Re: Dealing with Difficult Parents

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But the very sad part about all of this, there are those that might hate
male students and treat them accordingly. They are extremely agitated by
typical boy behaviors. Thus, while a teacher may not say that they hate
boys, the tone, the reprimands, etc all point to that. I've seen it.
Sometimes one must look closely to see if there is any grain of truth or
interpretation to what the child says even if it wasn't those exact
words.

I can guarantee just about every teacher gets their dander up when someone
says my child said. Well, there are many perspectives to things that
impact the thought process of both student and teacher. Fighting about
who is right is just a power trip. Find the kernel of truth which
ususally means there is an issue on both sides (aside from the few and far
between real nuts) and deal with the problem. That may be looking at
procedures that lead up to the problem. That may mean that the student is
sitting in a location that doesn't work for him.

As soon as you accuse the parent/student of lying, your battle is lost.
You may squish it, but in the long run, you lost.

Recently there was a teacher at our school accused of telling a class they
were stupid. In reality, this comes up just about every year. Teacher
balked at that idea. Well, while the teacher defended that it was never
said, the teacher explained what was said. Well, it is very easy to see
why it was interpreted the way the students said it was. There was
nothing positive in the comment or helpful. It was denegrating to the
students and what they took away from it was they were stupid. Teacher to
this day defends I didn't say they were stupid. Well, no, those exact
words weren't used. The teacher didn't call the student stupid and would
die on that sword to defend. However, the teacher does tend to denigrate
the class in hopes it will motivate them. The teacher does compare
classes and has no problem telling one how inferior they are to the other
and telling the other how much better they are than the inferior class.
Never said stupid.

But remember, I did say there were those problem people, but trying to be
right won't get you anywere. Trying to come up with a new plan might, but
you have to make sure it isn't based off of proving you are right.

On 7/05/11, Sara wrote:
>>
>> Some of the responses here sound so easy...too easy. What if you
>> have a parent who believes anything her son says?
>
> There are always nutty people and nutty parents. Those parents should
> be handled with kid gloves because manhandling them makes them worse,
> not better. When working with nuts, be careful not to set them off and
> NEVER think you can win a battle with a nut. You can't and you're as
> nutty as they are if you like fighting with them.
>
> I build a reputation so positive - and that's not easy because it takes
> incredible patience - that no one will support the nutty parent in
> their nutty contention.
>
> But a scorching e-mail is a sign of a nut or a borderline nut. Never
> worry about scorching e-mails - everyone takes them as the sign of a
> nut. Answer them with warm words like "I received your e-mail and am
> sorry that you are so upset. Kindly call me at your convenience so we
> can speak in person. I very much look forward to speaking with you."
>
> She will not call - you can cc your email to your principal (never cc
> to the superintendant).
>
> And no, you're not calling a child a liar because you dispute the
> child's recounting of an event. Say things like "If John heard
> something like that, it would certainly NEVER be my intention to say
> something like that. Certainly this district would not want to hire
> teachers who dislike make students so to represent the district fairly
> and to represent myself honestly, please know I hold all my students in
> warm regard - both boys and girls."
>
> Working with people and parents takes some finesse - it's not easy,
> you're right, but if we leave our egos at home and tread carefully,
> even nutty parents can be worked with. But also fairly said, if someone
> doesn't want to work with parents, they shouldn't be teaching. It's a
> part of the job.
>
> I had a student
>> tell his mother that I got up in front of the class and announced
>> that I "hate my male students." So when he misbehaved in class and
>> was disciplined, it was merely my discriminating against his gender.
>> She absolutely believed him and sent me a "scorching" email (copied
>> to the principal and the superintendent)telling me that I should
>> apologize to every male student that I have and so on and so
>> forth...I, of course, had said nothing like that and this student was
>> one who got into trouble often in all of his classes. So how would
>> any of these suggestions help with a parent as unreasonable as this?
>> In denying that I said such a thing I would be calling her son a
>> "liar." I don't see how you can deal with this sort of person.

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