aibu to want this teacher to apologise to my son.

[wfrances]

ds age 12 takes a packed lunch to school,during 2nd lesson he notices drink has leaked in his bag {all of it}his lunch is ruined,and now has no drink.
he tells his teacher who says "i dont care, its not my problem, sit down."
im fuming, he didnt eat all day,no drink and what a wicked way to respond to a child.
phoned head of year straight away ,who totally agreed with my reaction.
but i think she should apologise to him-what do you think?

wfrances don't waste time with all the various people in the system.

I would just go and speak directly to the Teacher concerned. :)

I am sorry you are sad for your son.

What the hell was the point of posting this on AIBU when you had already decided that you WNBU

It does make me wonder how the OP will react in future situations that she is 'heartbroken' by. What about if a cub leader snaps at your son on a camp? Or if someone is brusque with him on work experience? His boss at a Saturday job? He'll look just brilliant with his mum on their backs demanding apologies.

And if I was upset with how a teacher spoke to my ds, I would bloody well speak to the teacher 1st, not goi running to the HOY. I think it's a totally inappropriate way of dealing with the situation tbh.

Exactly-have you actually had a chat with the teacher to find out if this was what happened?

Agree JoySzasz

teacher had left the building by the time i phoned ,i asked for her in person,
and she is not in today?

I can't confirm the veracity of that statement, I'm afraid!

But perhaps it's a Sign From God that you should DROP IT!

i havnt demanded an apology?

No, but by writing a post called 'aibu to want this teacher to apologise to my son'-that is exactly what you did want to happen!

I don't for one second think the OP's son should be mollycoddled.
I also wonder IF he misunderstood what was said or the tone it was said in - easily done if he has a language barrier surely?

DS1 is 12 and has Aspergers. He has just gone back to school after a 5 day exclusion for running in the school corridor. The school told me they were going to give him a 2 day exclusion - my reply was "If the pupils are aware that this behaviour results in a 5 day exclusion then the rules must be the same for him as well"

I want him to understand that although he has difficulties he still has to comply to the rules as they are the same for everyone.

I have a 12-year-old son. He can be a bit random at times. He had a bit of a run-in with the Art teacher - ds didn't understand what they were meant to do and the teacher snapped badly at him.

If I had phoned the school, however, ds would have been mortified and I imagine he might well have packed his bags and joined the Foreign Legion such would have been his embarrassment.

Does OP's ds condone his mother phoning the school? I think it is an awful message to send your dcs that you will wade in and fight their battles (obviously unless it is something major).

Dead, bleeding or on fire - fine by me.

Speaking as the SAhM of a year seven boy (and I'm not a teacher, btw)

I would take the view that DS needs to get on with it. He would know what to do- water fountain, go to the bursary for a spare lunch card, scab off his mates....

OP you are really pushing this to the limit aren't you?

The poor, poor teacher. An abrupt comment to a disruptive moment in class. Parents like you make teachers completely unable to do their jobs.

I am also very puzzled who told you your ds would never live independently whe he hasn't been statemented.

Havent read the whole thread, but perhaps since your ds has special needs, rather than asking for an apology you could ask that it be explained to him exactly what he needs to do if this happens again, this might be more constructive?

The people who say "Surely he could have got some paper towels and sorted it out?" really need to sit in on a year 7 class some time. Basically at that age you have to have cast iron rules that cannot be contravened unless absolutely necessary. In the vast majority of classes if you let one person do something out of the ordinary, no matter how simple that thing is, it'll lead to someone else wanting to do something similar. So you let boy1 clean his bag and boy2 decides he needs to go and get paper towels to clean some muck off his shoes. You say no to boy2 and then you get the whole "It's not fair, you let him, blah blah blah" rubbish going on and the whole class goes to hell in handbasket. The poor well behaved ones sit there cringing while boy2's disruptive friends join in the "it's not fair" chorus.

I agree that children should be given respect and treated kindly but the fact of the matter is, school is an ultra-busy work situation with heavy time pressures. That's just the way it is and teachers have to manage that. It would be lovely to have time to chat to every kid and solve every problem but there just isn't. A manager who is trying meet a deadline might be short with her staff, not because she lacks respect or human kindness but because she's trying to get a job done. Teaching is no different. If parents genuinely want a quieter, less stressed environment then they need to pay more tax in order to have smaller classes and perhaps longer school years.

When I read threads like this I despair. Teachers can't win - they're expected to ensure everyone learns, everyone is well behaved, everyone gets a fair chance and yet at the same time they're expected to give everyone all the time they need, and be saints on top of it. It's just. not. possible. And then everyone bangs on about how their jobs are easy and they're being greedy for expecting fair pay. Sigh.

Yes the teacher was snippy with your son and shouldn't have spoken to him like that but your reaction is completely OTT.

A small amount of perspective on this would not go a miss; it really is NOT.A.BIG.DEAL

OP i can sympathise, many children with SN's have great difficulty being able to 'speak up' and if they do pluck up the courage it can often be at inappropriate times.

If my ds had plucked up the courage to speak and the teacher spoke to him like that, he would never speak up again. I assume the teacher is aware of his SN's and would expect her to be a bit more tolerant.

Parents who behaved like this, snitching to HOY, grumbling to other staff etc make a difficult job at times, almost impossible.

You phoned up to speak to her? Really, WTF do you think you are that you can phone up a member of staff and have a go?

If your son finds ordinary mainstream school too much to handle, you need to organise an alternative not make the teacher's lives even more difficult than they already are.

Nothing to do with the OP, but Giraffe I want you to teach my children.

BTW OP, she probably was there

There is a Fending Off System in every staff room

In an ideal world the teacher would have been less curt. But I agree that this is really no big deal. There is water to drink and any healthy child can manage without having lunch for one day.

He really needs to learn to be more independent and deal with things going wrong by himself.

Perhaps the teacher should have thought the same way Indigo, why make a child with sn's live more difficult than what it already is, being the educated adult?

I was a very shy child and at 12 wouldn't have asked for any help if this had happened to me. But I would have drunk water and managed without lunch. And my parents would have seen it as no big deal.

A 5 day exclusion for running in a corridor???

"There is a Fending Off System in every staff room"

I will bet the OP is already famous in the school as a MFH :)

I'm sorry, but I think some of the teachers here are overreacting every bit as much as the OP.

You don't know she was ringing the teacher to have a go. And a parent with concerns about the way a teacher is treating their 12 year old is perfectly entitled to call - you ask who the fuck she thinks she is? The parent, that's who. Who the fuck do you think you are, as a teacher, to think she has no role?

Yes, she is over reacting. So are you. You apparently have no idea the demands of a special needs child, how protective and assertive and proactive you have to be to get any help at all for them set up, how impatient and dismissive people are and how constantly a parent is told they are being precious when actually they are bang on the money. Sure, she has lost perspective. But there are kinder ways and more effective ones of conveying that message. Have you any clue just how relentless and sodding exhausting and draining it can be, when your kid needs this level of support? Were you always well balanced and reasonable when your kids were small and you were very enmeshed with them? Because to an extent an SN kid will always need a bit of that very closeness. You are being every bit as defensive professionally as she is with her kid, so lay off the judgement. Neither side here is listening to the other, and it's so needless. I told her that teachers have a bloody tough job and that her son might have disrupted a class at a busy time in a busy time of year and she momentarily lost patience. That teacher should have said, "don't worry, just sit down and we'll sort it at the end of the class." This kid is SN and she knew it. That simple, just as her being human and as entitled to off moments as the rest of us is.

The big deal over this is not solely from the OP.

OP - it's trivial, but the care of your child isn't. I hope SENCO are useful and you get a better system for him.