Parents who complain about teachers

[Sunnyindisposition]

I've just got off the phone from a dear friend who is in a terrible state. She is not oversensitive, she is resilient and she is extremely competent and hardworking with many years of experience. She's just started a new job and it is ruining her mental health. She's had parents emailing in questioning her subject knowledge and saying she isn't marking enough. She has a really good degree and works 60 hours a week. She now hates her job, sleeps only a couple of hours a night and is on the verge of a breakdown. I simply would like to know if parents give any thought to the human costs of the demands they place and the way some of them treat teachers? I know their children are their priority but are there no limits to whom they will hurt in the quest to get their children ahead?

She will get hugs alright but from afar as she lives a long way away now. I'm actually worried about her. She doesn't have lots of money and is worried how she'll pay her rent if the job ends or she has to go sick. Meanwhile the ignorant people bullying her are stinking rich.

What are the parents doing that’s bullying? Are they acting as a group or individually? She needs to pinpoint where it crosses the line from asking about their children to bullying and show these messages to her manager.

Why are parents emailing her? Bloody cheek. She needs to put a stop to that, if they want to talk to her they can make an appointment in school time.

Parents shouldn't be allowed to email teachers whining on, daft idea, as your poor friend is finding out.

Some schools do allow you to email the teachers though. At my son's we have to email his form tutor and they will pass it on to the correct person - I assume this weeds out unnecessary crap for the subject teacher

I feel for her. Most people think teachers turn up at 9am and piss off at 3pm so basically are part timers they have no clue, they just pull these stupid statements out of their backsides and act like major know-it-alls.
I couldn't bear it so quit teaching. Loved the diversity of the job but the financial reward is not worth all the hard work that has to be put in, sadly.

Poor woman! Can she not speak to the head about these emails? Surely they shouldn't be sending them directly to her. I would have thought the official way of raising an issue would be a formal meeting with the school. And I doubt half the parents would bother if they had to raise this face to face. Teachers won't always get things right but they have an entire class to manage! And questioning her subject knowledge and abilities is just disgusting. I certainly wouldn't be going in guns blazing if there was an issue with my DS. She had a stressful enough job as it is.

They're not emailing her directly but her line manager which is worse. Now she's worried about colleagues gossiping about her not being up to it as she doesn't know who else is cc'd on the emails. And I'm sorry to say it but these people emailing in are women married to rich men who don't need to work for a living and have all the time in the world to abuse people working their socks off like this. She'll leave teaching at some point no question but she needs to have an exit route. Another great teacher lost to a destructive profession.

Her line manager should be doing her job and acting as a barrier between teacher and unreasonable parents. Why the hell is she telling her that parents are questioning her subject knowledge? FGS parents do this all the time to new teachers when kids scent blood in the water and go home for a moan, it's hardly unusual.

To answer your question, yes there are parents who consider the teachers’ workloads and treat them respectfully. But you’re not going to notice them, you’ll be focused on the complainers.

I told a parent that her ds was getting into trouble because his manner and tone was very rude. It was affecting his learning. The only thing I remember from her tirade of abuse was was'maybe I'm raising him to be rude!' She was shouting so loud that I felt like I was standing in front of a strong wind.
This is part of the job. Remind your friend that it's just someone's opinion, it's not the truth. She needs support from her line manager and union. Don't let this opinion in, let it run off like water on an umbrella. Teaching makes you hard and dead inside.

I had a parent (primary) who liked to email me late on a Friday night after a few glasses of wine. They'd list their perceived grievances from the previous week. Lovely start to the weekend. They did the same to their other child's teacher. At least it was less public than their previous tactic of berating us in front of the class on a Monday morning.

Does your friend see these emails, or only a version of them? I'd want to see the original.

As the line manager is the recipient, they should have seen your friend's marking and been able to confirm that it is up to standard. I'll bet my bottom dollar the complaints are generic guff, in which case it's the line manager's job to knock them back and tell them to be specific. People fucking hate it when you insist on this. Subject knowledge - what do they actually mean? Again, insist on the specific.

Not sure what the wealth of the parents has to do with anything. Is this a private school?

I often don't think some parents think you're human when they're complaining. Some are just bullies. Many are absolutely lovely.

Just to add, I think being able to email school staff individually is a terrible idea. No way to filter and gives them the ability to send huge rants at any time of the day. She needs to speak to her line manager about this.

It's hard not to shake off complaints such as these. There are lots and lots of lovely, supportive parents out there of course. But the amount of phone calls I've had where a parent shouts down the phone at me is unreal. I know it's because they (usually), like me, want what is best for their child and usually by the point of complaining they've become completely frustrated by something. I do find that parents can tend to believe their child's version of events without question.

Actually, it's so unlikely that all the parents are arses that she does need to look at the issues that are bothering them. Because it's not how long she is working, but how well she works during that time.

Also, as it's a new school ,she is perhaps not meeting the norms that parents are accustomed to.

Does she have a mentor, who will help her deal with the issues? When you're stressed it becomes all to easy to fail to see the wood for the trees. If she's in England, the school year is only a few weeks in and getting it sorted - with support - is better done straight away before it all snowballs.

I do agree that some people draft better than others, and that some people - whenever and whatever they are writing - can come across in ways they don't intend.

it's so unlikely that all the parents are arses

Not impossible. The parents will be going off what their kids say and it's hardly unusual for a class to take against a teacher, especially a new one and go home moaning about them. Frequency of marking this early in term? The school should have a marking policy and if it's not being stuck to then the line manager should police that, not parents.

She needs to remember that these parents are often a loud minority who are all too happy to complain about anything. What's worse us thr more people engage with these people the more they think they have some odd little power trip.

Her line manager should be fielding some of these and to be fair probably miss out some of the stupid elements when talking to her. Or, maybe just laugh it off 'sort of yes mrs so and so think blah blah blah but we know that's ridiculous'

If she continues to experience this then there needs to be someone senior who says 'that's it. No emailing to anyone other than the office/ senior leadership and we will decide what needs airtime'

A line manager or mentor might need it bringing to their attention.

And if all parents are complaining, it does usually mean something is wrong in the classroom. Because to have 30 people who are all so nasty is much rarer than having one teacher who is not performing well at that time.

Because though I am firmly supportive of teachers, especially when unreasonable demands are made of them, that does not mean that every teacher is competent. There is a bell curve of performance, and occasionally you will come across someone at the tail end. And good senior management (and again, most are competent, some good) will support and mentor staff through settling in periods and through bad patches - usually going to great lengths so to do.

If a new teacher just cannot settle in to a school, then perhaps they need to look for one with an ethos which does suit them. Because of course another possible reason here is incompetent leadership.

And OP's friend needs to work out what the underlying dynamic is here and what support will get her through it.

But expecting every parent to draft perfectly and tactfully will only happen when you get a unicorn with every keyboard (look at the misunderstandings on MN!)

Nowhere in the OP does it say all the parents are complaining. A vocal minority can often feel like everyone's against you (as any teacher can tell you!) but it's often a black dot in a white room.

It's a line manager's job to shield their team from shitty complaints, not to report them line-by-line to the target - that doesn't help anyone, especially when it damages the mental health and confidence of the teacher and leads to a downward spiral.

If there are problems, the line manager should be dealing with them.

Look, it is horrible when you get situations like this but, in the nicest possible way, she does need to be a bit more resilient.

Rich mummies with rich husbands and struggling teacher unable to pay the rent aside, it isn't actually worth leaving an entire career over!

Poor woman. I am not a teacher but in a profession which deals with people.
People's sense of entitlement is often huge.
If she does not get any support from her mangers she needs another job.
She needs to talk to a senior person and try to see how supportive they are - if they are not supportive find another job.

It's very 'normal' in many independent schools for teachers (even experienced, excellent ones) to be tested thoroughly in their first year.

At one school I had parents insisting their little darling was immediately taken out of my set and placed in the head of departments because I wasn't competent (at the time of complaint I hadn't actually met the child). Others requesting a move a couple of weeks in for spurious reasons which basically amounted to the parent didn't trust me.

My line manager told me about each complaint- with a snort of derision about how ridiculous it was. Then went back to the parent and said set movements are not done on parental request and he had every faith in my teaching thank you very much.

It upset me that the parents felt like that but it didn't have any practical effect on me.

Come the end of exam season those same parents were sending me thank you cards and then in subsequent years making jokes with me at parents evening.

People don't, on the whole, like change. They also have short memories.

If your friend isn't getting the support she needs from her line manager that is a problem that needs addressing.

Re resilient. I knew this would come up. When you have been working all these hours all the time sometimes your resilence is lowered. Also, who gets to decide what the acceptable level of resilience is? Why are teachers expected to put up with a punitive workload then endure insulting comments like this? I'm sorry there is a problem with some parents who don't think their child can ever be wrong and are prepared to make someone feel their livelihood is threatened. In the end these people are a big part of the awful miserable job teaching has become.