who nodded very seriously then pissed themselves about her in the staffroom.
Same TA's daughter was extremely average but convinced she was going to get into a top boarding school on a scholarship because her mum told her so. She told me several times that she didn't have to do homework because she would be leaving soon. Her mum complained that I followed the school behaviour policy about homework.
She didn't get into the boarding school.
There were many other things. The mum had a real axe to grind against me because I kept her daughter back at lunchtime for talking once.
I felt sorry for the girl; her mum was batshit and had given her a distorted perspective on the world. I often wonder how she got on in the adult world.

Oh if we're talking about unhinged teachers, my first teacher at primary never got the memo that corporal punishment was banned in 1989 (and frowned upon for a while before that) and was still, in 1991 when I started school, giving Chinese burns to those of us in reception who she didn't like. I got one for putting my work on the wrong part of her desk once.

Their child had been scratched by a holly bush…please dig it up.

Their child had been taken out to the playing field to fly a kite on a windy day…that’s too dangerous.

These are unbelievable 😬

This was all very understandable until your very last sentence. What the fuck??

I had a parent complain at year 7 settling in evening (where parents meet their child’s form tutor only) that their child’s form tutor was useless and never in school. I had only missed the Friday before half term because my relative had died unexpectedly, the child had missed at least one day a week. I actually explained why I had missed the day thinking it would get them off of my back because it is a reasonable reason to be off, they responded suggesting I dealt with that in my own personal time because it isn’t fair on the children. Later in the conversation she mentioned being off from work on long term sick as she was depressed because of a relative dying a couple of months ago.

A few of my personal favorites over the year:

The parent who spent their entire day curb crawling in their car up and down the road past the school playground shouting racial slurs at various children out of her car window through the school railings. But came in every morning to complain that their child was bullied and she "had seen this bullying with her own eyes" whilst curb crawling and shouting racial slurs at other children.

The parent that threatened the head teacher with a stiletto shoe because the head told them they couldn't sell stolen goods out of her car boot at the school gate. Parent was a notorious shoplifter and would try to flog her stolen wares to other parents at drop off and pick up.

The parent that complained to the head of governors because their child wasn't Mary in the nativity. Their child was a sheep (the child themselves did not want to be Mary and were happy to be a sheep as they had a fun song and dance to do as a group, whereas Mary didn't talk and just sat on the stage for most of the play). They then bought their child a (very over the top and probably expensive) Mary costume. When told that no, just because your child has a Mary costume does not mean we will be recasting Mary to their child, they decided to petition the chair of governors to overrule the decision. On the day of the play, said parent put their child in the Mary costume and insisted there were 2 Marys. Child did their sheep role, dressed as Mary.

The parent who complained to the L.A that we would not give her child unprescribed homeopathic medicine 2x a day for the child's undiagnosed "condition". No idea what this condition was, just that the child had a "condition" and required 4 doses of homeopathic medicine to be given a day to manage it and 2 of those doses were to be given during the school day.

Not a parent, but an unhinged teacher! She would try and physically make us stay after school for homework club, if we were leaving at home time she’d demand to know why we weren’t staying! She also would try and make every girl cut their nails, didn’t want us to have them too long! She was absolutely batshit

I had a parent in all outraged seriousness tell me that TAs who didn't have primary school aged children themselves should have to give up their jobs to mothers who did. She'd apparently been unable to get a TA role herself because she was absolutely bonkers and felt that it was unfair. And she wanted a TA role because of the school hours, not because she had any particular qualifications or affinity for children. Her own children were absolute overweight, grubby, sticky nightmares that looked unkempt most days.

Stoned and pissed parents.
Father assaulted me because his daughter had assaulted me and despite it all being caught on CCTV he thought I was lying.
Windscreen smashed because they got the wrong member of staff.
Followed home after a parents evening because they'd got the wrong member of staff.
I have no front teeth after an attack by a parent but because I was on supply my union and agency won't help with dental costs.
I can't teach because my teeth are gone but being punched in the face by a parent who thought I was her teacher( different city, older than me so I couldn't have taught her) that's the worst.
And the police didn't help before anyone asks. Mistaken identity is a valid reason to assault a teacher.

These threads make me realise that I’m really (I’m a parent). Super chill 😁
3 girls ranging from 8-16 and I’ve never , ever spoken to the school about anything.

i let the girls moan at home, give the other perspective and roll my eyes.

im astonished at some of these posts!

When my daughter was in reception there was a Halloween disco after school. We were told we could send in a costume for them to change into. After the disco another mum was absolutely furious because her son hadn't got changed into his costume. Turns out the teacher asked him if he had brought a costume with him and he said no. The mum was swearing and shouting at the teacher in front of all the 4 and 5 years olds being collected.