Entitled Parents

[FrustratedTeacher22]

Need a rant! Name changed. I’m a teacher and have been for nearly 15 years. The one part of my job that I hate and that is making me miserable is the parents! I feel there are more and more parents who quite frankly are entitled CFs! I’m so fed up of it. We literally cannot tell parents that their children have behaviour/attitude problems because so many of the parents are defensive and give every excuse under the sun to say it’s not their child or not their fault etc. All we want is for them to support us and support their children to achieve. Am I being unreasonable here? I spend hours of my time dealing with issues before and after school which normally have nothing to do with the kids but the parents. What makes it terrible for me personally is that I live locally to the school I teach in (I can’t move schools due to distance and family/childcare etc). Most people in my situation dislike seeing their class out and about but for me it’s the parents! Just been to the shops and I politely said hello to a parent and she looked me up and down in disgust and turned the other way. Last year I told her that her daughter had been hitting another pupil in the class. Instead of trying to work together to find a solution or a reason for this behaviour it was apparently untrue and that her daughter didn’t do anything. Sorry I’m just sick of this and it’s seriously making me consider leaving the profession.

Can the pen chewing kid take his own pens into school so he is not chewing communal pens?

This type of activity in autistic people is called stimming and to force them to stop causes real distress.

It's funny because I was thinking about this the other day in a different context. DD tells me that there's a little boy in her class who is always on the "Cloud" for behaviour. I know the mum a bit and like her but she's always been quite chaotic - at least in part because she was an unexpectedly single mum after her ex had an affair, has struggled financially etc etc. I just have to assume there's a correlation between this child's behaviour (and her other child who is in DS's year, whose behaviour has deteriorated over the last year) and the fact that the mum and dad are not in a great place to support school.

The expectation on schools is so much greater now as other services have been cut and peoples expectations are often unrealistic.

The best Head we ever had used to remind entitled parents, when they refused to help us deal with their badly behaved child, "other schools are available". Sometimes you look at how the parent speaks to you and have an "ah ha!" moment about where the child learns such awful behaviour.

This is so true. I work in student accommodation and 15 years ago we hardly had any parental involvement. Now I regularly have parents on the phone complaining about minor issues e.g. the lightbulb in their bedroom needs changing. These are things that the students should either be able to do themselves, or if not then come to us themselves to ask for assistance, rather than getting a parent to ring up for them.

I had a father a year or two ago whose son had signed up for a private rented house for his second year at Uni and who rang me up (in my capacity as property manager) to ask me what I was intending to do about monitoring what he was eating as if left to his own devices he would apparently just survive on pizza as he didn't know how to cook. Speechless didn't cover it...

YANBU

DH used to be a scout leader and had similar experiences with certain parents. If he pulled one of the kids up for their behaviour during a meeting, you could guarantee their parent would be on the phone complaining the following day.

He got sick of it in the end and quit.

Although, from a parent point of view, my younger daughter has Tourette’s and I was always having to deal with the same couple of teachers who would put her in detention for swearing, or isolation for flicking a pen or something. I was forever on the phone to or attending meetings involving these same 2 teachers . They must have thought I was just making excuses for shitty behaviour or something as they just never seemed to accept that 1) DD has a disability that has been diagnosed by professionals, 2) there was nothing either DD or I could do about her tics and 3) “just disciplining her” wasn’t going to make the tics go away. We had to make an official complaint about them in the end.

@Mumofsend

I think its often easy to only see things from one perspective but no one here can really tell you if they are being unreasonable or if perhaps there are other issues going on.

I will question anything that is very clearly my child's disability

Agree with this. You have no idea what the families are going through or if there are undiagnosed SEN. I think it's wrong to label all parents that might challenge one of your decisions as entitled, you can be wrong and make a bad call like in any other profession. That said, I know there are parents out there who are like how you describe so YANBU, but you are BU to assume that all kids with behaviour issues is the result of bad parenting.

SEN need is flagged up in every electronic register now at our school, next to a picture of the child. The vast majority of teachers can differentiate easily between behaviour caused by SEN and just plain awful behaviour.

class clown

🙄

I really do feel for teachers!

Just to let you know that not all parents think that their children are beyond reproach. My year 3'er is an angel in most ways at home but has a silly and immature attitude at school. I pity the teacher and am trying various tactics to help the situation. I'm not precious about it at all. I'd much rather be in the know and want to do what we can to support her with the discipline in the classroom.

(Most) Teachers are saints imo

@Naimee87

This is so interesting because i'm currently facing massive issues with my DS's(12) teacher. I feel i've done all i can to support the teacher but his involvement has become over-bearing. I'm curious to hear from a teachers perspective what level of contact is 'normal' for a teacher and parent to have. Mine got to the point where the teacher was texting on a daily basis and I was having to take his calls during working hours. I'm a single-parent and work full time. But on top of the calls/txts/emails i've had to attend meetings as well. It's never-ending. I tried my very best to meet him half-way but nothing i ever did seemed to be enough for him. To put it into context my son isn't easy, class-clown, hard to motivate and can be very cheeky/disrespectful. I have never ever contradicted the teacher either and i did discipline at home for what went on at school. But there is only so much i can do at home. I was being informed of every step my son was taking, like a minute-by-minute update. He was writing on weekends/evenings as well. I truly understand it must be extremely difficult to deal with children that have attitude problems and then top it off having to deal with parents who clearly aren't listening to what you're telling them. However am i wrong to think that the level of contact from this teacher is over the top?

Covering there arse as your child will come home with there version of events .

Well I’ve been on to school in the last week about the bad behaviour of other DC in my DC’s class. I don’t know if that’s something that supports your OP or not! It’s always the same boys, causing trouble and lots of disruption. The quiet, well behaved girls are then made to sit with them to calm them down! That was a tactic my own teachers used 35 years ago! I’d have hoped things would have changed 🙄. But I did complain as it’s not for my DC to maintain the behaviour of others in their class!

There's a couple of teachers living right near us, but I rarely let DS go and chat their ears off unless they instigate first as I figure they had their fill off dealing with kids during work hours.

I think that it's a pattern that these types of parents have the children who misbehave 🤷‍♀️

If our child's teacher told me she'd been giving attitude, or being disrespectful or mean I'd be mortified and asking how I could help change the behaviour.

@OnceuponaRainbow18

I also live 2 min from the school I work in! I’m very careful hen getting changed at the gym 🤣 I’ve found most parents support me more as I live in the community, but some do knock on my door on the weekend and moan about their kids and ask about homework!

Reminds me of a friend of mine who decided she would join a very expensive but not local sports club to avoid this issue. First time there a little voice piped up “ Hello Mrs T” as she walked out of the shower.....

I know someone else who met a child in their class at the top of a volcano. A nice child luckily so she didn’t have a Villanelle moment .

I don't call parents for negative behaviour as a secondary teacher. I deal with it in school. If it is something serious I pass on to pastoral. It simply isn't worth the time. More worth the time to build positive relationships regardless of how difficult a students behaviour can be. If that student and parent don't buy into you wanting the best for that child then I expect some will react in an unsupportive fashion. Doesn't make it right and at secondary it takes awhile to build the respect due to so many students we teach. After seven years in the same job a mother came to parents evening and shook my hand thanking me for teaching her three boys. But you see with that family, it was seven years in the making.

Unfortunately you are dealing with the fallout from bad parenting, not setting boundaries and an overblown sense of entitlement.

but you are BU to assume that all kids with behaviour issues is the result of bad parenting

Who said all ?

Teacher here. LOADS of children cannot cope with the standards of behaviour required at school because their parents have not been bothered enough to have any standards of behaviour at home. That is bad parenting. You can say ‘oh undiagnosed SEN, issues at home’ but you would be just as unreasonable to say ‘no behaviour issues are caused by bad parenting’. There are bad parents. There are lazy parents. They exist.

@PupInAPram

SEN need is flagged up in every electronic register now at our school, next to a picture of the child. The vast majority of teachers can differentiate easily between behaviour caused by SEN and just plain awful behaviour.

My experience supporting hundreds of parents is that teachers for the most part cannot.

Something to remember is that they have pushed a lot of the stuff we used to learn much later several years down. I think a lot of kids are barely hanging on. Education has become a really stressful environment.

Back in the day parents would back a teacher up because there wasn't this sense of 'failure' that accompanies everything in schools now that puts pressure onto everything.

TBH I think more people are CF's these days because there's just stress everywhere you look and people don't feel like they have support: everything's a battle.

That's nothing against you OP... I'm just ruminating on why I think people react the way they do.

I do sympathise OP. And you have to remain progressional at all times right?

Sorry professional*

They’re raising entitled darlings who who’ll grow up to become even more so. I bet they’re perfecting their fake tears too or other seemingly plausible deniability tactics.

I have nothing but praise for my child's teachers, each one has been brilliant in their own way for getting the best out of her.

If the children are poorly behaved, ime it follows through parents can be awful too.

I would never shout at or slag off a teacher. I have raised concerns before, but they turned out to be valid and were dealt with quickly. Since DC has been at secondary, I've been happy with the care, and dedication she's received.

I think too many parents get too involved when really, to teach kids resilience, we should butt out.

@naimee87 he is making his problem into your problem with the hope that you will find the calls and meetings as disruptive to your day as he finds your sons and that this will motivate you to get on top of your sons behaviour.