Teacher Says Parents Got Mad At Her For Doing Exactly What They Asked — 'Parents Are Never Happy With What You Do'
It's hard to be a teacher.
sturti / Canva Pro Teachers are responsible for a million things — juggling a delicate balance of teaching, redirecting behavioral issues, supporting mental health struggles, and cultivating a safe space for their students.
Many teachers name parents as the worst part of their jobs. It's difficult to please them while also looking out for the success of their kids. Parenting starts at home, but inevitably, teachers see these children a lot — so where’s the boundary?
One teacher on Reddit revealed the root of her tumultuous relationship with one student’s parents — saying they’re just “never happy” despite her efforts. “I literally can’t win. I did what they asked and am still getting in trouble.”
The teacher said a student's parents got mad at her for emailing them about their son’s missing assignments — despite telling her to do so.
“At winter conferences, a parent asked me to email him every time his kid missed a major assignment,” the teacher wrote. Although that already felt like a bit of an overstep, as parents can view grades and assignments themselves, she was willing to do it to help this struggling student.
“Today, I was marking his paper as missing, so I emailed the parents. Cue the drama!” she said. “[The] kid gets called out of my class to go to the office and never returns.”
When she finally had a couple of minutes between classes, she saw tons of messages in her inbox. They were all from the parents ridiculing her for “not doing enough” to support their son.
She described it as “A barrage of messages from the parents: I'm not helping him enough. I'm missing an opportunity to connect with their son. Do I know about his brain injury? (no, I didn't) Why am I not answering my phone so we can get to the bottom of this? (I'm in class).”
After the parents tried to disrupt her class and called her principal, she was ridiculed for doing what they asked.
As calls continued to come through to her classroom and emails rolled in each minute from the parents, she knew the principal would eventually be in touch. “I’m already on thin ice with [him] because of parent communication issues,” she wrote. “[He said} we need to not email these parents. They need calls only. We need to be supporting their child more and stay in constant contact.”
Many teachers are already working more than 5+ extra hours a week to prepare their classrooms, deal with difficult students, and plan lessons. So, this kind of one-on-one relationship isn’t feasible. Just like her principal likely doesn’t have extra time, this teacher doesn’t either. It’s not realistic to expect her to have the time to spend with each student individually.
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On top of that, she revealed she’s been struggling with her own “health issues.” She wrote, “I’ve been missing a ton of school … frankly, I can’t sit next to him all class period to make sure that he does what he should be doing.”
“The issues that this kid is having are not new. Like a lot of middle school boys, he procrastinates and distracts himself. I’m not shaming him, just holding him accountable.”
Other teachers offered their own tips for dealing with disrespectful parents.
Many commenters pointed out that it’s not a teacher’s responsibility to deal with disrespectful or overstepping parents. They urged this teacher to redirect the parents to her principal, especially when it disrupts workflow.
Of course, if your administration isn’t helpful, they offered several tips that can put parents in their place within the classroom.
“I get told this all the time,” one teacher shared. “It’s a violation of our contract for me to work during lunch. Also, I don’t work outside the school day. When are you coming to cover my class so I can phone parents from your office so I don’t talk in front of students and violate privacy laws?”
“Once, I was told I should make the calls outside of class time. I called from the school at 5:00 in the morning and cheerfully told the parents that the early hour was the principal’s idea. After all, I was in my classroom preparing for the day.”
Most importantly, parents need to remember that teachers are people, too. Their jobs shouldn’t be the most important, most prioritized part of their lives.
Of course, they should be held accountable and to a high standard, but they’re not required to make parents comfortable or give them space to be disrespectful.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.