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.

Honestly, its like they have never been around early years age children before. I think a lot of people on this site in general just use it as an outlet for anger sometimes.

This is what I was getting at in my original post; parents of toddlers are so accustomed to the crying they can momentarily disregard it and continue with the task at hand. People without young children typically cannot, and I think that is what caused the friction here. It does not make her parenting skills any lesser because of it.

Its good to know there are still decent teachers in the world, as if anyone addressed my children like this without giving me the opportunity to sort it first, I would have to call them out on it. The teacher definitely overstepped the mark here, imo.

If the meeting was really important to you, the school and your 5 year old, why did you take a tired, grumpy 3 year old? I think I would've been irked too, had I been the teacher and perhaps it would've been better to have had the meeting another day. I probably would've just stopped the meeting though rather than been sharp.
Water under the bridge now tho isn't it?

The meeting wasn't scheduled in advance - teacher asked to speak to OP on the spot

Autumn38 · Today 20:57
Your daughter sounds like she was being a very normal 2 year old. The teacher sounds like she overstepped.

Oh. One of THOSE mothers. You try conducting a meeting with a kid screaming. Leave the kid with grandma. Try to be professional about it. Would you take a toddler to the lawyer??

I guess not everyone has the luxury of having a ‘village’ around them.

OP, I wouldn’t read too much into it.

She could've said no, another day.

Haha I wish; I’m probably the one raising the average age of the parents by at least five years! I’m white British as is the teacher (as far as I know anyway.)

To be honest the whole thing is a mystery. I don’t for a second condone DS’s poor behaviour and I am 100% supportive of the school, but the meeting was quite adversarial which I assumed was to make a point to ds but maybe not. For example, he’d been stamping in mud and sent some into another child’s face. I said to ds ‘right, who was it?’ and the teacher said in a sort of affronted tone ‘it doesn’t MATTER who it was!’ - it was just so I could ensure he apologised to the child (and so I could apologise to the parent!)

So rightly or wrongly I did feel very judged.

Can you read? She was collecting her child at the end of the school day and was called in with no notice. Hence the presence of the younger child.

The meeting wasn't scheduled in advance. The child had just started to scream.

Obviously, most people would give the parent space to distract/ console rather than start loudly chastising a two-year-old who doesn't know them.

I think if a teacher asks to speak to you at the end of the day about your child’s behaviour this is something you’d only do if you really had to urgently leave eg for the dentist or similar, that’s how I feel anyway.

I’m with you op. I don’t care how badly my kids are behaving, if I’m there, no one else needs to be stepping in.
My middle boy had a lot of tantrums. He is 15 now and adhd. Yelling or being sharp was never ever the way to deal. I’d be fuming if someone did that.

@headlightshiningbrightpeople have been reallly harsh on this chat. I feel for you. When toddlers kick off it can be incredibly tough and it’s not because of bad parenting!

Ex teacher

teachers will intervene with behaviour for kids in the school but not in their class, absolutely. On the way to assembly or in assembly or on playground duty or similar.

i have to admit I’ve seen some behaviour that makes my skin itch because I really really want to tell the kid off and if I was in school I bloody would but it’s not socially appropriate.

in all honesty it just sounds like the teacher says what she would have to one of her class.

you are massively over thinking this.

I can virtually guarantee the teacher has totally forgotten it.

get a home school communication book if there is a need for communication above and beyond normal.

That could look as if she didn't care about the elder child's behaviour, though. Not a simple situation, but teacher could see she had a toddler with her and could have asked to schedule something if she wanted a toddler-free conversation.

It's just no reason for the teacher to start managing the two-year old either way. Her mother was there.

This breaks my heart a little bit - she just wanted to make a hedgehog and didn’t realise why she couldn’t because she’s 2! She also wasn’t feeling very well.
Im actually angry for you - I know the teacher could have been having a bad day but don’t take it out on a baby.
Sorry you had a bad day with everything - you didn’t do anything wrong and you’re obviously a good parent because you wouldn’t be worrying about all of this if you weren’t.

Teachers are just humans too.
She'd had a tough day with your older child's behaviour, the last thing she wanted to do on a Friday afternoon was have a meeting after school, and now there's a 3 year old kicking off too.

I agree. It’s like the people who give parents of tantrumming toddlers in the supermarket dirty looks. It says far more about them than the parent, TBH.

Teachers never stop being teachers. You should have stepped in, you had opportunity. Ask yourself why you didn't step in and stop the teacher berating your 3yo. I suspect you may have been shocked or be a but down trod/stressed. Whatever the reason, seek to solve it ASAP.

I don't know there's anything to be done to set this straight, but I would speak to the teacher and say how shocked you were the way she was talking your 3yo and how unacceptable it was.

You then need to re-establish behaviour boundaries with both of your DCs. Time out worked well for me, but my kids weren't badly behaved in the main. You may need more parenting tools in your tool kit.

Loads of the ones pointing the gun will actually be teachers so ignore them.

Agree with this completely. For the PPs alluding to, if OP won't parent the child then the teacher will - that makes it worse. You dont teach someone to fish by giving them a fish. She should have nudged her into dealing with it and waited while she did. The teacher telling her off does nothing in the way of improving OPs parenting, if that really was her concern, as she robbed her of the opportunity to deal with it. Not that OPs parenting needs improving, as she did nothing wrong and didn't get the chance to do anything. 3 years olds cry, thats normal. Teachers shouting at 3 year olds is not.

You know who else are just humans? Five-year-olds, three-year-olds and their frazzled parents. It’s the teacher’s job, so she needs to find the patience, or another job.

I would of asked her who do you think she is talking to tbh

I agree. I would also question the teacher’s feedback on OP’s five-year-old, given the treatment of her toddler.

It sounds like the teacher was stopping your child interrupting an activity which is fair enough really. She just told your child "no". Maybe she felt that she was having a meeting about one of your children and then having another of your children cause a disruption.

If it was just a bad day for your kids I would let it go

I think she was very sharp with a young child that obviously just wanted to join in.

I bet she thinks your elder child's issues stem from you permissive parenting and never saying no. That made her want to say a very clear 'no' to your younger child when they wanted something they couldn't have.

Sometimes other people have to step in if a parent can't be bothered to parent, but telling off an already crying child is unlikely to ever make the situation better.