AIBU to think parents should stop emailing school about everything?

[Teachingiscrazy]

I know the government are attempting to try and stop the rudeness from parents which I totally agree with but also, I really think parents need to stop involving school in everything.
This week , my friend was chatting over dinner saying her year 8 son wanted to try art club but he was worried he would be the only boy and he was nervous about finding the room. At dinner my friend said she had emailed the teacher so the teacher could find him, have a chat and reassure. This is for a lunchtime art club!
Surely just talk it through with your child yourself and give him some coping skills ! That poor teacher now has another job, an email to reply to, a child's emotional resilience to manage , all for a club they are running in their lunchtime . I've had parents email me to ask me to talk to their child as they won't brush their teeth at night, could I go and meet their child at the end of the corridor as they find the corridor overwhelming (presumably I leave the other 25 kids in the room) I've had parental emails over the smallest of things that parents could do. GGRR rant over
Ps before we do MN bingo. No ND in these examples

I always find these posts depressing. Teachers are unhappy in their work and they blame parents for that. Parents are unable to find support for their children elsewhere so are turning to school for it because it's the only place they can.

Maybe the problem isn't the people doing the best they can, maybe it's the knock on effect of terrible mental health support and many parents having to juggle working all hours to barely put food on the table. Everyone is at their limit, that's mostly the problem.

The lunch hobby club is a good example.
Parent response only a few years ago would have been well if you go and try it you’ll find out. Or child would have directly asked the teacher running the club, they are 11 or older. No way would a parent have emailed school. It’s how children grow and develop. Little things that push outside comfort zone.

Interesting take. Teachers are too busy to be mental health support workers.

Then teachers need to take that up with their employer.

Schools have enormous wellbeing departments these days. When my DD was literally pulling her hair out my GP advised my to seek support from her school. They didn't do anything, I never got any help from anyone actually. But I was advised to get in touch with the school to see what support they could offer DD. Not doing what a GP advised would have been neglectful of me.

Completely agree. Mental Health services basically imply you are neglectful if you haven't managed to beat schools into providing support for your kid. Presumably this is because each agency is cash-strapped and stretched and wants to put responsibility on the other or, easier still, make parents feel that they're doing everything wrong one parent at a time like the OP has chosen to do here.

The problem is that this is not a child-centred approach is it. Even if you think parents are a homogenous, feckless bunch what we're talking about is the welfare of children. Most children have attentive and responsible parents (despite what these moany teacher threads suggest) but there are children who don't and it is very difficult to ascertain which is which because it's not necessarily tied to class or poverty. By saying 'that's the parents' job' you might be right but some parents don't do it. Are you going to wash your hands of their kids?

As a secondary point, if more than one person is asking you to clarify your poster and having to get their parents to do it the fault may lie with you being scary to approach and unclear in your poster. That is how I would see it in my daily work, i.e. ask myself 'how can I make this work better?'

Nope unfortunately not

Schools DO NOT have enormous wellbeing departments. What on earth is the GP doing thinking that it's a school problem to solve? That's a crap GP not a crap school.
Schools aren't trained in providing MH support beyond the initial basics, and neither should they be. We're there to educate, not deal with health issues.

Yeah I'm really not sure what school could have done to support the hair pulling either

Also , a lunchtime club does not need 'weighing up' by discussing it to the nth degree. Just rock up and see if you like it

I’m not a teacher but guiding and it’s a real noticeable difference since Covid. Some parents contacting us over things that wouldn’t have been involved in a few years ago. Polly must be in a group with Molly micromanaging type stuff.

People are busy, kids multiple activities and I think generally reading comprehension/attention span has deteriorated due to til tok etc.
All info is in email. We stick reminders on group chat and private facebook. I’m sure some parents see it as overkill but then I’m glad they can see the messages we get on group chat and hopefully realise what we are dealing with from some.
So eg I’ve put on we are now on Easter holiday back x date. Next week I’ll post a remember no guides this week. We will still probably get a message on saying isn’t guides on I’m outside hall with Polly and lights all off.

Exactly.

Similar kinds of experience. The only way we seem to be able to pass on anything to the school (GP advice, relevant to a day that had jabs scheduled when DC was taking medication that would raise risks, in the case I'm thinking of) was by email.
8 weeks later when a few things came through to reveal that the email was probably ignored, we did actually manage to get a F2F meeting. All ok, but the solution was 'Email the teachers for XX requests.'
Perhaps there's an expectation of a duty of care that goes beyond whether something's a safe-or-not situation, but it's not on to laugh at these efforts if it's an attempt at following the channels the school itself suggests that it requires.

What on earth is the GP doing thinking that it's a school problem to solve? That's a crap GP not a crap school.

Also, really? Have a think how this phrase could come over to parents.

There's a big implication of "You've consulted a crap GP here, so we don't owe you help. As you have passed on your crap GP's advice through the parental channel, we'll assume it's just something we can tune out."

Parents do not get a lot of choice over what standard of GP they can see for their children when they have health problems, but if there is health advice that needs to be considered for the child's environment to improve or worsen a condition, then the parent is acting on that advice. You have instantly said 'It's mental health, stress, not our circus.' The physical aspect of it is that the child is self harming by pulling out hair.

At worst, the school should be responsible enough to say "We would not help you in this." Not jump to 'Your GP's crap, we think it's bollocks.'

It is sad that children can't get mental health support in schools over there, I'm in a different country and when DD was missing a lot of school because she was stressed and stress was making her ill she got so much support from her school (but not from the teachers, beyond her form teacher messaging me to explain what the school can do to help and arranging her an appointment with the school health team, the rest was from the nurse, doctor, school counsellor and school psychiatrist, which schools have because its understood that children can't learn if they're not well)

Schools don’t have enormous well being departments. Their funding is stretched to the bone. They barely have enough to pay teachers.

Enormous wellbeing departments?! Where on earth have you got that idea from?
I've worked in schools for 15 years. There's barely enough money for pencils and glue sticks!

I think some parents seem to forget that teachers do have other students to teach too!

I do think parents seem to fuss over the smallest of things and pass on a lot of anxiety to their kids.

Ours secondary school has two deputy heads, one for the academic side and one for wellbeing. They allegedly have a philosophy that you don't get the best academic outcomes without confident and secure children. I think that makes sense. They have a room that children can be given passes to go to which is staffed by people specifically employed to support children with additional needs of all sorts. I haven't plucked this out of the air, they made a big deal of it during the open day.

The only adjustments I wanted was for her to be allowed to wear a wide hairband to cover a noticeable bald patch and make her hair harder to grab, not an inpatient stay or intensive therapy. She only pulled her hair in school, so school seemed like a sensible place to ask for help and the GP thought so too, I was worried about her. Obviously I shouldn't have bothered anyone.

But why not just get her the headband?

I’m sorry if you felt let down but I think your expectations don’t reflect the reality of schools.

Asking for support with the child's physical or mental health which affects how they learn or move around the school etc is generally fine, as long as the parents remember that there are limits to what schools can do (based on budget, space, time and the structure of the day etc). Also that there are cases where without a doctor diagnosing and recommending something specific, the school can reasonably disagree with the parents about what can be done. Even a doctor asking for something specific doesn't necessarily mean the school can accommodate it and everyone may need to compromise.

What is a genuine problem is when parents create more work for school staff when they could be supporting the child themselves but just don't want to, or have unrealistic expectations of how much attention their child should get. Lunchtime club the child is unsure about - tell them to go and check it out themselves and take some responsibility/ build resilience. As a primary school teacher, I got asked to give a child extra attention by checking in regularly and not expect him to concentrate on his work at all or because able to follow instructions because parents were going on holiday, he was staying with grandparents and might be upset. I said I would keep a general eye out for him becoming upset (in the way I do for all pupils) but he would still be expected to listen to instructions, do work and be independent. Not only do I have 29 other pupils, but the way schools can help to build resilience to life's ups and downs is by being a place of routine and boundaries where pupils know what to expect. Obviously I couldn't tell the boy's parents this, but I also had children in the class with much worse problems (parents going through divorce, terminal illness in the immediate family, safeguarding concerns) who would be getting targeted extra attention / check-ins. Parents going on holiday and the child going to Grandma's house is very low on my list of priorities.

Basically, parents should think about whether what they are asking of the school is genuinely realistic and reasonable, and if they should look to themselves to support the child in working through an issue / help them to find ways to deal with it independently before going to the school to sort it out.

Presumably the hair one was because of some ultra strict uniform policy and worried child would be told off for wearing it if not officially authorised. Maybe strict policies partly contribute to the rise in emails.
In past child sprains ankle and can’t get school shoe on mum would just say wear your trainers and send you in. No need to contact school.

Schools also like parents to be clear about what they want - it saves time and stress. So if you need them to make adjustments or an exception to school policy about uniform, headwear, timetable etc then an email saying "Jane has X issue which has caused Y to happen. We are working on finding ways to help her with this but in the meantime request that the school allow Z to happen for XX amount of time. If this is not feasible, I am happy to discuss alternatives. We would appreciate your understanding and would like to discuss further support should it become necessary" would be good. It is clear that the parent is doing something / thinking about it themselves, isn't expecting the school to take over, has explained exactly what the problem is and why adjustments are needed and doesn't just ask an open ended question about what support the school can offer. I would much rather discuss adjustments with a parent who has taken responsibility and has clearly thought about what is reasonable to expect from the school than one who seems to just expect me to come up with a plan alongside normal lesson planning and everything else I do.

Send her in with the headband and an email or note. Why didn't you do this?

Not wishing to snip and just base things on specific examples, though I am about to base things on specific examples, but I have noticed that any bridge between policies and practice is hanging down a very big gap.

Late teen student following a hip operation who had to use crutches for a long time in school - given behaviour points for putting bag down on the floor to be able to swap it from arm to arm because it was difficult to carry the bag and use crutches.

Student with a background of non-resolving ear problems from birth (raised with school), who returned after absence with meds but with 1 sided deafness (not unusual for them, raised at the time in an email) - could not hear or balance well while trying to go through tests, given behaviour points for poor performance.

Student asked to drink huge amounts of water per day because of very fast heart rate with no obvious cause. Done lots of med tests. Toilet pass useful? No.

These are not greatly demanding assistance supports and adjustments that could be decided.
Possibly not even time-consuming and probably not permanent.
Don't really affect anyone else and don't look to me to be taking teaching time or effort away from any other students. But sure, sucking it up and resilience is fine. I can't actually imagine a workplace or Occupational Health team (and often these are pretty small, too) being fine with stonewalling the above.

She was terrified of being asked to take it off and have a whole class looking at her as she unveiled a bald patch on the top of her head. She was already anxious. We did our best to hide it with imaginative hair styling instead. She got laughed at a bit for that, but she found that preferable to risking worse humiliation.

Also, I did ask for very specific things in my original email and a follow up, but I also asked "what can you do to support her?" If the answer was "nothing, get on the Camhs waiting list and we'll talk in two years" then I would at least have known where I stood.

I'm sorry you feel like the reality of schools is so bad as to not even reply to parents who are following GP advice by contacting them for pretty basic support.

We have individual teacher emails.
I once emailed (head of year) to complain about a teacher who didnt appear to do a lot of teaching. (In that they were absent from the room for large portions of lessons, and not available to ask for guidance etc)

However on several other occasions ive emailed individual teachers to thank them for facilitating events that my DC might have felt apprehensive about, but were really good for them. I always email teachers after residential school trips to thank them, because I cant imagine how stressful it is to take, and be responsible, for that many kids/teens - and sometimes giving up part of the school holidays and my DD has generally been in tears on every school trip she's been on

I send more positive emails than negative, because I think, in general, people are way more likely to comment or communicate about negative stuff. In my own job we get almost no positive feedback from clients but its really nice to get it instead of only hearing from someone when they have a complaint.

This isn't support though, it's a basic uniform adjustment and someone should have contacted you.
That's not the type of email I object to. Did you have the correct email address?