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.

I think often people who are aggressive to teachers are a safeguarding risk to their own child. I remember reading about Sebastian Kalinowski's step dad being aggressive to a teacher and the mother of Logan Mwangi described herself as "a teacher's worst nightmare." Unfortunately she was her son's worst nightmare too. 😟

I once saw a PE teacher being yelled at by a Tiger mother because he was making her kid play in his own year rugby team instead of with a younger team, where he would "shine".
Course he would, because he would be bigger and stronger than everyone else. 😳.

Not sure if this qualifies as a parent story - but it is certainly unhinged...

A parent got one of the highly competitive TA jobs at my DC's primary school. It's an 8-class school (single year intake, plus 1 bulge class). She had DC in 2 of the classes.

She has an affair with one of the Dads. Both leave their parters. Gets very messy between her 2 children and his 2 children, all of whom are at the school. It's decided she will not work in the 2 classes with his children and one child is moved to a different class (bulge year).

Has another affair with another Dad. This time Dad stays with wife, but now there's a 3rd class she can't work in.

This has all happened with the 2 academic years since she joined the school. Meanwhile the school is sending out vaguely worded letters asking parents not to speculate on HR matters which, naturally, just fuels speculation and makes things worse.

She is moved to another class, which happens to be taught by her close friend (two of their DC are also best friends). She is now single so teacher/close friend invites her and her DC to join her, her DH and their DC on holiday. You can probably guess what happens next: she has an affair with the teacher's DH. My DC had left the school by this stage, but the teacher was signed off with stress and they eventually sold the family home in the village and moved away (I think her and her DH eventually got back together).

4 years on from this, and the TA is still at the school.

All I can say is, she must be one hell of a good TA to make up for all the HR issues she's caused!

Yes, some people try to cover their tracks by constantly attacking others.
Complaints are often made about safeguarding social workers as well as teachers who raise concerns.

Not a teacher but a now former friend of mine used to run to challenge the school about every punishment her kids got. She would email during the day and or call then create a fuss if they didn’t call her back by end of day.

I tried to explain to her many teachers are effectively working from 7am to 7pm and much of that time they’re busy with children and not sat at a quiet desk where they can easily reply to parent emails! I work closely with schools and I’ve had emails back from teachers very late into the evening and everyone (except her) knows they often mark or lesson plan until late.

She was genuinely surprised the first time I told her that as she had thought “teachers didn’t do much” 🤦🏽‍♀️ she only works 16 hours a week herself so teachers are working a lot more than her.

What I found bonkers was she’d claim because her children (aged 9-15) said something was so, that’s the way it was and she “could tell when they were lying”. Absolute delusional comment because I knew her as a kid and we all pulled the wool over our parents eyes, so I don’t know why she is acting like it doesn’t happen. Honestly some things her kids said just didn’t make sense and clearly weren’t true.

If I had to pick one specific event it would be her saying the class teacher provoked her primary school child when she slapped the teacher. And there’s no SEN btw.

Is the Headteacher male? If so, maybe he doesn't want to sack her as she's sleeping with him. 😉

That's awful. So she was xenophobic.

I’m curious - how did she raise the issue? “I don’t like my kid working with foreign kids” ?

Or is him being from Poland irrelevant and they just didn’t like him?

"On the day of the photos a large family turned up so they could have a family pic. This consisted of mum, dad, grandma, baby, toddler and their dog. They were fuming when told they couldn’t have a family picture done."

Was the dog not wearing the correct school uniform or something?

A friend’s dd (primary age) was told to take her cardigan off - it was ridiculous to be wearing a cardigan in such weather.
This was in Oman in winter - temps typically 21 ish. Teacher was newly arrived from midwinter Scotland!

Glad to say friend pointed out very firmly that dd had been born there, so to her it was cool weather - so teacher would in future please refrain from telling dd what to wear!

I had a parent who complained if I taught her child, complained when I didn't teach their child, complained that I wouldn't accept their friends request of FB, she had 3 children and complained about me all the time, that i didnt wave in the playground, i didnt smile when i opened the door, you name it she complained even when i didnt teach her children! None of these complaints were upheld.when I did retire and I saw her in the supermarket, I did ignore her and I did do it deliberately as I was fed up of dealing with her, I had a call from the school secretary the next day as the parent had made a complaint about me ignoring them in the supermarket, secretary explained i had left 5 years ago, she wasn't happy and wanted to complain to head about me not speaking to her!

To be fair, I'm surprised by this rule? Our infant school does the opposite - parent volunteers are always assigned to their child's group. I would have thought it would be distracting for Reception children to have mum/dad in their sight but only looking after other children - seems less disruptive to keep parents and kids together? I mean the kids still get a bit possessive of their parent, but that's 4 year olds for you.

That said, I would just go with the school's instructions, and not stalk the group at distance! I'm sure the school knows best what works (even if different schools do it differently).

Your friend sounds very bossy over something as insignificant as a teacher telling a child to take off a cardigan. She definitely fits in with the topic of the thread.

@IButtleSir

Having worked as admin in a school I have nothing but admiration for the teachers who take on the immense responsibility of residential trips and I make a point of thanking them.

That being said, I was once vocally very grateful to a teacher who had shown great care and attention to DD on a sports tour. That teacher was found guilty of 'upskirting' students under his care a few years later. I will never know if his care and attention was well intentioned or not.

With that experience of staff fallibility/lack of integrity under my belt I would probably now be the parent who tucked a tracker inside DD's backpack - just in case they ever went astray or got overlooked or their version of events differed from their teachers. .

I’ve probably been the unhinged parent recently. 🙈
My eldest is having to move middle school - secondary school halfway through her time there due to a decision to close the high school she would have normally gone to and not replace it with anything.
So basically they have 500 kids in Y6, those kids all have places in middle school for Y7/Y8 but then come Y9 the remaining high school has only 400 places. The other 100 kids there is no plan beyond shoving them wherever we can find available space in any of the secondary schools in the area.
Parent groups have raised it repeatedly as an issue with the local school trust, the council, the MP even the relevant Ombudsman but are getting nowhere. In the end as we are vanishingly unlikely for our child to get one of the 400 high school places due to how far away we live we’ve gone with moving. Clearly that’s very disruptive for the kids moving (around 20 from her year group of 150). Anyway knowing all this background and that lots of kids are having unexpected moves the school trust has arranged the move up days to coincide with the week Y6 at my kids school is on a residential. I only found out via another child telling mine as no formal communication came out to us (still hasn’t with the move up a couple of weeks away). I called to confirm if what other parents shared was correct, if we’d missed a letter or email and to ask if any option to visit on other dates and I did not react well to being told there will always be kids who miss these things due to holidays etc.
I did say I appreciated it was not the person I was talking to at fault but had a bit of a rant that the general lack of concern about the massive disruption and stress being caused for those 100 or so kids was appalling. I felt bad afterwards as she was not the person to blame for the situation but it’s been stressful trying to find a resolution to the longer term problems (in a parents group working to raise issues with the council/school etc) and I do worry about how much change that year have dealt with (R normal, Y1/2 impacted by COVID, Y3/4 get back to normal, Y5 new school and now Y7 another move). Anyway I can see how sometimes parents come across as unhinged as I think I probably did. I would normally be assuming it will be fine and not make a fuss but for some reason I’m feeling super anxious about this change.

I think the groups were pretty well split so they weren’t within each others view. I kind of get it - the volunteers are there to keep children safe and not be distracted by their kids / making it a day out together.

I worked peripatetic on a two weekly rota - so 10 schools a fortnight. Obviously the planning for which school on which days could be complex as I co-ordinated with other staff.

One Dad went down the formal complaint route when I wouldn't switch her DD's Monday morning to either Tuesday afternoon (preferable as she didn't think the Tuesday lesson was worth anything) or Friday "to give her something to look forward to. Genuinely thought every school (and therefore child) should be facilitating her DD.

Another parent screamed at me in Asda that I was showing favouritism because I went into one school twice a week and his child's school only once. The other school was a large joint campus school with two primary schools that I visited. She was beyond furious and would not understand that the two schools sharing a campus did not make them one school.

The most batty parent was actually a teacher. They approached a colleague and I having a pub lunch on a Saturday afternoon and demanded that we offer support and a character witness for his DD as she was being "very harshly treated". The DD had violently assaulted a teacher and was being dealt with by the police. The DD in question had previously assaulted both me and the colleague I was with. The parent was adamant that being assaulted was just part of teaching.

Agreed. So many of these are absolutely mad.

The remaining reactions just aren't sufficient!

Mum came to complain to me that another child had called her daughter a bitch. Mum came in wearing a T shirt that said ‘Bitch’ on it

IMO it was the teacher, newly arrived from bloody freezing cold Scotland, who was bossy in demanding that a child who felt cold should take her cardi off!

Oh so many across 21 years of teaching before being medically retired but my favourites would be:

• Mum coming to school screaming that her Yr 8 daughter had taken her eyeliner & she wanted it back.
• Parent complained that I hadn't rushed after their Yr 11 child who had bolted after being removed from a lesson due to violent behaviour. I'm in an electric wheelchair 😄, speedy but not that speedy.
• parent wanting me to teach their NT child to tie their laces. They were 14.
• complaint against me as I hadn't considered their child's well-being when I 'purposely chose' to take maternity leave from the Feb- June. I cane back when my daughter was 4 months old.
• same parent as above complained the previous year as I was off for 2 weeks & this was unacceptable. I was off recovering from a late-stage miscarriage.

Despite these gems, most parents were absolutely brilliant! I worked for 15 years in the same school, ending up as Assistant Head & taught entire families. The school was considered 'challenging' & there were incredibly high levels of deprivation but the warmth from the majority of parents was amazing. Still miss it after 5 years of retirement but this thread has reminded me of some of the bonkers stuff we accepted.
Honorable mention to the family that on the last day of every term would send into the staffroom still-warm vegetable samosas...homemade & utterly delicious, we'd get genuinely excited & the Mum used to laugh about how much we loved her cooking 😆

To be fair, I'm surprised by this rule? Our infant school does the opposite - parent volunteers are always assigned to their child's group. I would have thought it would be distracting for Reception children to have mum/dad in their sight but only looking after other children - seems less disruptive to keep parents and kids together? I mean the kids still get a bit possessive of their parent, but that's 4 year olds for you.

That said, I would just go with the school's instructions, and not stalk the group at distance! I'm sure the school knows best what works (even if different schools do it differently).

It's actually far more disruptive to keep parent and children together.

It upsets the children whose parents aren't there.
It means you have to group the children differently if several in a friendship have their parent and you need to split them up.
Children behave differently in their parent's charge (usually worse!) so that causes disruption.
It can also cause issues because rules are different and it's hard for children (and parents sometimes) to deal with the fact that normally they are allowed to do x or y with their parent, but they're not this time.

At one school I worked in they ended up with a nightmare because the museum staff reported one of the parents smacking a child. It was their child, but still a child being smacked on a school trip is a nightmare.

At the playscheme I ran we banned parents from the group with their own child after one parent bought their child an ice cream buy nobody else in the group and then told the kids it wasn't her fault their parent hadn't bothered volunteering 🤦🏻‍♀️

When did this start in your memory?

I work for a large, prestigious multinational and graduate entry is competitive.

Increasingly over the last 10+ years recruitment and training have had parents bringing their DC to interview, waiting for them and occasionally expecting to join them. Parents staying at the same or a nearby hotel when DC are attending assessment centres (typically 2-3 days residential) and wanting to speak to the staff running the assessments.

If they are successful the initial graduate entry bootcamp is a several weeks long, residential in one of our global training centres. Training have to field endless calls from parents whose DC don’t like their rooms, have to start too early, don’t like the food, don’t like the hot weather etc.

All of this was pretty much unknown to recruitment/training about 15 years ago and such a story would have been news, now they have procedures in place to deal with the expected problems. Previous generations of young joiners were not being infantilised by their parents in this way.

Ha this one in particular makes me feel very sane.

This is horrific, I’m so sorry this happened to you.

Women are often the primary caregiver so it’s bound to be mostly about women. You must have missed the post about Italian fathers going batshit crazy or a man punching a teacher and knocking her front teeth out. Yes, the violent posts