Contacting parents is the most anxiety-inducing part of my job. I never know how someone is going to react to anything anymore. And it seems that negative, accusatory, or abusive reactions from parents are becoming increasingly common across the 12 years I've taught.

I would say you’re the exception. I am always so delighted when a parent is supportive and offers to have a chat at home too. Most parents either don’t care or get defensive. When I call a parent whose reaction I’m not sure of I always feel pretty nervous about how much I’m going to need to stand up for myself, and sometimes if it’s a difficult day for me I might not feel entirely up to an argument.

Its pretty common that when we have to write home about poor behavior, the parent insists that it didn’t happen or there was a misunderstanding or it was a mistake on my part. My coworker just recently got an email from a parent that was in all caps, exclamation points, “how dare you” etc etc. I personally think there is a correlation between the students with poor behavior and parents that don’t take accountability for the behavior but hey what do I know. 

Once I emailed s group of parents (on blind cc obviously) about the over the top behaviors I was seeing-- literally running around the classroom playing tag and running across the table tops, for example. I asked that they speak with their kids about how they are expected to behave at school.

within two hours I was in the principals office being forced to apologize to a parent who had come in person to complain

Several years ago, at the school I worked at at the time, I overheard a phone call between the principal and a parent.

The child’s lunch account was overdrawn. The school had sent reminders for two weeks. Even sent paperwork to get the child on the list for free lunches - all the parent had to do was fill the paper out and return it, and the kid would get lunch for free.

On this day, despite all that, the parent had sent the child to school with no money to go on the lunch account, no free lunch paperwork, and no packed lunch. When the principal called the parent, I could hear the parent on the other end of the phone cursing at the principal for “bothering” them about the fact that their 6 year old had no food.

So yes, many parents are that unsupportive.

Ex teacher here. Worse case I had. I taught juniors and seniors. U S History, Government and Economics. Young man who was just as asshat. 2nd week of school I called home. Dad answered and in identified myself. He immediately went “No, no, no no! From 7:30 to 3 he’s your problem” then hung up. Looked at the kid and said is that normal? He said Yep my parents don’t give a fuck. We talked for a while and he actually turned it around in my class.

Well many parents think that their kids can do no wrong and that the teacher is overreacting.

I am not a teacher, but I am a room parent and when I tell you the bar is low, the bar is so low it’s touching the ground. I am always astonished by the lack of participation and care that parents show even for very small, tiny things. I can’t even imagine what it’s like being a teacher.

Yes, the bar is that low, or probably lower. People don’t believe their perfect child would not behave or do anything bad in class or to other kids. They defend them, without actually listening to the facts, then blame the teacher.

I have been teaching for 20 years and parents are worse now than ever. If i wasn’t so far into my career, i would look elsewhere for a job.

The first time I had a parent say to me: "You're lying!" my jaw was on the floor. What would I possibly gain from calling home and accusing a student of something they didn't do? And it had to be pretty serious for me to call. I don't know what is most accurate in describing what the parent(s) are thinking. Is it denial because reality is too hard to handle? Is it laziness because discipline requires action that can be uncomfortable? Is it loyalty, feeling like they have to take the child's side so show their love? I don't know but I do know that children who are not held accountable have many more problems in adulthood. So, good job, parent!

I had a very brief teaching career. The number of times I heard, “When s/he’s here, s/he’s YOUR problem!” was unreal. They just didn’t want to hear it.

Well..I reached out to a parent about her child being homophobic to another few other students, telling other kids to off themselves, etc and the mother said, “I don’t get involved in my child’s social drama”. Um what? A kid could kill themselves because your terrible kid and that’s your response? Also had a kid (first grade) throw a chair through a window. Mom said, “Oh he was probably tired”. Parents don’t care. They are checked out and that is true for probably 80-85% of students.

You believing that your child (and really every developing human being) needs to be held accountable for poor decisions in a safe environment is a pretty rare disposition 🥲. Either… 1. Teachers should have no authority to extend consequences or teach good behavior at all bc “it’s the family’s job and teachers should only be teaching academics” 2. The teacher is prejudiced and targeting certain kids 3. It’s the teachers fault the bad behavior happened in the first place. Why wasn’t enough done to prevent the incident? 4. The consequence will traumatize the student and give them a negative attitude towards school for the rest of their lives (which, like come on, losing your free internet time or having to serve a detention isn’t traumatizing 🤦‍♀️)

I hate to say this but you are in the minority these days when it comes to parents. I'm an educator and a parent myself. I couldn't fathom saying to my kids teachers some of the things that have been said to me. Im at a relatively good school with a good group of kids. I would say that if I have to call home for 6 kids in one week, only 1 of the parents will respond similarly to you. Sigh.

My kids all have ADHD and their impulsivity gets the better of them sometimes and I’m thankful they have a chance to learn, grow, and be held accountable in a safe environment when that happens

Even this statement is crazy for us. You wouldn't believe how many parents say their kid's ADHD means that they can't be held accountable for virtually anything.

Oh little Johnny punched another kid? Um, he has ADHD so he obviously can't help it. He can't be punished.

One time I contacted a parent about their child cheating, with full proof. Time stamped and everything. I walked her through what happened step by step. At every moment she tried to disprove me, divert, turn the blame back at me, etc. Eventually after 40 minutes of conversation, in which she chased down every possible dead end to get her little angel out of it, she had nothing left to say. At which point she just started screaming at me that I made her child feel bad, and how dare I? At that point, I tiredly asked her what she wanted out of this conversation and she literally screeched, “I JUST WANT YOU TO FEEL BAD TOO!”

Mission accomplished woman. 🤦‍♀️

I don't know why, but there are many parents that look to blame the system rather than holding their child accountable.

Not just negative interactions either. I volunteered in my child’s kindergarten class regularly, and even though I proactively asked to be there to help, it was always “are you sure you don’t mind cutting these out?” After the first month or so that stopped, and she eventually told me that most of her “volunteers” just want to just interact with their own child, not actually do anything productive.

Twice during my 27 year career I bought a student cheating red handed. When I contacted the parents, in bith cases I received responses copied to the principal and their lawyer. I became very careful and made sure I had documentation to support my claims. The desire to shield their children from any accountability is through the roof.

This has been my experience as a parent. Teachers are so grateful I have expectations for my child's behavior and will reinforce it at home.

Seems like common sense to me, but apparently people don't have that?

Don't get me wrong, I will advocate for my kid, if he needs it, and I have sent firm emails when his disability was involved, but largely teachers and admin have been very reasonable and respectful, and clearly are doing the best they can, and usually have dealt with my concerns before they even talk to me. I've gone into meetings ready to fight, but never needed to, because admin, teachers, and my husband and I have all been on the same page. (This is very different from my experience as a student.)

I view learning to navigate interactions with teachers as part of learning to navigate life. You don't have to agree with the rules, but you do have to follow them, be polite, and do your best. And if you don't do that, you will need to handle the consequences.

I’m not a teacher but my mom would 100% side with me over a teach no matter what when I was younger. I was a terrible student (untreated adhd and bad home life) and my mom wanted to blame my teachers and not feel any personal responsibility for my wellbeing. Or at least that’s my take on it.

This didn’t work in some situations but when I had unruly kids I would look out for something good that they did. I then contacted the parent(s) to tell them the good thing their child had done. Many times the parent was wary at the beginning of the conversation (not surprising) but at least seemed to appreciate the good news call.
Often the kid’s behavior improved and if I still had to make bad news calls the parent was less defensive.

I'm an older mom (54) (this time around, my oldest is 38) to a 14 yo. Got a call the other day that my 14 yo son was on the bus with some other boys playing "let's yell penis at each other across the bus" game and got a detention.

My son is a quite, plays DnD, hard time making friends, yt watching, straight A kid that teachers love. When the principal called, I was appalled (through hidden laughter)and assured him consequences would happen at home as well. Behavior like that isn't acceptable.

I could hear he also was struggling (particularly when he had to tell me the word was penis) but he is my age and Gen X is a slightly different breed. I decided to break the tension and said " well, at least he use the anatomically correct term" and we both lost our grip and busted out laughing.

My son lost electronic privileges the next day (he likened that to death by 1000 bee stings) and I was reminded of the exact conversation I had with a different principal 24 years prior about my oldest son when he was 14.

I was very young then (32), I was truly appalled, I felt I had failed as a parent, but he was grounded from life for a week. With age comes wisdom. But I always, ALWAYS, take the teachers side.

I got nothing, but thought you guys would appreciate the story from an Old as dirt parent and a baby having babies parent perspective.

I taught in Asia for a couple of years after teaching in the US for 5, and it was the most relaxing job—not because the kids were better behaved… they’re still kids, they still do kid stuff and test boundaries. But the biggest game changer was that parents were SO supportive of me and backed me up if their kid got in trouble in class. It reeeeally affects how seriously kids take their teachers, knowing that their parents are going to generally side with us if we’re being reasonable.

I’ll never forget calling one parent. “Hi Ms. xxx. I’m calling about your daughter, aaa. I have her in ccc class during 4th period. I was wondering if you have a few minutes so we can talk about her change in attitude over the last few days.” “No.” Click This was in 2017, but still.

It is very stressful to contact parents. I had a student write slurs about another student. When I contacted her parents, the mom told me I was targeting her daughter and cussed me out in Spanish. I had a student throw a chair at me, and the parent asked what I did to make their child mad. It’s insane out here. I can’t wait to leave lol.

This is not a new thing. My husband received an F in conduct his first semester of kindergarten. My in-laws immediately got in contact with his teacher and asked why this was the first time they were hearing about any issues.

Apparently the teacher was only in her first or second year and had already had such a bad time with contacting parents that she'd already given up on calling them.

That was almost 40 years ago.

What’s even sadder is admin backing up the parents in these situations

SPED Teacher here. Told a parent that their child tore up the whole room, dumped toys, threw things, etc. She replied “my child has NEVER done that at home” 😀😀 sure…

Unsupportive isn't quite the right word.

More like uninvolved or too busy to be concerned with the kid's education.

Not a teacher, but I have detected relief more than once when I took the teachers side. (Which I almost always take the teachers side.) I don’t know what kind of abuse these people are suffering, but it breaks my heart that they sound almost frightened to hear from me!

Yes, they truly are. I hate messaging parents about behavior because I have had many parents lash out or they simply don’t care. I’m very fair in my consequences and I don’t message parents unless it’s a pretty big problem, but you would think that I was the most unreasonable person alive.

And truly, when I get parents that actually are supportive I thank them because it’s literally like finding gold. It’s so sad that it’s come to that :/

Yes. And it's not new. My oldest son, twenties now, went to a school for children with behavioral disorders. Totally warranted. Every time they called me about something I backed them up. They were always so amazed because most parents would claim their child didn't do it. Keep in mind this was a school for children who couldn't function in a normal school setting.

Also, they had a homework assignment where they were to go outside, look at the moon, draw it in a box and describe the weather. We did it for a week. Never saw it again. When I followed up to make sure my son wasn't just avoiding it they said they had to quit doing it because my son was the only one who had actually done it.

jesus. as a parent myself, these responses are astounding to me!!!! my daughter is 14yo and i can't recall ever pushing back against a teacher or principal about punishment. if my kid fucked up, and you saw it - my kid can deal with the ramifications of her actions.

i have talked to the vice principal 2x this year over minor things and you can tell he was nervous to make the phone call in the first place. and it was over dumb shit that she didn't even get a detention for, he was just keeping me in the loop. i cannot imagine the anxiety over having to call a parent with a serious issue.

would just like to thank all teachers and every working adult in schools who have to deal with these kinds of parents and children on a daily basis. i don't know how teachers do it when you're dealing with unreasonable parents and their terror children. seems like you have a difficult job where your hands are always tied in some way.

I often send positive emails home too (I teach in a small, cohort style high school programme) and I have had parents mad about that too. A very "thank you for stating the obvious" style.

I also get really wonderful responses and have parents who are super on board and will have meetings, offer insight, etc but it is fully a customer service mindset versus a partnership mindset these days.

Yep. Some teachers don't answer the phone or return calls or even email later on in the day. When my child was small, as soon as I saw the caller ID of the school popup, I'd grab it before that 2nd ring. And they will all SWEAR to you that the child doesn't act like this at home, which implies they think you're lying. One day, some of these kids are going to get the crap beat out of them by kids who grew up bigger and faster and don't put with their mess.

I’m not any longer in the classroom, but when I was, I had such anxiety over calling home. The number of parents that will go for the jugular when you tell them about a student’s behavior is insane. I swear I still have PTSD over it. People take it as a personal affront if you say their child misbehaved. It makes you appreciate supportive parents even more, but they tend to be rare. Sadly.

Short answer - yes.

This week I had over 30 interactions with a single parent over an issue that should have been solved in 1. And it was because they were not supportive and wanted to argue against consequences for repeated, documented behavior. I currently have almost 150 students and while this is an extreme case the lack of support has a cumulative effect.

So when parents treat us right we are so very grateful.

Parents are the reason I quit teaching high school and moved on to community college. Never taking accountability for their kids’ inappropriate behavior and blaming me, making me apologize to their kid and administration not backing me up. I will never go back to teaching k-12.

Teaching 4 years, I’ve had dozens of super helpful parents, only 1 who pushed back. If relevant, these were mostly recently-immigrated Latino families.

Yesterday in the afternoon car line at a middle school, a mother rolled down her window and yelled, "I'm watching you, bitch!". I had gently called her son back to the orange loading area. She had yelled at me prior about it saying, "I see everyone loading up outside of the orange area." I only have this duty once a week, but I know my team is consistent. I said to her, "So everyone should just break rules and put kids at risk?" That set her off. Her son got in the car anyway. I didn't push it.

Two days ago, one of our principals was talking to a parent. This parent was livid because her son had called 911 from teacher's phone. The parent said it was the teacher's fault despite the fact that the boy had told her he needed to call his mom. Unbelievable. This is it for me.

I got the police called on me for kidnapping because I gave a 14YO student a detention (20 mins after school) for lying to me. I obviously didn't care because I followed all procedure and did nothing wrong, but the parents got given a warning for wasting police time.

When we went to pick up our son at pre-school, he was in time out. We asked the teacher if his time was up. She said “no.” We told our son we’d come back when he was done. It was only about 4-5 minutes. The teacher told us that had never happened before.

my sister is a teacher. Her school will have about 4 open houses a year, with one of them being before the first day of school. She will have kids whos parents dont show up to any of them. Parents who dont show up to parent teacher interviews, parents who dont respond to emails, or notes in the agendas. Shes offered to work around their schedule and do lunch time zoom or evening zoom meetings (with the schools knowledge and approval) and parents have refused. She has tried everything from a-z (short of calling a social worker) to get in contact with a parent about the kids school progress and the only time shes seen them is when the notice goes out that they are failing

It's kind of you to ask. I work in an affluent area where we hear a lot of: "my child would NEVER do that;" "the other person MUST have been at fault;" or "I don't care that my child behaves that way/we taught our child to behave that way" (ie hit back harder, if someone annoys you do it back/hit them, etc). My favorite was the parents who said their child's bullying behavior was going to make them a great CEO one day.

My district has also un-suspended students when parents kick up enough of a fuss. It's really disheartening. And yeah, we get yelled at by parents A LOT.

If parents are talking to me I find the student and tell them to make it stop.

I hate talking to parents.

Yes.

they arent just unsupportive they are reverse supportive many times they are actively working against me

They can be. I will say I had many positive interactions with parents in my career that ended in good outcomes for the child. Second best, I sometimes had supportive admin who told us to loop them in the moment a parent became combative or rude. But I quickly learned that (a) all such interactions needed to be done by email, so that there was a record of what had been said and no one could put words in my mouth and (b) calling a student's parent during class, hoping for immediate help with a behavior problem, was as likely to get a "what do you want me to do about it?" or "what did you do to make my child act that way?" response as anything else.

This jives. I asked my daughter’s teacher about volunteering in the classroom and she asked me what I wanted to do. I told her, “whatever you want me to do”. She seems so genuinely surprised and relieved. Ultimately, I ended up being sort of “on call” for when she needs something— which isn’t often. It made me disappointed in my fellow parents.

Things I have been called by parents in an email:

“Unreasonable” “Rude” “Hateful” “Unfair” And… “Emotionally abusive”

These were all in response to informing parents their child had violated an academic policy in the handbook, all of which come straight from the school board, mostly plagiarism :/

One of my coworkers was called a “white devil” to her face in a meeting with district lawyers present (things had escalated)... That was a wild day, man!

My son's writing support teacher now hugs me every time we meet and I think it's because I support all of them there and am always so thankful for all of the energy they put into my boy. It seems to me that she's just so grateful to have a parent that truly partners with educators.

I am sure no teacher looks forward to wasting time out of their already busy, under paid day to have to call me and speak on behalf of my child’s behavior. Whenever we would get calls for SD I would thank them and get my SD’s side of events as well then look to find a solution all together. Her bio mom on the other hand either never an answered or would scold the teacher for assuming that her “angel” child would ever misbehave. To me it’s just crazy how some parents are so blindsided to think that their child does no harm. When my bio kids reach school age I will be taking the same approach because both parties deserve respect and mutual ground to find a solution.

Growing up my parents would always take the teachers side and give us a good beating without allowing us to explain anything which I hated. I know my kids will not be angels and i am ready to support the educators who will shaping my children’s future as best as I can.

When my son was in grade 4 another kid stabbed him with scissors . I pulled my kid from school since the school had no power to do anything. I was pissed at the principle.

That evening I went to speak to the kid's parents. I had called probably 20 times, phone off hook. I rang the bell, stepped back, introduced myself and asked if we could have a conversation. Dad let me in , closed the door and went OFF on how his son is being mistreated. I was getting a bit nervous, wanting to leave but he was blocking the door and screaming at me. The the mom came running to from the back of the house screaming " get out of my house, get the fuck out of my house". I cant get out dad is still in the way, she runs back where she came from and I started physically shaking saying " Im afraid, let me out, Im afraid, let me out "

I think my terror kind of brought him back to reality and he stood aside I got out and into my car as quick as I could, had to pull over and compose myself when I figured I was far enough to be safe.

I went back to the school the next day and spoke to the principle. I told her what happened and that now I understood. I had no idea

I had contacted a parent to inform them their child had made racist comments in school and explained the consequences. Parents spent the afternoon trying to contact me and asked where in the school handbook it said kids couldn’t say those particular things. I said there was not a page dedicated to a prescribed list of “banned words” but that racism/racist language was not acceptable and that that was common sense. 

They made a formal complaint against me so that the investigation into their child’s actions was put on hold whilst MY conduct was investigated…

All? No. Some? Yes. Tell them their precious little Timmy hit 2 kids during math. Their response is the other kids looked at their precious Timmy so it's okay or their Timmy wanted the pencil.theh bad. (By little Timmy, I mean 10 year old Timmy) After a few hitting incidences, same parent said they never want to hear from the school again and if they do, they will transfer their little Timmy. Why that's a great idea!!!

My mom retired from teaching 18 years ago. In the end of her career, she said it became pretty shocking that parents were reporting her to the principal for picking on their kids. So, instead of saying oh wow, I need to correct this behavior at home, it became this thing of saying that their kid was being picked on by the teacher. It became increasingly bad as time went on, this was early 2000’s.

Had to call home about a kid earlier this year- pretty significant aggressive behavior resulting in ISS. Mom's response was "well, he gets enough consequences at school so I'm not punishing him any more"

MA'AM.

You know you’ve made it as a teacher when after speaking to a parent, your next phone call is to the police to report various threats.

This is a really extreme example but, a girl made a bunch of very racist comments in my class and received a suspension. Dad came in and said he's half Jewish so she would've never made an antisemetic comment and that I am a "deaf fucking idiot", but he did concede she would call her black classmates the n-word because they are n-words and he didn't see the problem with stating facts.

For three successive years, I had had kids from hell, not just for me, but I got the concentration of the behavior problems with only a few normal kids. Each year, I thought my classes could not get worse, but each year, they did. I finally told my department head that I’d rather clean toilets than teach that same subject.

That year, a parent left me a voicemail apologizing for his son’s behavior, saying that it was unacceptable and that they would like the details so they could give additional consequences at home. I saved that message and played it back repeatedly throughout the year. It was a piece of evidence that there were still caring parents and still sanity out there.

Example of one of the better parents:
Me: Your son has detention because he spends his time breaking up pencils and erasers and throwing them all over my classroom any time he thinks I am not looking. At detentions, he will sweep my classroom floor. Parent: You have custodians. My son will not do menial tasks. [long conversation back and forth about logical and natural consequences, with Mom objecting.] Me: Honestly , I don’t care whether he stays for detention. I just want him to stop. Parent: Oh, he will stop. I’ll see to that. Outcome: The student apologized and stopped.

I won’t even begin to detail the rest.

Depends. I would say the percentage went from 25% not caring/aggressive to 80% at the end of my 18 years teaching

I've had parents bring their child in to watch them attempt to dress me down because their daughter attacked students in my classroom. The mother tried to blame me because, after the girl's tirade, I explained to her that middle school girl drama was not excuse enough for what she did.

Apparently that hurt her feelings and both parents came in to try to tear me down so their daughter could watch.

I risked my job and said, "This is where you failed at parenting... Bringing your daughter to this meeting to allow her to watch you blame me for her bad behavior." The other teachers in the room and the parents were all speechless.

Parents are the worst these days! They just use AI generated responses to make repeated excuses for their children or to constantly push the narrative that “my child is taught to have a voice” everytime their children is disrespectful. Reading some of the things my teacher friends have to deal with explains why the kids are the way they are.

One thing my elementary school teacher told us when we met with her a decade ago (20+ years after we had her as a teacher) was that she saw a shift in parenting. In the 90s, parents wanted their kids to do better than they had and pushed their kids to strive for things. A decade later the attitude changed for some reason and the parents no longer wanted their kids to be be better off than them because they thought it reflected poorly on them - “why couldn’t mom and dad achieve the same or better?”.

Yes. It’s bad. I’ve been in the business education for 12 years and it’s sad.

Yes, parents are unsupportive. Ringing parents is literally the scariest part of my job. It fills me with anxiety and dread. I avoid it as much as possible. I also have to be sooooo careful how I word things. These days, most parents do not want to hear something negative about their child. They refuse to believe something negative about their child. Calling a parent usually results in me getting screamed at, accused of lying, and somehow whatever the child did is my fault.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 yes

This was the opposite of my immigrant parents. They would start yelling at me so much that the teachers would start defending me 🤣 It would usually end with a smile from my mom and her saying ‘don’t worry. Everything will be ok again tomorrow’ code for some one is getting some ass whooping today 😭

I have called home so many times to give positive praise only for parents to slam the phone down on me. Or if Ive rang to convey something negative Im told: What do you want me to do?

I have a cousin that retired after 30 years as a teacher in the LA School District. She was teaching 2nd grade (6 or7 year olds). She asked one kid to do something and he told her to f**k herself! She said the only thing worse than dealing with that kid was dealing with the kid’s parents. I was pretty stunned when she told me that story but I guess it’s not that uncommon anymore. I would have been spanked into oblivion if I had ever said that to anybody at that age.

Not a teacher but worked in a school. Parents are 95% of the reason I no longer want to work with kids. 16 years as a nanny. 2 years as a para. Now happily in a rehab role working with adults.

My mom blocked my high school's phone number until she got a letter in the mail threatening legal action if I didn't show up to school more, so yeah lol. I'm a grad student now so clearly it wasn't the school part I had the issue with

I just had a parent write to me about how unprofessional and rude I was to the kids and how dare I email her that morning. I was off work that day lol

We had a situation where a teacher expressed ongoing concerns about a child. The parents gaslighted the teacher with a litany of excuses for a good half hour before admitting the kid was having a private eval. Oh, so you think there’s an issue too? Good to know.

Not a teacher but my sister is and I’ve had kids in school. She DREADS the parent calls. I don’t blame her! My oldest was called out during a fourth grade parent/teacher conference for their attitude in a certain circumstance. They were going through a very “know-it-all” phase. The teacher was right on for calling them out and the three of us worked through how to handle future situations respectfully. I checked back later and there was improvement because I wasn’t afraid to admit my kid isn’t perfect.

My same kid had a roommate in college who was failing classes and was an all around jerk to everyone the year they lived together (one other roommate—they were off campus). He would brag about how much money Daddy made and had temper tantrums that included throwing things, punching walls, etc. When mom and dad heard they were in danger of failing and that my kid and the other didn’t want to renew their lease with them (they did get a different place together with new roomies) it was everyone else’s fault because their baby boy (21-22 yo) was being picked on. Eye roll.

Most teachers avoid calling parents as much as possible.

But nowadays?? Most parents err on the side of either “I’ll wait and talk to my kid” or “not my sweet baby - they’ve been complaining about you all year.” Meanwhile, you’ve never seen or heard from the parent until you called them.

I only contact parents in writing, so I have documentation. I've been teaching for more than 20 years. There's been a huge shift to excusing bad behavior and putting the blame or responsibility on teachers.

One of my favorite stories is when I called a parent about taking a blade out of a little pencil sharpener and cutting another child's hair. The parent told me it was my fault for allowing pencil sharpeners and followed up several months later demanding to know if I had removed all pencil sharpeners from my classroom. The original pencil sharpener was one that she sent to school with her child.

My second favorite is when I had to have a special meeting with a parent whose child had jumped into a large puddle after being told not to jump in the said puddle by the principal. I was at lunch, nowhere near the incident. She was upset that we did not give him a change of clothes which we had none in his size. FYI this was a fifth grade child. She told me I was a terrible teacher and should lose my license ɓecause I "forced" him to sit in wet clothes all day and he was cold. It was May.

Really, what bothers me the most is the lack of involvement that a lot of parents take in raising their children. Parenting is a job; it's a hard job. So many people are not doing well at it, and it's getting worse.

My son’s teacher confiscated his book because he was reading during class when he was supposed to be doing something else.  I thanked her for keeping him on task and she said that was the first time a parent had thanked her for disciplining their child.  She was a teacher for many years by this point.  Parents more often than not think their kids can do no wrong, it’s rough.

I had pretty much the exact same thing happen to me today.  The teacher seemed so happy and relieved that I just laughed and said I’d back her up if my son complained about it when he got home (which he didn’t).  It definitely made me wonder how parents typically respond.  

25 years of teaching HS and, while the majority of parents are supportive, I get my share of "he's just bored/your need to entertain him!' replies or otherwise suggesting that I'm overreacting. If admin bows to parents then it just gets worse and the kid is often emboldened.

I never want to teach in a classroom ever again because of how horrible some of the parents treated myself and other teachers with zero support from admin. I loved teaching on a classroom and loved my kids. I miss it but the anxiety I had dealing with parents took a toll on my mental health. Not all parents were bad but those that were . We’re awful .

I mean, as a para, yes there were unreasonable parents. I had a kid in a SpEd class strangle me once while laughing at my reaction once, and the parents said we must have triggered it. But I've seen too much from teachers as well. Punishment is a last resort, and it's been studied to increase other negative behaviors over time, so a good teacher will be able to tell you how positive behavior is encouraged as well. Sometimes you will have to be the bad guy and advocate and it won't feel good.

It’s crazy because my daughter had some issues in kindergarten with touching other kids or getting in their space. We’d seen her like that with her little sister so we were immediately telling the teacher we would work on it at home and had her in a check in system where they give her smileys throughout the day if she’s keeping hands to herself etc. When my husband mentioned the teacher talking to us in the first place his mom blew up and got so defensive about how it couldn’t be true and what is the teacher doing to be supportive. Like what? I’m her mom and I can admit that I know she’s never going to be a perfect child and absolutely has that issue at times. I can’t imagine what it would have felt like for her teacher if she had to deal with someone like my MIL instead!

My first year teaching I called a mom because her daughter was distraught and hiding under a table. I couldn't calm her down or get her to talk to me. The mom screamed at me over the phone and cussed me out.

That same year I had a parent accidentally answer the phone, realize it was the teacher calling, and make fake "bad connection" sounds with their own mouth before hanging up on me. I never heard from them again.

I have had to call for police escorts to the car because a parent threatened physical harm and wouldn't leave the parking lot.

I have coworkers who have quit because a parent was stalking them on social media and in real life.

I have had a kid punch me in the stomach while I was pregnant and the dad just shrugged and didn't care.

The oldest grade I have taught was 1st grade. Most of my teaching has been in kindergarten and pre-k.

I called a parent of a seventh grade boy about 20 years ago… she told me that I was the one with the degree and to tell her what to do. I thanked her for her time and politely ended the call. P. S. That boy is now in prison…

Finding parents who back us teachers is rare.

I'm a school nurse and the negative reactions I get from empathetically telling a parent their kid is puking in my office or something still happens daily so yeah I'm not surprised.

When I taught theatre, our tech students had the opportunity to earn some money when the auditorium was rented by outside groups like dance studios. 99% of these students also did tech for department shows. One student decided that he only wanted to work the paid gigs. At the end of the year banquet, when we gave awards for outstanding work on department shows, he didn't receive any awards because he didn't do any shows. His mother cornered me in the hallway afterwards and was VERY upset that her little darling didn't get an award. No amount of logic could convince her that she was wrong.

Boy, being a 1980s baby certainly was different. Anytime I got in trouble at school my parents usually sided with the teacher (I can count on one hand the number of times they questioned things further; I had a couple teachers in my parochial school who unfortunately should not have been teaching, period, but I didn't find out about any of this until I had graduated college). Even if my parents disagreed with the teacher or school policy, it was still, "Your teacher is in charge and you listen to the person in charge, no matter what. You are a reflection of this family and we can't have you causing issues at the school." Anyways, while reminiscing about the good old days, a close friend told me about how he'd gotten a note sent home about him acting up at school, and his mom flipped and drove to the school to talk to the teacher (and then punished my friend). Turns out, the note actually went home to the WRONG family (they had the same last name). Anyways, my friend told his mom, "see, mom? I didn't do anything wrong" and she snapped back with, "oh, you're still in trouble! If X was doing something wrong, I know you were right along there with him! I know how you operate, and you were probably being disrespectful, too." My friend was stunned, but I don't think he got in trouble ever.

I would have sent you your Amazon wish list. I cannot tell you the breath I let out and breaths I then took calmly when a parent spoke rationally. Teacher must have explained calmly too? This is a valuable skill for both.

I know a teacher who thought her kids were angels & it was ALWAYS their teacher's fault if they got into trouble.

You are ok with your child being held accountable. Sadly, that is becoming more and more rare. Parents will argue that their child did nothing wrong and somehow it's someone else's fault. In most cases they blame the teacher.

My son's teacher got very nervous at parents evening about bringing up referring him to the school SENCO team. Like lady I've met my son, if you're talking about something he's into he's like a laser with his focus, if not you've got a wild one on your hands. His dad is autistic, I don't have a diagnosis but I'm likely ADHD. He may be completely NT but regardless if he needs a bit extra support I of course want to get him as much as he can get!

When I contact parents about behavior, there’s about a 90% chance they won’t even answer the phone or call back when I leave a message. Additionally, I met with a girl’s mother about her behavior and the girl screamed at her mother to shut up and leave, and physically pushed her because she didn’t want her to hear what I had to say. At the end of the convo, mother tells me, “I’ll try to talk to her but you see how she acts”. Like, wtf!? Are you all scared of your kids?!

I fortunately haven't had tons of difficult parents, but I have one who i swear hates her kids. Two are on my caseload. I made a positive call home last year and got a 30 minute angry rant about the kid in return. Tried to share positives about the other at the meeting, got a rant about how we were wrong about the kid being a good kid.

Any negative interaction is so disheartening -- I love and care about your kid. Disciplinary calls suck for me too. I hate making them. But I only do it because I care, and I'm grateful that in my four years so far I've only had two really rough parents in the disciplinary realm (one going as far as to threaten to sue the school over the disciplinary call... for the kid smoking weed in the bathroom).

Thank you for being a parent who PARTNERS with teachers.

We’ve had parents refuse to accept their child did anything wrong when there was CCTV, multiple adult witnesses and consistent statements from every student who saw the incident.

I even know of one parent who accused the school of getting the IT department to fake evidence and CCTV of her son sending absuvie messages from someone else’s account.

So yeah, parents being on-side can be very relieving 😅

I told a parent about their son’s behavior and was told that he’s a “mischievous little boy.” He threatened to stab a kid in the eye with scissors and is 13.

In my experience teaching high school, there were times where I wanted to tell parents:

I wish you were one of those parents who never picked up the phone, because you’d be much more useful than you are right now. 

The worst were the parents who both complained and never showed up. 

I believe that if parents don’t pick up the phone, the school district should be able to use that evidence to automatically get any lawsuit against them involving the child’s educational outcome dismissed. 

You are really a unicorn. Most parents get upset, blame the teacher, blame all other kids, insist that their little angel has NOT done whatever it is, even if they had they should not have ANY consequences because it hurts their feelings, and, this year's favourite "I've talked to my kid and he/she has a different perception"

Just for a frame of reference, I docked grades for middle school students for behavior during a concert. My district livestreamed the event and I could direct parents to the exact timestamp their little cherubs decided to yell slurs (N-word, hard "R") into a live microphone or shove their classmates on choir risers. I was cussed out for 10 minutes over the phone because a student didn't get a 100% for the concert, regardless of the video evidence of their behavior. I no longer make phonecalls home because of that parent and everything is in print so words cannot be twisted.

It’s never “what did my child do?” anymore. It’s always “what did you do to my child?”

I had a student when I was a para who would constantly be looking at "lewd" images at school. All the sites were blocked by the school obviously, but he would make Google slides on his computer at home and would access them at school.

The lead teacher emailed home and his mom's response was "we will pray for him".

Parents now are way more likely to blindly defend their kid, with a belief that their kid can do no wrong and would never bend the truth. The problem has to therefore be the teacher and/ or the other students, or some other external factor. It's wild because teachers are on the same side as parents with the same goal of helping children grow into well adjusted humans. Not believing a teacher's side of the story by default is insane. Most would greatly prefer to never have to discipline any kids, but bad behaviours need to have consequences and pretending things didn't happen just hurts the kid in the long run. Parents fail to consider the possibility that their kid might act differently in a group setting without them. Sorry you can't imagine them acting the way the teacher is describing to you... but teachers aren't making this shit up!

Honestly, I feel badly for the children with parents that endlessly defend them and put them on a pedestal where they can do no wrong. It robs them of such critical learning. They need to feel all the bad feelings that come from making a mistake so that they can do differently next time. I see so many that have NO consequences at home and it is virtually impossible for the teacher to do anything with those kids. The parents override you and fight you on it, accusing you of misunderstanding their perfect child and pointing the finger elsewhere. Kind of frightening to imagine these kids as adults.

As a brand new teacher, I was shocked at how this whole dynamic has changed since I was a kid (I'm 35). We are all very thankful for the level headed parents like you that work alongside us rather than against us!

I've heard parents on the phone as a student is talking to them. I'm a SPED aide who pushes into regular education classes and it's wild how some parents are. Also, some parents are not wild. 

Are parents really that neglectful? Yes

Can’t count the times I’ve been asked what I did make the student behave that way. One time I was accused of writing a hateful note with explicit language and putting in a child’s folder to frame them. The student was in 1st grade! It’s wild out here for educators now days.

There are supportive parents and those who are not engaged or are entitled. And there are supportive teachers and those who can’t be bothered to treat students as individuals or are jaded.

The key is to get the supportive folks from each group to match up :-)

I would say both teachers and parents are pretty unsettling these days. I think politics in America have "trickled down" into all aspects of our society.

Yes, parents don’t give a damn anymore.

At some point the attitude changed from what did my kid do wrong to what did the teacher do wrong.

I'm 16. My parents are downright hostile.

My husband sometimes paid my son to stay home from school. I didn't find out until after.

We are told to email as much as possible instead of calling so you have proof of what was said.

It is far more common to have parents defend the child and try to explain away the misconduct. “My kid hit another child? Well, what did that do to provoke him?”

This week I wrote to a parent that I have spoken to many times before about their child sleeping in class. It's every day and the kid is so sleep deprived that he can't get anything done. They told me he stays up gaming all night and said that they're doing their best but he doesn't listen. Maybe I am missing something, but to me, the answer to this is so painfully obvious it makes me angry at the parent (take away the console and/or controller, turn off the wifi). I feel that many parents just have no clue how to raise a child. 

I was running an after school program with elementary school students. 5 kids got into a physical fight. Started with one saying something mean to another and then a mele ensued with siblings and friends "defending honor". No one really got hurt.

I had all the kids sit down and we talked about what happened and how things could be handled in the future. I had them each apologize to each other for the part they played in the issue. All but 1 kid apologized so I released the others to go back to their activity and that kid got to hang with me the rest of the day (he eventually made the apology).

I said nothing to the parents as we handled it and came to somewhat of a resolution. At pickup I released a brother and sister to their dad. They must have told him in the car. He comes storming back to the building telling me there is no way his kids should be punished because he teaches them that if someone bullies them, they HAVE to hit. I calmly explained that you can teach them what you want but we have a no physical violence policy and there are consequences if they hit others. He kept railing that his kids shouldn't have had to apologize and went on and on. I just told him that if this is the way they were going to conduct themselves the program wasn't a good fit.

Those kids were more often than not the bullies by the way and anything done against them was usually brought on by them in the first place...

Yeah, worked in a front office for a few months, genuine nightmare. Once had a parent call me incompetent because I couldn’t magically tell her who took her kids laptop. Mind you, the kid gave no description of the person just said “she may have been a principal or counselor?” Yeah that’s that’s like 30 people at the school then when pushed she said it was the head principal and that the woman “had sister locs and is tall”…. Our head principal is a 4ft Filipino lady. Another parent got extremely angry because their like 17/18 year old son hadn’t come out yet (kid had early out so had no last period class) and was taking it out on us cuz his kid was “lost” ( be so ffr, your kid is fine) started basically berating us because we refused to make an all call announcement (we actually legally cannot do that sir), mind you we we’re ACTIVELY CHECKING THE CAMERAS. Guess where he was? Helping his teacher in a lab. I’ve had a parent once yell at me because I didn’t know the deadline for soccer tryouts? She literally SCREAMED at me and called me an idiot because I asked her to give me more information. I connected her to everyone I could, not my fault they’re not doing THEIR job. Had a parent the day before yesterday who was straight ANGRY because their kid got their phone taken (there’s a state wide ban on phones btw) and was searched… we were following state policy. He as the 100000000th parent to yell at us over that policy btw. I’ve also had parents yell at me because their kid got expelled?!? Very perplexing. I’ve been yelled at so many times because a parent asked me a vague question and I explained “I have no information to give you based off of that” and they lacked info. I’ve also had a lot of parents call like 5 minutes before school ends and get VERY upset that I can’t get them an admin on the phone (they’re all out at bus duty making sure your kid doesn’t get fucking shot dude). Had multiple parents get upset they can’t speak to the head principal, ummm she has work to do asshole. I’ve also had a LOT of parents get angry because I ask “what are you calling regard” before connecting them to the admin. Ma’am, I don’t give a shit that your kid punched a hole through the vending machine, I just need to make sure you’re not calling to give them a bomb threat. Multiple parents upset that they can’t talk to the teachers MID CLASS too. Like bruh what? But yeah, you’re a massive exception. I’m just a lowly student volunteering for the free GPA boost and I can confirm, parents can be the dumbest assholes imaginable. Thank you for being nice

Yes. My stepson's teacher has reached out to both parents to let them know that he is not listening in class, distracts everyone around him, isn't following instructions or completing work, and is disrespectful to the teacher. He said he treats school like a joke. My partner (his dad) replied, thank you for letting us know, we will talk to him and work on this and we don't tolerate that behaviour, keep us updated, etc. His mom, however, replied with a very long email trying to explain that he is just a fun loving kid who probably doesn't understand when it's supposed to be quiet time or not, and subsequently booked a meeting with the principal to complain about the teacher, after which she TOLD THE KIDS that the office told her his teacher just picks on kids he doesn't like. Now the kid thinks he can do no wrong and the teacher is just bullying him!!

Yes

I hate contacting parents. I once had a kid interviewing girls in my class asking them how many people they had slept with. Literally recording the audio. The parent came back with “how come he’s always in trouble in your class” and then in the next breath said she was going to send her husband to “come deal with me”.

One year, the students frequently threatened us with telling their parents. Just for trying to get them to do their work. One parent from that year’s group even had a cease-and-desist order from targeting a teacher.

Thankfully, that wasn’t always the case.

One day, a student threatened to call their parents on me because I took their phone when they were on it rather than doing work. That was the school policy.

An hour later, I got a call saying that that parent was in the office and wanted to talk to me. I can’t begin to tell you how much anxiety I felt.

But when I came up, the parent turned to their student and made him apologize.

I was absolutely floored. I don’t think I thanked them, because I was so shocked that it didn’t even sink in until after they left. To this day, I still feel thankful for that parent. I wish I could say thank you.

I luv my kids teachers, so hard to gind teachers that actually care about their jobs and you can't blame them, they are used as a child minding services more than for educational purposes these days. Parents should kiss the ground teachers walk on. We have a teacher shirtage, wonder why ? If the kuds have the same attitudes as the oarents why would anyone want to be a teacher

I will do anything to avoid contacting parents about behavior.

Most parents only take the side of their own kid NOT the teachers

Depends on the class. I teach both dual language and regular classes. The dual language parents are very supportive. The regular its a crapshoot.

Picked up my nephew from school the other day. Damn near every single mom that I saw with their kid, they were walking with their kid holding their hand, while the mom stared down at their phone, texting or reading or something.

I only say moms here because I didn’t see many dads picking up kids.

Education is this countries dirty little secret. Ask any educator in any state and they’ll tell you the same thing. This country is about to have a teacher shortage with a generation of adults who have never had any consequences until they turn 18 and meet the law. It’s almost to the point where I feel like it’s intentional in urban areas to give underprivileged kids no consequences so that they won’t know how to handle them when they get older and then pipeline to jail.

I contacted a parent because their child had been stealing stuff from my classroom. They yelled and cussed me out because I confronted their child about it. (Stuff had been stolen for days. A student privately told me who was stealing. When I asked the boy if he did it. He said yes.). Mom said that her child is now not going to do any work for me. I hung up on her when she started cussing and wouldn’t listen to me.

Before I was an English teacher I used to guest speak in schools about domestic violence for over a decade. Once I saw two parents come on to school grounds to fight each other because of their kids' disagreement. Another time (same school but different year) a parent came into the school looking to fight a CHILD that their own kid had a problem with. Another time, a different school's principal asked me to lead some parent groups because some parents were being SO RACIST to a 6th grade student on social media, so I had to meet with the parents of that kid and with the racist parents to try to help...something. I was floored. And they were so immature. I would say that the parents were acting like children, but that would be an insult to children. It was so pathetic.

I really hate our society's rhetoric about how having kids is the only thing that makes life meaningful. So many people push that bs. This kind of outlook leads people who have no business being parents to have kids.

I cannot tell you how many times I called a parent about a genuine issue and they were HORRIBLE to me. Left teaching ten years ago and haven’t been spoken to that way since.