My son just started school and yesterday at a parent orientation night, his teacher came up to me and said 'You're [DS name]'s mum, right? We are running a parenting skills course this year that I'm facilitating and there are two spaces for parents in my class so I thought you should know about it' and handed me a leaflet with info on the class.
What do I make of this? DH has taken it as a sign that the teacher can't stand our son or thinks he has behavioral problems that are a result of our terrible parenting and is really offended. I felt offended too but am worried I'm overreacting. It seems so innocuous to just give a parent a leaflet on a parenting class but as far as I know I'm the only parent she gave this information to in our class and I can't think why, other than that she thinks I am struggling or doing a terrible job.
If she had come up to me and said DS has a specific issue in class that she thinks we could work on together or said something nice like 'You seem like a really motivated parent so here's some info on a parenting class' then I wouldn't feel so bad but as it happened it seemed so abrupt and negative.
I don't want to get off on the wrong foot with her early in the school year but equally I can't fathom why she would make negative assumptions about us as a family so early in the school year either. Ironically I actually facilitated a similar course for a parenting group I'm in a couple of years ago so I already know the material - clearly I am not implementing it well since she thinks I'm such a disaster... 