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.

Between this, MarySheep and the falcon!

Or it just tells us that women carry the load and are the ones to deal with all things school related.

I was on a train and listened to two youngish women talking about their children’s school. One of the women announced ‘They keep accusing him of being a bully. If they keep fucking do it I’m gonna kick their fucking heads in!’

i don’t think they could see the irony.

Lockdown was a treat.

"I'm not happy with the schools provision during lockdown. I'm a postman and I've been looking into people's living rooms and their kids seem to be doing more..."

Love this thread!

Always curious to any teachers: What is the percentage of crazy/useless/normal/helpful parents roughly? Is it always the same, is it based on the school demographics or is it unpredictable?

I also used to teach English to German kids but not as a qualified school teacher. I did one AG (a sort of extracurricular club thing) and the kids were atrociously behaved, probably because of the timing - it was the end of the school day but before they got released for their lunch (German schools run from sparrow's fart to lunchtime) so they were fed up of school and too hungry to focus properly. I absolutely hated it but I never met a single parent from that group of kids. The classes I taught at the language school itself were usually fine and the parents were fairly nice and appreciative. There was one boy who was a bit of a wind up and mostly would just refuse to do anything at all, but every so often, about once every half a dozen lessons I managed to engage him and his mum was genuinely grateful, which was lovely. (I am now the mum to the teacher's nightmare kid unfortunately, so I get it from her perspective!) The only crazy parents really were unfortunately also my bosses! They used to shove their own kids into whatever class was running for their age and because the kids grew up bilingual they could speak better English than the other kids in the classes and it created a really awkward dynamic.

Always curious to any teachers: What is the percentage of crazy/useless/normal/helpful parents roughly? Is it always the same, is it based on the school demographics or is it unpredictable?

I've worked in a lot of schools - primary, but mostly secondary (private, state, grammar, boys', girls', mixed).

The vast majority of parents are fine and many are lovely and very appreciative of teachers' efforts. As a secondary school classroom teacher, my interactions with parents are mostly at parents' evening. I've only had a couple of really tricky parents in 30 years of teaching. I think if you're pastoral staff, head of year or SLT it must be very different though, as you have to deal with the problematic ones, often the same ones regularlyfor years.

The worst I've seen was a pair of mums having a full-on physical fight in the playground! People often assume that private school parents (and students) are demanding and entitled, but that's very much not my experience. All the difficult ones I've encountered have been state comp ones.

‘I’m taking you to court, my daughter deserves her prom, we’ve spent a fortune, this is disgusting’ etc etc
This was summer 2020 😩. We had a few complaints

During lockdown my son-in-law ran his High School's remote learning, he worked about 50% more hours than his usual in school job. One mother rang him to complain that her child wouldn't do any school work, what was he going to do about it?

One 16 year old was constantly late for no good reason and he got a detention, letter home to parent the day before. She was on the phone to tell the Head of Year that there was a good reason for his lates, he didn't like getting up before 10 so the school was lucky he got in when he did!

I once had a parent complain that I looked too young to teach 🙃

and by complain, I mean properly raging at me!

Sadly this is true (but unbelievable all the same).
Secondary school, Year 11 Parents Evening:
The upshot of a meeting was that I should scribe for a student while they ignored the lesson and doodled on their arms in pen. Said student had no SEN, just chose not to engage or pay any attention whatsoever. When I pointed out that I had the rest of the class to consider, the parent still stuck by their views even when I explained that I had spoken to the student numerous times and told them that they needed to copy the example / attempt the practise questions etc and why.
I carried on teaching after that, but it did really make me question why on earth I was doing it at the time.

I’d take that! 😁

Two girls came into school during a treacherous training day and set fire to the toilets. The parents of one of the girls claimed that her daughter should not be excluded as it was the school’s fault it happened as the door was open.

We used to have a student who was frequently not turning up. His mum would ring up and swear blind he was in school as she had rung him and he told her was and he was working really hard. Every time we had to explain that if he was in he would be in a lesson and would not be able to be on the phone. Eventually they would get him in and he would get excluded within a few minutes. She used to shrug and sigh and say she couldn’t do anything about it. She was one of our school governors.

In fact some of the most batshit parents were the ones who were totally disengaged. Parents who were coming in for their child to be permanently excluded and they weren’t bothered. They acted like it was nothing to do with them and a huge inconvenience.
Wasn’t unusual for them to turn round and ask what we were going to do with them now - nothing!

Not a teacher, I’m a social worker, but I remember one woman who made a formal complaint about me because I was a wet behind the ears youngster of maybe 23 and how dare I think I could be of any help to her.

I was in fact 42 at the time (and looked it) so I was puzzled but took it.

Also more recently I was on a Teams call with a mum who told me she needed the loo but then proceeded to take her phone in to the loo with her and did not mute it nor did she switch off the camera.

You say that.... I was jokingly, I hope, told by a students mother to change the trousers I wear.

In context, her DD had a crush on me (Reported to DSLs when they had openly stroked my hand with a pen whilst I was reviewing her work.... A culmination of two months of gazing at me whilst explaining things to the class.)

When meeting with mother during parents evening, 'Oh you must stop wearing those tight trousers.... Can see why DD likes you.'

treacherous training day

Sounds like a lot of our training days!

This is why we need 🤣 back. Poor kid🙈

One parent asked me if I would dry her child after the swimming lesson 'to stop her catching a cold.' I told her that I absolutely would not be drying her child.

I've been a teacher for 22 years. I could write a book on parents' behaviours at school - but no-one would believe it!

Obviously the parents actually following the trip is mad (and the original post with the surreptitious parents trailing the class on a walk did make me laugh) but I have seen multiple posts on here suggesting that a parent do this for a child who is anxious or has additional needs (albeit usually not abroad!) so it's not that uncommon.

I have to admit I don't really see the huge issue with the airtags. Particularly with them being in the luggage so not as if they were expecting the kids to wear them every day to know their exact movements. Unlike the other examples they wouldn't have any negative impact on anyone. It could be that the parents did it as a safeguard for the luggage going missing or being stolen which isn't unreasonable when it's your Dc's first time abroad without parents. Year 5 is 9 or 10, still very young, so very feasible they could forget or mix up a bag somewhere between here and France!

My daughter went on a ski trip recently. Saved up and bought her own AirTag for her pocket in case she got lost. I’ll forgive her as it’s her first time travelling abroad without me.

Same trip I discovered how crazy her friends mum is. In our parents WhatsApp group she sent photos. Not from her daughter. But screenshots from the live cameras on the ski lift at the resort they were staying at. She’d been stalking them.

The airtags were in the rucksacks, so it was very much about wanting to know the children's exact movements!

I'm sorry this happened to you, and I can understand why it would make you more concerned for future trips, but these children have all been at the school for nearly six years without once being lost on a school trip. If you don't trust teachers not to lose your child on a trip, then don't send them on the trip.

All our luggage have AirTags (one of our cases would probably still be lost at LHR without them!)

I can see how it would be tempting to pop one in a child's rucksack, just in case.

I can see arguments for and against doing this, but I hardly think it is 'unhinged'.

I can't imagine the parents are actually using them to stalk their child. Unless I'm being very naive? My DC are a bit older but have presumably taken them on school trips with them because they're in the lining of all our bags and I can't imagine they'd be bothered to remove them. I don't actually know because it's never crossed my mind to check. They're there purely for emergencies!