Parents- Would you be happy for a teacher with a personality disorder to teach your child?

[Cordelia91]

I am a teacher with Borderline Personality Disorder. My school know and are absolutely brilliant about it. They have done everything they can to support me so that I can thrive at work, and have encouraged me to talk about my condition openly with colleagues to promote awareness and understanding. My question to parents is, if you knew your child's teacher had BPD, would it be an issue for you? Would you be comfortable with them teaching your child?

I absolutely love my job- it gives me a huge sense of purpose and fulfilment, appraisals have always been very positive and I have great relationships with my students. I'm also heavily involved in mental health initiatives at my school. Despite colleagues knowing and being fine with it, I have been advised against telling the kids because of the stigma around BPD and the concern that parents might object if they knew their child had a teacher with BPD. I don't mind keeping it to myself, but I was curious about whether the school's fears were unfounded or not? I'm not the only teacher with BPD at my school and we were wondering what parent opinion may be on this?

Im a parent myself and personally would like it if my daughter had more diverse role models in terms of mental health. I appreciate that's because my perspective might be a little different though, as someone with a mental health condition.

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!

I don't think i'd want to know - it feels too personal. I don't know much about my children's teachers (can barely recognise them in the street!)

I have a very long standing friend with BPD who is very very capable in her professional life, outstanding even. The symptoms only ever affect her personal life and she's almost never off work even in a crisis. But I don't expect that's usual and I have heard that BPD has stigma still.

I wouldn't expect to be told about this so would only know or care that my dds were making progress and the teacher behaved in a professional manner

If you can do your job why would I even need to know?

If you want to tell me that's fine, I don't think I would care then either.

If it made you a bit unreliable in class, if your behaviour was a bit unsettling for the kids then maybe I would be a bit bothered but it doesn't sound like that's you at all.