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.

This thread is brilliant!

So many and ongoing.
The worst was when a parent made a formal complaint about me for having 2 weeks off because she’d been fined for her child’s attendance the term prior after taking her on several termtime holidays. I was off because I’d had a miscarriage quite late on and a big haemorrhage and been hospitalised.

There aren’t - the second someone starts one they’re accused of teacher bashing and reminded what an awfully hard job they have.

School was closed due to it being heavy snow one year. I was in walking distance of the school, and so walked in to make sure that people had the message that school was closed. One dad came along and kicked off that school was closed. He only lived over the road, and couldn’t understand why the school wasn’t open despite me being the only staff member who could physically get into school. If he could walk the 50 meters to school, he expected staff to be able to drive in. It was all a bit lost on him despite the fact that he wasn’t going in to work himself, as he couldn’t drive there due to the snow.

I’m not one of ‘those’ parents and am certainly not one to make an unnecessary fuss. Throughout the years DD has had some absolutely amazing teachers worth their weight in gold. Equally, she has had some rubbish ones that a) can’t teach and b) seem to enjoy making DC’s lives a misery.

I would happily teach your child! I have been on eight residentials in my time, usually taking around 50-60 children each time. Every year, I get only one or two parents thanking me.

I imagine there’ll be far more of this with AI… I wasn’t shocked by your story btw as a teacher - saw it coming a mile off! 😂

Omg!!!!!

Parent took her child out of the school because I had the audacity to write a message to her in the home/school liaison book in green pen. (The children used green pens for editing their work and it was the first pen to hand.)

school photo letters went out. It said siblings could have photos done together, then they’d have separate ones too. 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.

Can't think of any off the top of my head. (17 years working as a TA) But I'm sure some will pop up!

Now I need a 😮😱 button on Mumsnet too!

Didn't happen to me, but a teacher I worked with was on playground duty at home time and a parent with a grudge punched her in the face, breaking her glasses and knocking her to the ground. In front of a playground of middle school children and families.

A dad at parents evening told me to hit his son more, to get him to work harder.

The mother of a sixth former who came to school in a camisole strappy top who I had to speak to as her form teacher, accused me of calling her daughter a skank. When what I'd actually said was that her top was too scanty to wear in school without a sweater or shirt over it.

The father of a boy who was mucking around in my lessons, resulting in a phone call home, beat his son up, leaving bruises after my phone call. To say I was mortified is putting it mildly (of course I reported it).

My late husband and I both worked at the same school for a while.

DH retired. The following session a mother came into my room for parents' evening. My husband had taught her son the year before.

Mother started ranting in a completely unhinged manner, complaining that my now retired husband had dared to suggest that her son simply wasn't working hard enough. (DH was right, IMO. I'm baffled as to why she didn't complain to him when she had the chance.)

Mother: "If he were here, I'd put him through that wall right now."

Cut to a few years later. The mother's close friend and lodger, according to the press, died in a "tragic accident" where she fell upon a knife which had been placed the wrong way up in their dishwasher.

Thank god I never went into teaching. I nearly did.

Hell really is other people.

Recently our kids went on their first ever trip in reception and the amount of outrage in the GC about parent volunteers not being allowed to be assigned to their DCs group was mental. To the point where one pulled out of the volunteering as well as their kid from the trip. There were also talks of parents going to the place independently just to walk behind them, to the point where an email was sent by the school ‘strongly discouraging’ this and if parents did wish to attend the location, to stay well away from the children. Madness.

🤣👏🦅

I have a few...

• the mum who during Y4 parents' night went into explicit detail about how her son (my pupil) had been conceived "over the living room sofa".
• the mum who was appalled by a blatantly "racist incident" against her son. He had gone home without his jacket and mum decided his classmates had hidden simply because he wasn't white (neither were half of the class incidentally). It was hanging on HIS peg in the cloakroom all along - he had simply forgotten to take it home.
• the mum who went directly to the Head Teacher ranting about - wait for it - the fact that my classroom chairs were slightly different colours (variations of a shade of brown). Apparently that is outrageous and all chairs should be EXACTLY the same colour.
• the mum who packed an entire box of jaffa cakes AND a box of celebrations for her 7 year olds morning break snack.
• the dad who called me "an old fuddy duddy" (at the grand old age of 25 - he was older than me!) because I told him it was inappropriate that his 7 year old son was playing 18+ PlayStation games and regurgitating the explicit language in class.

Back in the day one of my pupils,12 year old, had a mini radio in class. I confiscated it, put it in my drawer and said she could have it back at the end of the week. The next day my classroom door was flung open and her mother walked in. Her Alsatian dog was straining on a short leash. She demanded her daughter’s radio be handed to her. The pupils were stunned into silence. Not wanting to lose face, I stood up and slowly took the radio out from my drawer and handed it to her. I explained that on this occasion I would return the radio but if it was brought into class again it would be confiscated for longer. I think I bluffed it out ok!

We had a who changed her name by deed poll from (something along the lines of) Jane Brown to Lady Jane Brown.

She tried to insist that our depute call her Lady Brown. He smiled sweetly and called her Mrs Brown.

This is awful. I'm so sorry.

😲😲😲

I had parent who insisted that I be investigated for bullying her 16 yr old daughter. Every single pupil in my class was interviewed. They all told the investigating depute the same thing: Mrs Weary had told the girl to be quiet because she kept talking while the class was working.

I was cleared of any wrongdoing, but the mother wouldn't believe it: "My daughter never lies."

I asked the depute whether he would like to tell the mother that her daughter had informed the class that her mother was a "slut" because "she fell pregnant when she was 15" and that was why the mother had taken her to the doctor's to have a Norplant fitted..

Asking a child to leave the building during a fire alarm. I was out of order apparently. The mother wrote a complaint to the school saying I had 'disrupted the child's learning'.

My class realised once I was showing. But when the official "announcement" went out, a parent essentially had a go that they weren't informed "as soon as I knew", like I should've peed on the stick and shown them all the next day 😂