Does it matter if your child's teacher doesn't like you?

[Enideepmidwinter]

I have noticed over the last couple of years that dd1's teacher isn't particularly friendly to me - much less so than to other parents. I have also noticed that at parent's evening she doesn't listen to what I have to say and rarely meets my eye, just launches into a very rehearsed sounding speech, sometimes about dd1 and sometimes about her experiences as a teacher, which although fascinating, aren't really what I am interested in during my rare 15 minute slot.

She is never particularly reassuring even though I have had a few worries about dd1's progress at school.

She made me feel a total idiot this morning when I asked if it would be possible to take a cake in for dd1's birthday on the 20th (they are rehearsing the school play all day so she won't be home until 3.30 then has to go to the performance at 5pm). She said no basically and that it was over the top and unnecessary.

I did take dd1 out for an hour last week to go to dd2's nativity play. The teacher was very unhappy about it and pointed out on three seperate occasions that it would be marked down as an unauthorised absence (which I knew about). Last week a girl in dd1's class took three days off to go to Eurodisney - she brought toys in and was encouraged by the teacher to talk about her trip.

Anyway, do you think this will affect dd1's education at all and, the 64 million dollar question, AM I BEING PARANOID

Enid, could your dd take in a cake for her birthday the day before or after?

In my children's school in France, everyone took a cake or something for their birthdays. DD took little bags of homemade fudge.

I think the short/tall thing may be true. I know that most people dont make a difference about someone's height, but I also know that my (6 ft) mother has attracted venom.

IMO, your best option with this teacher is total honesty, eg if you know that another child went to Eurodisney, ask what the difference is, and whether she followed some protocol that you should know about. Total honesty is a good way to distinguish between meanness, or something done for a good reason.

I think Tigermoth's advice is spot-on, but I know I would not have been able to follow it myself when I was having problems with ds3's Year 1 teacher. Could there be any mileage in trying to get to know her, and get her to like you, better by engineering some ordinary (rather than parent and teacher) conversations with her? For instance, you could try introducing the badger issue, on which I know from another thread that you feel strongly. (I'd love to camp out for them myself, but there aren't any in Streatham!)

hallegarde, it was hard for me to try to engage with this particular teacher. I think she had formed an opinion of me without knowing me. Maybe I reminded her of someone else. I just felt to irritated by it that I wanted to show her things weren't quite as she thought. I have to say, it didn't change her views on my son's education, or mine. However, it did clarify things somehow, so I knew I wasn't being paranoid.

Tigermoth, the reason your technique would not have worked for me is that I suspect the teacher in question had a reasonably accurate impression of my parenting style and disapproved of it (she was an irritatingly serene touchy-feely type and I'm far from that); further exposure would not have helped the situation. It sounds from the correspondence as if Enid's situation is rather more like yours though.