My sons teacher was awful to my toddler and I’m still a bit confused and upset about it

[headlightshiningbright]

My ds (5, in reception) has not had a good week at school and got into quite a bit of trouble. His teacher wanted to speak to me about it which is fair enough. I am supportive of the school and I have hopefully made it clear to ds that there cannot be a repeat of this behaviour.

However, in the meeting, my nearly three year old kicked off a bit. There was a club going on next door which she wanted to join in and she ran to the door and started crying and saying she wanted to make what they were making. My DS’s teacher spoke really sharply to her, saying her name and very firmly ‘no’ - I can’t honestly say it was shouting but wasn’t far off. She then carried on telling her off.

To be honest the whole meeting felt very confrontational and while I sort of understand she wasn’t pleased with ds it felt like my parenting had been tried and felt lacking and that she needed to step in.

I don’t even know what the point to this post is! I guess I’m just wondering if others would feel a bit peculiar about it? Intentionally or otherwise it was incredibly undermining and felt horrible to be honest.

Some even have a tendency to speak to adults like this all the time too!😂I went on a group holiday with a retired teacher a few months ago - I guessed she used to be a teacher before she told me by the way she spoke to everyone.

I didn’t leave because of toddlers. One of the reasons I left was because of parents.

Your son sounds like a nightmare. Climbing over tables and jumping in mud over and over to splash in someone's face and you are worried about him? And you are wondering what to do with him? And then the teacher demonstrated what to do by responding to your dd - get angry/firm - and you didn't like it. Of course she was annoyed with you for asking who your son splattered with mud, it's missing the point entirely - your first thought was how to apologise for your son's behaviour rather than demonstrate to him clearly that his behaviour was not ok and that you are angry with him about it. You are teaching him that it is ok to splash mud as long as you apologise. It isn't. You need to get through to him that YOU will be very angry indeed if he behaves in such a mindless, oblivious way. It's not your kids behaviour that is the problem (all kids behave badly) it's your response to it which is way too passive and concerned and not nearly authoritative enough. And then you come on here 'concerned' about the teacher's behaviour. You are the problem here.

'Bad Behaviour'

Shes 2, she cried because she wasn't allowed to join in with an activity.

get a grip!

I don't think a firm "no" is an awful thing to say to a child.

OP I mean this kindly but maybe you are perseverating on this because you know you’re in the wrong? You say this thread isn’t about your son’s behaviour but surely there’s a cumulative effect happening here. Look at it from the teacher’s POV: she’s had your son disrupting the class all week by splashing mud on others and climbing furniture (which is actually very disruptive and actually not typical behaviour for children at school? At least the climbing on tables bit isn’t!). And now when she tries to speak to you about it, and your other child is trying to enter a space she’s not welcome and disrupting another class load of children. I can see her frustration.

To you, your kids are the priority and the main characters, but to everyone else when they are behaving like this they’re a pain in the arse. Parent them so they aren’t a pain in the arse, and you’ll probably have a lot fewer sleepless nights worrying about people ‘not being fond of them’!

Exactly this! What’s more of an issue is the batshit posters who are backing up the OP in saying that the teacher’s behaviour was inappropriate. Of course it wasn’t! I’m genuinely worried about the number of people with this view, there is already a mass exodus in the teaching profession. Shit parenting and a decline in behaviour is one of the main reasons. These posters will be the first to complain in the future that their little darlings have a succession of supply teachers (as they do already in many secondary schools) without accepting that they have contributed to the issue. It’s only a matter of time before this extends to primary schools. The message is clear, children need boundaries not to get their own way all the time because life isn’t like that. An almost 3 year old is perfectly capable of understanding the word no!

If I were that teacher I'd be already assuming (rightly or wrongly) that you weren't able to control your children and teach them how to behave.

To be honest the whole meeting felt very confrontational and while I sort of understand she wasn’t pleased with ds it felt like my parenting had been tried and felt lacking and that she needed to step in.

Yes, that's right. But it wasn't confrontational. She was stopping your toddler disrupting an adjoining group of children. Telling her to stop is not 'awful'. Maybe she thinks you never tell your son to stop - so he runs riot at school. Only you know what you teach him at home.

The teacher had experienced bad behaviour for a week from your son.
You were called in for a meeting and your toddler started being disruptive is it any wonder the teacher stepped in to stop her?

It's her domain- the classroom. She wants to protect that space so she can have a conversation with you and your toddler doesn't impinge on another group of children.

Maybe you were just slow off the mark to control your toddler but, on the back of your son's bad behaviour , the teacher was nipping it in the bud.

If you had a meeting with ANY professional in their office, would you expect them to sit back and watch a toddler do things they shouldn't be ? And wait for the parent to sort it?
Or would you expect them to take control?

The middle ground was the teacher should have offered some play equipment for your DD or YOU should have foreseen she'd be lively and taken a book or toys along for her. OR found someone to look after her for a few minutes- the meeting was probably no more than 10-15 minutes.

You 'sort of understand' she wasn't 'pleased' with your son's behaviour.

Why 'sort of'?

His behaviour was completely unacceptable.

Have you talked about this at home with him?

Have you said it makes you angry and disappointed to hear he behaved like that?

Have you said there will be consequences at home, by you, if you get more reports of this type of behaviour?

My god OP some of the responses on here are staggering. The teacher sounds weird IMO. I appreciate you haven’t wanted to go into much detail, but I’m not sure I even think your DS splashing in a puddle when he’d been told not to is worth such drama, let alone your poor little one just wanting to make a hedgehog at a last minute meeting you were dragged into with no time to prepare?! From the details you’ve given, I don’t think I agree the teacher should be causing so much second guessing and anxiety for you about either of your kids! It must be horrendous to be on the receiving end of some of these replies, but FWIW they’re making me laugh out loud because they are so ridiculous.

Your comprehension or reading is poor-
Read it all again and you will see he wasn't just jumping in a puddle.

I think the thing with the jumping in the mud was that he was told to stop and didn’t and it went into another child’s face, which I agree is unacceptable.

He did say he didn’t hear the TA and I am jury’s out on that; he does have moderate hearing loss so it is possible he genuinely didn’t hear, but he certainly should know better than to get mud on another child anyway.

He was also climbing on a table with some other boys and being poorly behaved at lunch time. Ds is not the most mature and if others are engaging in poor behaviour unfortunately he does too.

And I presume the inference is because of parents like me, based on a brief conversation at the end of a school day where my toddler pointed at a door and cried.

Thanks all. Some comments are upsetting. I do appreciate the measured ones though.

Wait, did she stand next to the door or did she ran to the door and started crying and saying she wanted to make what they were making.

She was standing next to the door; a child opened it and said something about hedgehogs and that set her off.

I have said this a few times. I have also repeatedly explained it was not a prearranged meeting and that I have not condoned or defended my DS’s behaviour. I think describing him as a nightmare is unfair though.

Omg a teacher experienced a whole WEEK of bad behaviour from a 5 year old 😱🤷‍♀️😹 send help!

which was just too much playing really, not punching kids, not rolling on the floor screaming non stop, not trying to poke someone’s eye intentionally, ie nothing really anti social.

if a teacher can’t cope with a behaviour from a typical 5 year old for just a week she might need to work with older age groups because she’s not suitable for this age.

expectations here are ridiculous.
No wonder lots of British people are psychologically damaged and are total pushovers in adult life. In many countries kids are still in kindergarten at 6 and start school at 7. Including Finland which everyone touts as the best school system

by the way teacher gave the OP no notice of the meeting. So it was on teacher to make her DD comfortable given than tge meeting was sprung up on OP at school pick up. Who would she find to look after her DD? Should she left her on her own in a school yard?

It’s interesting how black and white this thread has become. The teacher and the OP are just two flawed human beings doing their best, they are not all good or all bad!

The teacher does sound like she was unnecessarily sharp. But unfortunately aren’t when your kids go out in the world you have to accept that they are going to have some amazing teachers/adults in their lives, and some who are less amazing: teachers who don’t “get” them, whose teaching style doesn’t suit, who are maybe having a difficult time and not at their best. Same with friendships: hard stuff happens. Being able to tolerate that and model resilience is not always easy but it’s a really important thing to model for our kids. They need to see that we don’t get rattled and reactive, and that out wellbeing is not dependent on other people being exactly the way we want them to be.

Please ignore them OP.

this is curmudgeon Mumsnet at its finest.

No no, I read all that. I minimised for effect, because I still don’t know that it’s worth quite so much drama. Sure it’s a bit bolshy but I don’t think it requires second guessing your parenting skills. I’m aware OP hasn’t wanted to give too many details, so maybe there’s more to it. But I stand by my comment that the details she has given don’t make her DS bad and don’t make her a bad parent. My god, the splashing mud in the face is such a non issue. It’s vaguely annoying but it’s hardly horrendous. Working on listening skills is always important, but she’s obviously doing that. I just cannot get on board with the idea that even deliberately splashing mud in another kid’s face (which is not actually what happened) is a parenting-defining incident.

Teacher was in teacher mode. A bit of a shame she could not just explain why ‘no’ had to be said.
But as the parent you should have intervened straight away. Or joined in with the ‘no’ and explanation as to why not. And shown the teacher you can do so.

Op you were always going to get a hammering on this thread. Please don't take it too heart - it's very typical of the posters on here - they love giving someone a good kicking - especially when they are upset. My advice - hide the thread.

Who said it was a crime? Who said I get up teachers’ noses? My daughter’s teachers and I are good friends; they’re awesome. Also why ‘parents’? I’m a parent. My toddler has had meltdowns at parents eve. Of course it’s not ideal, it’s virtually impossible to have a good session when fielding a melting down toddler. But my daughter’s teachers let me parent the meltdown in that moment, not intervienne with a strict no themselves. Note that OP said the teacher gave her no time to intervene herself. If the OP was doing nothing and leaving it that’s different. It sounds to me more like the teacher was frustrated and acted on that immediately. It’s understandable but not the right thing to do in that moment.

The teacher was entitled to stop the child from joining the club.
A nearly 3 year-old can't just walk into another class activity. A firm no isn't inappropriate.

The meeting was already about the older child's poor behaviour. The teacher may have been frustrated after a difficult week. The OP may have been feeling defensive and guilty. Those emotions can make an interaction feel more adversarial on both sides. The teacher was likely frustrated and sharper than ideal.

@headlightshiningbright If you're the sort of person who tends to overthink things and take criticism very much to heart, it is worth working on that a bit and building your confidence in your own judgement.

You're looking for a huge amount of reassurance and validation on this thread over what is, in the grand scheme of things, a fairly ordinary school interaction.

The teacher may well have been a bit sharper than ideal but you've gone from that to worrying that she doesn't rate your parenting, doesn't like your children, and has formed some negative opinion of your whole family. That's quite a leap.

I'd be more concerned about modelling anxiety, people-pleasing and rumination to your children than I would be about a teacher speaking sharply to prevent her from disturbing an after school club, which parents presumably pay for.

Children are generally more affected by the emotional atmosphere at home than by a random awkward interaction with another adult.

This. No wonder the teacher had to intervene. One naughty child in her class, one due to start in a couple of years…
You sound like a ‘gentle parent’ and as a result your kids are badly behaved.

I don’t think making a thread on here is ‘so much drama’ but perhaps you disagree. Interestingly, I’ve opened an email today from a parent which is actually shockingly rude and an at least reassured I’ve never been like that either in person or by email.

Op, on a separate issue I have taught a child with significant hearing loss.

it does really impact their classroom experience. They have to concentrate much harder while they are in the classroom and they inevitably miss parts of what is said which can easily make them look like they are deliberately misobeying when in fact they didn’t hear.

it can also cause problems with relationships as they don’t hear the first kind redirection but do hear the final shsrp “no” and presume the ta/teacher has gone straight to that.

all local authorities are supposed to have a specialist teacher of the deaf who schools can ask for advice. You might find it helpful to ask for his/her involvement.