Some parents are far too involved in their kids lives

[Liesdamnlies40]

First post on here!
Someone I know at school told me today that they had been to see the teacher as they didn’t feel their child’s school report adequately represented their child’s ability so they complained. I was really shocked- I trust what the teacher has said to me as they are the ones teaching my child.
The said parent is very helicopter with their child- vets play dates carefully and only certain kids are allowed around their house etc

Aibu to think this is quite a big level of involvement. I am obvs interested in how my child is doing but I wouldn’t interfere with school reports etc.

Complaining being rude and obnoxious are one think.

Being engaged supportive of the school and listening to teachers as professionals is another.

Best results for children comes when parents teachers and kids know where they stand and what’s expected of them.

a. have you thought about the fact that teacher has produced 25-30 of those reports? Would with a maximum of 2 weeks to complete, as well as their usual workload?
b. have you considered your child may not act in exactly the same way they do at home?

A) yes I imagine they can see there are other children in the class, but their concern is with their own child. Report writing is part of a teacher's workload, but given they have a lot to write isn't is also possible that the report is worded in a way that gives cause for clarification/concern

B) true, kids often behave differently. Again if that's detrimental to their learning wouldn't you want to discuss the content of the report to get a better understanding and support the teacher?

Not all parents want to discuss the content of a report just to have a moan, or have details corrected to their opinion.

I think parents have to be involved tbh. Imagine if I hadn’t phoned to speak to his teacher when my son’s final report showed him failing maths in the last semester? Turns out he had 3 online tests to do and if he did them and scored well he would increase his grade to a high B. Teacher had not contacted me about it at all.

I didn’t realise he could change his grades with after the report had been issued, turns out he could. I find the schools don’t communicate very well at all. I’m glad I called otherwise he’d be looking at summer school.

OP - you only have the mother's word that the teacher changed the report.

A report at the end of yr 2 is utterly meaningless, tbh. It should give parents an update of how the teacher sees the child, and if the parent disagrees then that's that. It's not like a university will inspect the report and decide whether to offer a place on it, or not.

When we moved to the US, DD got an end of year report after Kindergarten saying that she didn't know the alphabet yet. I knew she'd learnt her letters when she was 3. But the big move, and the differences in the phonetic alphabet meant she'd lost confidence. I just shrugged and let it go. I knew the teacher was wrong, but so what? Not worth making a fuss about.

If the report affects what class your child will be in for GCSEs or has some lasting effect, then it's worth raising with the school, but otherwise it's just not worth it.

If Tracy was a little shit she wouldn't be coming to my house either. I don't think you can (at least easily) exercise too much control over a Year 2 child. And if I thought my child was 'remarkable' and the report said 'meeting expectations', then yes, I would question it after a period of time

I think you're going out of your way to be argumentative. I think it was very clear what the implication in my example was. Imagine there is nothing wrong with Tracy but her family aren't as well off as yours and you'd prefer your child to mix with a different sort. Then discouraging the friendship is being overly controlling. Imagine your child has shown no sign of being remarkable but you've forced them to do loads of workbooks after school so expected them to be top of the class and moan when they're not. Then you're a pain the arse. Your child has no interest in sport but you drag them to sports clubs every day of the week - that's too controlling.

The fact that you can exert too much control over your child's life at any age is too obvious to bother debating.

BottleOfJameson

Again, yes, I know you can exert too much influence. I said it is difficult to do so. The OP hasn't given the impression this child's friends are vetted on the basis of family income, etc., has she? Nor the child is being academically pushed to the ridiculous extent you describe. I know there are parents like that out there, but they are few and far between. In and of itself, being a bit picky about play dates and asking your child's teacher about their report because it didn't meet your expectations is fairly standard parenting.

I know there are parents like that out there, but they are few and far between

In your experience. I've met quite a few. Pushing their child to be friends with certain people over others (none of the kids had any behavioural issues, no bullying etc.). Also parents who are ridiculously over invested in the miniature of their child's education. One year we were told our DC's reading ages. Her DC had a perfectly good reading age (I think it was about a year older than her actual age) she was perfectly happy until she found out (after desperately trying to find out from us all) quite a few had a better reading age. She went down to the school complaining that her DC wasn't being stretched enough. In my school there is at least one parent like this in every year. It's worse when there are more than one (as in my eldest's year) as they compete against each other. There are always complaints on sports day because the event someone's child would be really good at isn't being offered.

I’m a teacher and if and when my children have recieved reports with information that concerns me then I go and ask the teacher some very specific information about what I can do, my child can do, and if appropriate what they are doing to solve the problem. Whats the point of a report if the child and parent don’t engage with it? I also don’t allow people I actively dislike in my house but I’ve always had that policy even before children 😉

YABU

It's none of your business.

If people want to enquire about a report, they are perfectly free to do so. Get over it.

I think people put too much emphasis on academic achievement these days. Especially if they're little.
I also know a number of parents who are over involved or their kids do a thousand after school activities. I've seen moghrts hush their children away from "naughty" school friends, hover over the classroom door to talk to the teachers about the homework and weekly spellings to the point of exhaustion! Let the teachers teach and let's kids be kids and make their own friends etc.

I think people put too much emphasis on academic achievement these days.

That comes from society as a whole, particular further education and employers. We're living in a competitive society. It's no longer good enough to get the hallowed grade Cs in English/Maths and a few other subjects at GCSE which was the gateway to numerous good jobs a few decades ago. My niece and nephew got a clutch of Bs and Cs but still didn't get the college courses they were aiming for despite meeting the minimum entry requirements - the courses were so oversubscribed, that they only accepted the "top" applicants according to GCSE results which meant that despite officially only requiring grade Cs, in reality, those who got on the courses had As and Bs. My nephew spent 3 years at college doing a different route, and despite getting enough "points" to do teacher training, again, he didn't get a place because there were plenty of applicants for the courses with more points than he had who were chosen, again, according to the best academic results of all the applicants. That's the modern world - kids today need to get the best academic results that they can, not just stumble across the line to get the minimum grades 4/5 required as per published prospectuses.

I had similar with dds p2 mid year report she was apparently only reading at ort level 2 after many arguments and involvement by the education board she was independently assessed (arranged by education board) as reading at ort level 10 huge difference teacher just couldn't be bothered giving her different books from the rest of the class other kids suffered too