Your kids or their teachers?

That's not uncommon at all. We would see that in HS all the time.

 

As a teacher, it's SO critical that early in the year I build and establish trust with parents. It's important to find the good in their kids, and send home good notes or make positive phone calls so they know that I care, and know that I can find the good in all of them. I also like to get out and see my students play in sports, or do other activities outside of school to show that I"m taking an interest in them and their well being. Consequently, this trust and positive relationship really pays off if I do have something negative to bring up, or if I do see some areas of improvement they need to work on. It's natural to want to be defensive, but the best teacher-parent relationship is occurs when both parties feel they are on the same page, and have the kid's best interest at heart.

 

Spoiled kids. No wonder they're so bratty. Their parents refuse to believe that their kids can do anything wrong; therefore, they don't ever get any discipline. Then it's us against the world, blame the teacher, etc. Blame the cops, when that comes up a few years later. Blame society, blame everyone but the kid who does bad things and makes poor choices. I can't imagine being raised not to take responsibility for yourself...

 

I dontknow if it is particular to the techers in this school district(GCISD) or if it is the case everywhere...but we try to arrange easy lines of communication at the start of every year with our girl's teachers...

and you know what?

Getting teachers to actually answer our emails or keep us abreast of how things are going has proven difficult.

I hear constantly how teachers want you to get involved....but from our experience what they *really* want you to do is come volunteer at the school...they dont seem the least little bit interested in working with us on improving our child;s effectiveness in school.

btw...I couldnt speak on how I react when the school contacts us about her being in trouble...sicne she hasnt been...but rest assured that nothing is more important to me than my child doing good in school. I wont stand for any deviation from the goal.(her education)

 

I remember my friend who's a teacher telling me a story about a student who cheated on an English quiz. He teaches 10th and 11th grade English, and that day he was giving the two different grade classes quizzes on different short stories. One 10th grader turned in all the answers to the 11th grad quiz. When he showed this to the student's mother she just flat out denied that her child had cheated. Parents can be really delusional.

 

Personally, I would call Chuck Norris and have them straighten out the parents.

 

I always listen to the teachers, and I believe them. My kids all get good grades but every once in a while they get in trouble for talking. The only time I got upset with a teacher was when my oldest daughter was having trouble with a class and she did not let us know until the report cards were given out.

 

Tell her an hour here or there seeing her kids perform/ compete outside of school will go a LONG way....and to me, it's always a blast. A relaxed atmosphere to get to know the kids and family on a personal level, away from the stress of school.

Some kids are really bad, of course. But FIND something positive to say about them, especially early in the year. It's so neat to hear the reaction from parents you call to say something GOOD to. Many of them only expect calls when their kid is in trouble. You might hear, "What did (NAME) do this time?" Imagine their surprise when you say something good to them! Plus, it also reinforces with kid and parent you aren't afraid to call home, be it good or bad.

Just a little bit of my own personal experience after 5 yrs. now in the classroom in a similar grade level. (I teach 4th grade.)

 

this doesn't help at all

but back in 3rd grade, we had this one kid in my class that'd mouth off and get sent to the principal on a daily basis.

it was pretty damn good entertainment though.

 

another reason chuck norris should be YOUR vote for president in 2008!



(p.s. - i got a chuck norris 2008 bumpersticker off of cafepress, it's great, get one and join the REVOLUTION!)

 

It freakin' makes me mad when parents do that shiznit.

What does the principal have to say in all this? Has your gf talked to her boss? A simple: "The parents don't help. I do not want this kid in my class, please" will put a stop to it if he has to be in a special resource center, where they're supposed to deal with the excessive bad behavior.

To further prove stuff, have your gf bring the parents into the class so that they have to sit in it listening to their kid mouthing off, or have the bad kid's parents talk to a random kid in the class so that the random kid speaks as a witness to what the bad kid has been doing, and so the bad kid's parents will look so EFFIN' embarrassed for being so steeewwwwwwpppid also. Try that.

parents: "My kid does NOT mouth off!"
your gf: "Oh, you don't think so, do you...? Pick a random kid from my class, please."[parents pick a kid]
parents: "Did [bad kid's name] mouth off to your teacher?"
random kid: "Yes, he even said... [lots more stuff]"
parents: [insert deer-in-headlights parents' face here]

 

My wife teaches a 4 yr. old class and it always amazes me the horror stories she tells me about some of her kids and their parents.

She caught one boy, not once but TWICE, innapropriately touching another girl. And, I mean he knew what he was doing. She tells his father who gest right in her face and yells at her, calling her a racist. He then voluntarily tells her how his son never leaves the bathroom without clothes after a bath, etc.

My wife gets her superior's involved (they have had a few issues with him in the past) who tell his parents that he is kicked out of school. The guy gets his his lawyer involved, both of whom tried to get my wife fired claiming she and the little, 'molested' girl were lying and racists. Apparently, it was found that he had been kicked out of three prior schools.

She also found out a parent was doing all her son's homework for him. Even down to filling in is name on the top of the sheet. It's no wonder why this kid has no idea how to spell his first name at all.

Then, there is the boy who, even after his mom being told daily that she can not give him candy to bring to school, still shows up everyday with two pockets overflowing with candy.

Now, this is a nice, private (have to pay a ton of money to attend) school. I can't imagine what public school teachers have to go through.

 

Teachers have to deal with bad kids and bad parents. It is especially sad in the case of good kids who have to grow up in spite of the parents.

And to answer the question ... it depends on the situation. There are plenty of bad teachers out there as well. Mostly I would believe the teacher over the kid, but it isn't a given.

 

I have no reason to doubt the teacher in this situation. Why would a teacher waste their time calling a parent for the sake of a lie?

This kind of behaviour is usually the result of a lack of genuine attention in the home... the kids are spoiled with things, but not with what they need - real affection.

Kids spell "love" like this----> T I M E

As a parent, I encourage my children's teachers to inform me the second my children get out of line... for the express purpose that I want my kids to know in advance that they will not get away with acting up in class. Class time is for the education process, not for them to be a nuisance or try to get attention.

My parents took this approach with me, and nipped my problems in the bud in kindergarten. The irony, or I guess similarity in my son is that we've already dealt with it in kindergarten too.

I feel the sooner you let your children realize why they are at school, and establish the communication with their teachers (an understanding that your kids know better), then if something does arise later the child already knows the consequences... and if the consistency is there as a parent, then should there be a real personality clash between student and teacher, the parent would know.

Establishing trust bewteen parent and teacher is equally important to establishing trust between parent and student -and that's a hard thing to seperate between when it comes to a parent and child... school is not play time however, unless it is specifically recess, etc. Parents should learn that kids need parents to parent them, not be best buddies and defend them, when they're wrong. We've lost the knack for raising kids that can problem solve and think responsibly before a problem by letting our kids think we'll always bail them out (and by "our kids" I mean America in general). Seriously, most of life's best lessons are learned from early childhood failures. If you never feel the consequence of a bad choice early in life, and fail at something, how can you know true success or the rewards of good choices?

Good thread.

btw- sadly enough, a lot of this spoiled behavior comes from a society that awards every child a trophy in t-ball or little league. When we were kids only the winnning team in the league championship got a trophy. Now I understand why they may do it now... but kids can, and NEED to know if they're wrong, or if they've lost. It won't kill them, but make them stronger.

Some parents contribute to their own delusion by allowing crap like that to be the norm. I remind my son that those trophies are for participation, not because they are the best yet. And he's cool with that.

-my extra 2 cents...

 

Hey, some teachers ARE twisted. You have to listen to your kids, too. But if you're hearing it a lot from multiple teachers, it's time for an asswhoopin'.

 

Very interesting thread.

My nine year old son is going through some changes where he is identifying more with his friends than with us and so we are having some slight behavioral problems. He's a sweet kid and I don't worry about him doing anything real bad, but we've caught him in a few lies lately and we're trying to scare the hell out of him not to ever lie to us. It's been a major issue.

We got a note a couple of weeks ago that he had received a bad grade on a math test and "accidentally" threw it away. We've got a pretty good relationship with the teacher, so this was very distressing that he was being dishonest. Hopefully we've got him back on track.

The worst is some of the kids that he is hanging around with. There are two twins that he's befriended who are Katrina evacuees that are becoming a bad influence. At first we were super happy for him to have these kids to play with because they were really into sports and playing outside while the rest of the kids around here have preferred to just stay inside and play video games. Tonight we had a parent of one of the little girls on the street come to our house and let us know that our son and the other kids were picking on their daughter calling her the "B" word.

This is one of those situations where we had to decide whether or not our son had called this little girl the "B" word. I think that he was being honest when he said that the other kids had called her the "B" word, but he did admit to picking on her. I also found out for the first time that he and his friends do use bad words. He admitted that. He'll have to go apologize the little girl tomorrow.

To actually answer the question in the thread, I would definitely believe the teacher first, but I always make sure to get to know the teacher at the beginning of the year and remain in semi-regular contact in good times and bad times.


The kids described by your GF sound like they are just doing what they've learned from their parents. Bad kids usually come from bad parents, so you can't really expect to have high expectations when you have to call the parents.

 

To me, this is one of the hardest things, as a parent, to do well. You want your children to think that you trust them, but at the same time you know that kids are not always going to be truthful, especially when they are in trouble. Conversely, any trouble they get into in school will not always be their fault. Knowing which is which is key, and sometimes it is impossible if the kid is a good enough actor.

I don't have a child of my own, but I have a 9 year old stepson. Lately he has been getting into a bit of trouble talking at school. He always has an excuse, such as it was the people around him, or he was just asking for a pencil, etc. Never his fault, it seems. My wife almost always believes him, even though we have caught him in these types of lies before.

Your initial reaction is to believe the best in your kid, so it is far easier to believe the the teacher, whom you don't know all that well, made a mistake or was in a bad mood rather than to believe that your kid, whose behaviour you are directly responsible, was acting up.

It's something I hope to keep in mind when we have a child that will be mine. You sometimes have to put aside pride and be willing to look at the situation objectively. Most teachers have nothing to gain by lying about bad behavior of their students, but most children have everything to gain by lying if they are at fault.