Should teachers be allowed to speak to parents as they are spoken to?

[ProudCat]

Following on from a discussion on another thread. Can you imagine greeting the parent of a disruptive child and saying 'Oi, shithead, you smell like cheese.' Alternatively, in one of those conversations where a parent has complained because you've embarrassed little Johnny when they turned up to your lesson late with no book, no pen and no apparent interest in actually being there 'Well, the reason your darling is failing hard is because they literally don't give a crap and you've sent them that message, so if you want them to get anything out of school, and not be like you on universal credit living off chicken nuggets, maybe you should stop complaining about us and take a long hard look at your own parenting technique, that's if you can get off your back long enough to actually focus on anything that's not your latest deadbeat boyfriend.'

You see, this is what teachers actually know. We can wrap it up any way people want. We can believe (and many of us do) that all behaviour is an attempt to communicate. And as nice as it might be to offer the 80 billion excuses available at any given time, what the kids are communicating to us is that their parents are ridiculously ill-equipped to be actual parents. Oddly, I don't blame them for this. Huge spikes in poverty. Serious addiction issues. Overcrowded housing. Limited access to MH provision. People are drowning. But you know what? We (teachers) are not the enemy.

Why is it that parents and carers find it so hard to work with us? I'm from a really terrible background, don't own my own house, am even partial to a cut-price Spoons afternoon deal, so what gives? How did we get here? Why are we at each others throats? What would make a genuine difference?

I didn't say it was a competition. I was responding to your claim that I was making assumptions. So, quick question, someone from a council estate married to an ex-con, would you say I'm making assumptions?

I can see why students speak to you the way they do!

They don't. I'm ok. Haven't changed names for this. I'm fine. I can handle pretty much everything and my students are respectful.

Why do you sound so proud to be with an ex con?

Yes, you are definitely making assumptions.

Sorry, I haven't been personally insulting. You called me a bitch. I'm not drunk. Genuinely interested what happens when I press buttons. Do you generally call people bitches?

Oh. We know. But we are not the only ones who should be trying to break a cycle. But, we try.

@ProudCat I am a senior leader so pick up a lot of unhappy parent issues but have more recently found I am essentially a buffer between the staff and certain parents for the purpose of staff wellbeing. My biggest bug bear is parents demanding an immediate meeting in reception, turning up with no notice, then getting cross when they've had to wait 20 minutes before I can get to them and that I can only spare 10 minutes before I need to be back teaching a class or in a different (scheduled) meeting.

I also can't stand the long, aggressive emails. All that is needed is a polite email, asking us to look in to their concern and we will. Better yet, book a meeting if you are really unhappy and I am more than willing to listen for much longer than 10 minutes!

I'm leaving this.

Interesting. I wanted to know what the response would be. Basically, someone has called me a 'bitch' and someone else has said 'I know because I know even though I don't work in education.' Marvellous. This is really going to sort it.

The problem is that there's actually a real problem and people don't seem to want to acknowledge this. When frustration expresses itself it doesn't mean that it's drunk or out of control, it means that it's desperately worried because it actually cares. I rarely speak totally straight as that's not allowed and not 'professional' - we can't all be civil servants working for the Foreign Office.

We need to open a new dialogue that's honest, that acknowledges the pressures the current system is under, and that understands we need to broker a new relationship between parents and teachers. I'm worried for the children. They're in such massive difficulty at the moment. I'm not 100% sure that people realise where we're at.

Op you lost any claim to a legitimate argument when you said this about mothers “…get off your back long enough to actually focus on anything that's not your latest deadbeat boyfriend”

It's crudely put. Unfortunately, for a minority there is truth there.

For a minority.

There is a large number of people for whom the education system holds no value beyond doing their job (childcare) for them. Sadly, that is a truth.

Trying to get them re-engaged is just as big a need because their children will just lead on from their parent's attitude.

I do understand the point you are making even though you’ve went about it bullishly!
It must be incredibly frustrating to be a teacher these days. I mean, there have always been disruptive students who have a negative impact on the class. But I feel like possibly in the past parents used to work more collaboratively with teachers and if a pupil was given into trouble by a teacher the parent would support them. If I came home and told my parents I’d been given a telling off or a punishment exercise, I’d probably have been given another ticking off and a consequence from them. But these days there is too much of a ‘not my kid’ attitude and a parent is more likely to be up at the school outraged that the teacher dared to dispense discipline.
I’ll get flamed for this but I don’t think the increase in ND diagnoses has helped. Of course there are children with genuine difficulties through no one’s fault. But the behaviours produced by poor parenting and lack of boundaries can look very like some of the behaviours seen in children with ADHD. And I’m NOT saying that poor parenting causes ADHD at all, I’m saying that the ‘symptoms’ for want of a better word, can look similar. So everyone jumps to ADHD and this absolves some parents of taking any responsibility for their poor parenting. So
nothing changes and the poor kid has a label slapped on them.

Those that insulted you are probably the ones that don't parent their kids and set boundaries and teach them respect...

I often wonder whether children would behave the same in a classroom if they knew their parents were watching them via a video link. I'm confident that 95% wouldn't behave that way.

I phoned a parent last week when their 15 year old refused to sit in his allocated seat, demanded aggressively that I tell him what harm he was doing sitting where he wanted (I didnt respond), then called me a fucking bitch when I sent him to the isolation room after politely asking him to sit in his correct seat 3 times. His mum basically accused me of lying and apparently her son would never behave like that. 🙄

And they wonder why people are leaving teaching... so much of the job is having to deal with the results of poor parenting.

OP isn’t wrong though. Who says she needs to be nice?

Why do some people who have a university degree suddenly view themselves in the upper echelons of society and look down on others.

Some of my teachers were borderline incompetent and damn right abusive, no way would they be allowed to get away with the things they did and said in the 80/90s, today. With that being said there’s only so much respect I can teach my children to give authority figures without being doormats for adult, unreasonable, immature cruel bullies.

we see it all over media now, police, teachers, medics. We have been taught to not trust authority blindly because it could get ourselves or our loved ones harmed-some of us already know this from experience, we also learned how judgemental and sly some teachers can be and how they can project onto and punish a child because of their dislike of the parents.

Oh by the way your misogyny is showing, the post only seems to be targeted to female parents/care givers.

I teach and many parents are a pain. It is usually clear where a particular child’s attitude has come from. I don’t think stooping to their level is the answer. And I was a teacher single parent on tax credits for years. It’s a bit shit to hear your colleagues talk about benefit claimants in a negative way when you’re one of them.

Putting it delicately at DS' school it seems to be the parents who don't work, smell of cigarettes and or alcohol on the school run, with multiple children with appalling attendance, who seem to be the ones constantly moaning and having a pop at the teachers, for little Johnny being told off for punching another child in the playground again, so YANBU

Two things can be true at once. Just because you had a tough childhood and are married to a con, doesn’t make you any less judgemental with this thread. Times are tough, a lot of people are struggling financially and mentally. I’m not condoning abusive pupils or parents but so many ridiculous rules/regulations in schools now, are borderline in breach of human rights.

We don’t even trust or bow down to government anymore to why would we be treating teachers like they aren’t just flawed humans like the rest of us.

I'm not in the UK so might be off mark here... but the movement towards tech based only communication is an issue for many. I have 3 kids currently in 2 schools and one is registered to start in September in another, so I currently have 3 school apps. The schools harp on and on about inclusion on one hand but very quickly exclude those that struggle with technology. I don't struggle per se, but I don't like it. To register my child I had to attach scanned copies of docs that I only had paper copies of, so had to scan email download and attach. I had to fill out multiple Google forms which disappeared leaving me with no record. That's before digital signatures and the downloading and navigation of the app itself. If a paper form had been sent to me it would have been so much easier. I have a colleague whose dyslexia would make this extremely difficult. I have a friend who has sight issues and this is virtually impossible. Before my kid even starts at the school I feel like I've had to do a lot of jumping through hoops and I am an educated person. If I struggled with tech or literacy and had negative memories of schools making me feel stupid or inferior, I can imagine these procedures would make me feel like crap before the child even starts school.

Of course none of this excludes rudeness to a teacher but I think it explains why there can be a hostility there from the start because the teacher is the first human representative of the now faceless school. It's so ironic that schools with so much SEN support and inclusion policies can't see that these need to apply to the parent too.

I genuinely think most parents are unaware of how teachers are judged every moment of every fucking day. By everyone. Management, parents, children. You can see it in these comments.

I mean, parents are hostile towards teachers because of a complicated admissions process according to a pp. Surely parents have enough brain cells to realise that’s not within the remit of a teaching job?! Extraordinary.

I also think most parents are also unaware of the verbal and physical violence teachers (and other children) have to now take from a minority of children from nursery onwards. There aren’t any consequences, just ‘restorative conversations’ and endless Cpoms reports.

Teachers are genuinely leaving in droves. As a supply (primary) I have offers of long term posts coming out of my ears. You’ll all be home schooling soon, because there won’t be any teachers left.

My mum taught primary from the 1970s to the 2000s.

She said when she started, if little Jonny got told off, he'd try his best not to let his parents find out or he'd get another bollocking at home.

Towards the end, if little Jonny got told off, the parents would be in moaning on his behalf. "Why did Jonny get his name on the board? It wasn't him talking it was Freddy".

Yep some children fail because of the parents not the teachers

Our youngster’s head bans rude and aggressive parents from the school grounds because he has a responsibility to his teachers as well as his students. And expels. God it’s refreshing.

it’s an excellent school

Our son is thriving and prefers being there than home I think! The head has said “if I had 180 babydaisys my life would be easy”

I have only had to contact the school once in nearly 4 years about a slight misunderstanding.

It’s just a standard mixed comprehensive- but not a sniff of disruption in lessons, if it does happen pupils are removed, parents are not allowed to kick off, they get banned from all school events including sports day.

Support teachers, let them teach, you will get a consort of pupils engaged in education with ambition.

Yes teachers should be able to be more honest without resorting to vile language and behaviour. But blunt honestly directly given should be the normal. No parent should be shielded from the truth.

Reading your post, I'm reminded of the Francis Review in the NHS and the concept that if you are constantly spoken to disrespectfully, you lose your ability to have compassion.

The problem with your post is that the majority of people on mumsnet probably aren't sitting at home on universal credit and living on chicken nuggets (as you phrased it). We're the people who deal with the teachers who think that about us, while also having to remain polite and respectful to get the best for our children.

We do need an urgent solution to protect teachers. It's not remotely OK for you to be sworn at and schools need to be able to set their rules and stick to them, making reasonable adjustments for disability but not responding to every parent demand. However, partnership can only come from mutual respect.

I can’t speak for your school but the middle class parents are the ones with the power to, not the stereotypes you describe.
yeah Kelly off the estate might eff and Jeff about what she’s going do but she’s the one likely to be terrified of authority because she’s 99% more likely to get children’s services intervention than the nastiest passive aggressive MC mother.
and the MC is far more likely to get her kid moved to another class or on whatever special scheme is going.
because she’s knows how to get her own way.

why are we all pretending it’s the fag smoking flags that the OP describes who are the only problem?

I do my best to work with my kids teachers. The ridiculous 0 tolerance system in their schools make it difficult. The notion that working class kids needs a rod of iron our they will go feral has made secondary schools bloody awful for staff, pupils and kids.

I can’t wait for my last one to be finished.

but I thank the lord for good, dedicated teachers and they deserve as much respect as anyone doing their job well