Teachers- how to cope with unreasonable parents?

[Teachersrus]

I have just returned to work after maternity leave and I oversee part of the pastoral care at my school. I love this side of my job as it means I get to help students on a more personal level. However, often I also have to deal with very unreasonable and demanding parents.
Last week I visited a student at home and was basically "told off" by the boy's father, who seems like a very angry and controlling person, for not accommodating his needs better. This family has taken up a huge amount of my time on returning to work and I have done my utmost to make school more accessible for him. Obviously, I'm even coming out of school to visit him at home.
On leaving the home, I cried all the way back to school, as the way I had been spoken to came as a shock. I need to do further home visits (long story) and I'm dreading it. On speaking to my partner and parents about what happened, along with work colleagues I've been told to "forget about it" and "ignore him" but it has upset me. I am also becoming increasingly frustrated by the demands expected of some parents if the children I work with. They really can be very unreasonable, such as expecting me to get cover for my own lessons to go out and visit their child at specific days and times- something I'm not willing to do.
I need to be more resilient if I am to continue doing this job- the pastoral bit is the part I love the most so it would be a shame to drop it for the sake of a few unreasonable parents.
What can I do? Other than "ignore him" and "forget about it." My confidence is lower at the moment having returned from maternity leave.

I need to be more resilient if I am to continue doing this job

You said it. Youth workers and social workers experience this and more on a daily basis, including being in very at risk situations and sometimes managing violent situations. If you don't feel confident you need more CPD training from your schools CPD budget to which you are entitled. You need to learn the skills to "youth work" the parents as well as the students sometimes.

It is unsustainable to carry stuff home with you emotionally. Your boundaries need to be firmer, for your sake and your students.

I’m not a Teacher but i help at IPSEA and we can get very demanding parents, obviously not to this scale but I get this jist. I think you need to realise that you’re there to HELP not CHANGE. You will not change the parents, but you are helping those children. They may not end up with a great array of grades but without you, they would probably not be attending at all. People are right in telling you you need to detach yourself. I think when you’re coming back from caring for someone little that you’d do anything for it’s hard to believe there are such careless and rude people. This is not for you to fix, you can only offer to help them with the resources you have. If they don’t accept the amount you can offer, they probably wouldn’t care much about anything you’re offering out of your remit. It is not worth stressing too much about and you sound like you’re doing an amazing job. We need more people like you and for you to stay in this role and help the children that want to be helped, you need to detach yourself and not take things so personally. Its not about you, it’s usually their mental health and lack of funding for these things meaning help is scarce (both for pastoral care and for their own adult mental health). These are problems way bigger than your role, ones that will impact your role, but not ones you can fix.

You've got to find ways to have some professional control back.

Ultimately the parents that are going to behave in confrontational or aggressive ways usually,

1. Have gone through life acting that way and think they can bully the world into doing what they want and are just unpleasant people. They exist in all walks of life and go around making ridiculous demands to teachers, doctors, companies, waiters etc.
2. Know they have played a part in whatever situation has occurred/ know their child is responsible, but think that defending their child at all costs gets them parenting points (this also includes parents who didn't like school themselves, dislike and think every argument they pick with school is like winning an imaginary battle from their teenage years).
3. Are frustrated and battling a system that's letting their child down and sometimes a well meaning member of staff ends up on the end of some misdirected frustration, but with these parents it's usually a one off.

If they are behaving in a way that feels unsafe then you are within your rights not to do a home visit unaccompanied.

In terms of your own CPD, it sounds like you might benefit from some CBT training, deescalation training or other similar skills to give you a range of techniques for your toolkit.