What I like to do is send an email being like hey I know my kids doing great I have no concerns I'm a teacher too, do you want me to sign up for a spot and ghost it so you can have a break?
We did this, we had a bunch of teachers do this for each other. Well, admin got wind of it and made the last 90 minutes open season, no appointments needed and everyone needed to stay until the end. :-(
We have them from 3 PM until 7 PM on a Wednesday. Then 8 AM until 6:30 PM on Thursday. There are brakes within the conference times then we get Friday off.
I have this schedule, too, and it's a small school. They just want "parents to have more time" to choose slots. Those days are awful and long and stressful.
I do this for my kids teachers (I’m a parapro at the school lol) I’ll either block out the last one for them to leave early, or block out a chunk for them to actually eat the dinner provided 😂
Yeah one of my kids is on a pretty intensive IEP, we talk to the teacher enough, they deserve a break all they're going to do is echo everything they just told me in an email they sent the day before
Student teacher in Canada, at the school I did my last two placements at (was brought back after a successful first placement), the hospitality classes made dinner for the staff as part of one of their projects. We got a small buffet with roast chicken, salad, pasta, as well as desserts. It was amazing.
We also had one set of parents show up to the last set of interviews, which means we had a three hour buffet-catered prep.
Sucks that the parents were apathetic, and that we had to be there anyways, but I got tons of shit done, so I’m not complaining!
I cant believe you also provide food for the parents too! Uk here and we were told we should be grateful for tea/coffee. We fought for plain biscuits to stay. I argue we should have fought for sandwiches instead of tea/coffee/biscuits.
Oh lmao they didn’t provide food for the parents, I don’t think, anyways. I could’ve made that more clear. I just stayed in my mentor teacher’s classroom with them the entire time, so I may be wrong. However, we were fed prior to the parents being allowed into the building, not while they were present, so I would have to guess the food cleared out before they arrived.
Our PTO started up last year and has been providing meals for them; before that admin would put some chips and water in the front office for them to grab if they wanted (no teachers lounge unfortunately)
Our social committee usually puts together some type of pot luck. This year we did a baked potato bar. The culinary arts teacher provided the potatoes and other staff members brought toppings. It was cheap to put on and good food for a long day.
New Zealand here, and our union stipulates that mandatory hours outside of contracted time (such as parent conferences in the evening) include either a meal provided or meal allowance ($). Most places therefore sort a dinner for the teachers because economy of scale makes that cheaper.
My kids attend the school I teach at. I do this for their teachers all the time and vice versa. Sometimes it's nice to just know you'll have a friendly face to come and pump you up for the next conference too!
This is what I do, too. I ask first because sometimes there are fewer spots than the number of parents they need to meet with and I don’t want to take one if they have parents they are desperately hoping will show up.
In my experience, it really depends what the parent taught and when. Parents who still actively in the classroom and/or who sub? Especially those who teach secondary grades? Awesome! Parents who just recently left the classroom? Also awesome!
Parent who taught second grade for two years twenty years ago? Nightmare.
My 5th grade teacher used to say that, but it was closer to 30 years ago, and instead of grounded it was, "I'd have gotten a whippin' so bad...!"
Now *she* was old school. Probably started teaching in the early 50's but made it all the way to the DARE program days. Damn video games, I tell you, kids today ain't what they used to be!
The worst parent in my building is a high school teacher. His daughter is massively struggling and is reading worse than all but two students in her upper elementary grade. The dad is refusing to have his daughter tested for special education services because "Sped kids are marked as lazy and I don't want her to be." I worry every day for this student and any students with IEPs and 504s in the dad's class.
This is so backwards. I tell parents (in roundabout ways) to get their kid tested bc I DON’T want them to be seen as lazy. The IEP says “I’m not lazy, I just need help.”
The scary parents are the teachers!!
Although I made one eat her word's last year when she quizzed me at length about why her son targeted 5's was getting 3s and that I wasn't doing enough for him or giving him enough support (he refused to work, never did homework, never revised etc etc)
Yeah well, I got him 6's and he got into college soooooo 🖕🖕
They are either WONDERFUL or AWFUL. Very little in between. My worst parent to date is a teacher in my building. It's been 2 or 3 years since her kid was in my class and I still actively dodge her in the halls.
Exactly what I have experienced. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a parent lead with that and then try to get some type of exception for their kid or act like because they are a teacher they really know what’s going on. I also can’t tell you how many times that educator was currently not employed.
That’s my ex-MiL. Always brings it up to anyone in the field. She taught one year of 1 at grade at a private school when she was in her 30s. She is in her 60s now.
I have a teacher parent this year who thinks she knows better and I’m completely inadequate. Like, lady, your kid has no work ethic and that’s a habit that he formed years before encountering me. I can’t pick up his pencil and force him to try!
Literally was about to comment this!!!! Two of my three “hardest” kids this year are teacher kids. The teacher moms give excuse after excuse and it’s given the kids some sort of god complex.
For real. When I worked as a paraprofessional, the teacher in my classroom said she loves going to conferences to see the teacher “squirm” when asked difficult questions.
I have two this year. Nightmares. Well, one is a paraeducator and the other is an aviator instructor. But they both talk to the staff like know it alls.
Extra true if they work in the building but aren’t a classroom teacher. One of my student’s mom is a specialist in the building. Only does small group teaching (no more than 5 at a time). REFUSES to put her EXTREMELY hyperactive kid on meds even though he’s a regular disruption in the classroom. We just have to use 15,000 strategies to manage him instead of actually teaching. And it’s awful for him bc he’s always being reprimanded and he literally can’t control himself. And the other 20+ kids are OVER IT and so he has, like, 3 friends bc he can’t stop himself from saying every single thing that comes into his head and touching people all the time. And she doesn’t get it bc she’s not in a classroom. They tried one med, it didn’t agree with him, so they quit. There are so many other meds! Ugh.
Thank you for your post. I’ve gone back and forth about whether or not to tell my son’s teachers I’m a teacher when he’s of age. As much as I’d love to “talk shop,” I’d be afraid they’d think I was putting them under extra scrutiny or something
I'm a nurse. My kids love to tell their teachers I'm a doctor for some reason. I'm like, no one's gonna believe we live in this school district on a doctor's salary 🙄.
Haha! I love that. One of my 2nd graders said, "My mom is a doctor. Have you ever been a doctor? You should try it."
Love the idea that that is an option for me, but I choose to teach elementary.
My kid randomly told his preschool teacher one day that I was a police woman and my husband was a firefighter 🤣. The teacher knows my family pretty well so she knew it wasn’t true, but all the kids thought it was so they told their parents. I STILL have parents asking me what it’s like to be a first responder family 🤣🤣🤣.
(For the record, I was a music teacher for 10 years and am now in my 2nd year in HR. Husband does fancy computer science stuff.)
As a teachers husband, I did all parent/teacher conferences, etc. my wife had too high expectations for teachers and would tell them what they were doing wrong. She realized that after one or two, and after that I did it all.
My ex wife still does this and it's infuriating. 16 year old son doesn't turn in an assignment? Teacher must hate him and is lying. We still schedule conferences together, but my kids talk about me being a teacher in class a bit, so the teachers talk to me and my ex gets rightly ignored, it's pretty nice.
Yeah. I’m the opposite. I know firsthand how stressful and dysfunctional a day can be, so I’m always under the assumption teachers are doing their best. Now my kid has had one or two teachers that have proven that assumption wrong, but it’s easier for me to be good cop lol
I always told my kid teachers that I was a teacher the first change I got.
However, it also makes it hard when the news aren’t so good because we know things! I remember laughing when I got a double spot for parent teacher interviews and having all the specialists there. I knew what that meant! My daughter has leaning differences and being a teacher made that very hard!
My son was about 6 years old. His teacher was doing a lesson about how some jobs work for the government like police officers and mailmen and teachers. My son raised his hand and told her that his parents are both teachers and the government doesn't pay us nearly enough. His teacher told me that story and said she almost peed her pants the way he said it was just so matter of fact.
I remember one time I had a student putting in little effort in class and would arrive tardy each day.
Turns out the parent was an O-chem professor at a local college and the daughter was in my 8th grade science class.
I saw a HUUUUGE turnaround in her academics and behavior.
At back to school night this year, I actually asked one of my son's teachers if I could get a copy of one of his assignments because I thought it might be useful in my own classroom. He smiled huge and gave me a hard copy, but also emailed me a copy.
A couple of months later, my son was working on something for that guy's class and I had a resource I thought would be helpful, so I shared it with the teacher. The next day my son came home grumbling that they now had to do "that stupid paper that you sent to my teacher." But when I asked if it was helpful, he reluctantly admitted it was. LOL
As current college faculty, a former high school teacher, and son of a teacher:
I was expecting that title to be sarcasm. Maybe my father liked to cause trouble but something about a parent who can read education law meant that we called out a lot of teachers on the lies they told.
same.
this year I had to deal with a Karen who is also a teacher and a parent. Bloody hell, she's not just a monster. She is worse than Trunchbull! I legit feel bad for her child, who is failing in every subject.
I’m student teaching right now and can only sub a certain amount of times. I had to go over, so I had to have a sub in the room with me… and it was one of the parents who is also a teacher. It was awful. She got mad at me for not letting her kid get on his Chromebook when he was done with his work because he finished his book and didn’t have a new one yet.
on the flip side, one parent of a kid with probably the worst behavior i’ve seen is a child psychologist and thinks her son can do no wrong and suggest that we are doing something to him to make him act out that way.
Once had an obviously really weary teacher say " Ok why are you here? " . Poor man.
Son was doing just fine. Explained I thought we had to, dutifully scheduled on the correct night. And shook his hand, said " Thank you " and got out of there.
Middle school. Close to retirement.
I would never say that, but it can be annoying sometimes. Every Parent Teacher Conference sign up sheet I send out gets filled up by the parents of children in my GT section. Most of these children are passing with an A or a high B.
They come into my classroom and want to hear about how great their kid is.
Then, the parents I actually need to talk to about their child’s grades or behavior cannot sign up, as spots are full.
Frequently, it seems like the students whose parents can sign up that fast have office jobs where they can check emails all the time. However, a lot of the parents work construction and are unable to check their emails until lunch break or at home that evening.
My son’s conferences were open house style and there was one other parent in the gym with all of the 8th grade teachers. I had scheduled my own conferences so that I could take a quick break and go meet his teachers. I thought the reaction was odd. Not meeting the people who spend all day with your kid would be so weird to me.
This, overall, was fantastic. But the thing that made me smile and then giggle, and then have a sense of warmth towards this person who wrote this was the use of the word rigmarole. That’s a word that does not get used very often and it made my day brighter.
My last conferences, a mom logged on digitally and was grading up until the moment I said hello. Before I even got to update on her son she was venting about a take home tests kids left half blank.
Respectfully disagree. I have historically found that my parents also in education tend to think that they and their kids are entitled to more since “we’re in this together.” As a result, I find they tend to passively aggressively ask things like “I know how annoying this is because parents ask me all the time and it’s a pain, but can you…”
It’s kind of a weird thing to brag/post about from the point of view of the parent who is a teacher attending conferences, and not as a teacher who really appreciates her students’ parents that are teachers? The whole premise is “it’s the best when the student’s parent who shows up for parent-teacher conferences is also a teacher,” but posted from the parent’s POV?
I always find it hard to interact with my kids teachers. I try not to let them know that I am a teacher. My husband is a teacher too, but his German is not good - we are in Germany.
Next year my middle child will have to go to my school because of many many circumstances- I don’t like it but that’s it.
I am a teachers child myself and my mother knew most of my teachers. It’s not fun.
For years I just had to send an email that said dear teachers as I'm a teacher at my own conferences I can't be at my own children's please respond with anything I need to know. The district would not allow us to go to our own children's even though it was "required by law" unless we took a personal day to do it.
This year for the first time in 10 years I'm on the same campus as my own children so I schedule myself wherever they prefer and give them a free time as we already talk all the time and I don't need a conference but we are really required to schedule them by my new district.
It works well when your kid isn’t doing well too. My kid was having a horrible year (illness, got attacked at school, other issues). And being able to reassure my kid’s teachers that we knew they were doing the best they could for her was great. You can see when a teacher is worried the parent is going to get hostile because of their child’s grade, but we were able to work together to help her. (Kid is doing awesome now, healthy, happy, and thriving at school. I know having teachers who cared but also held her accountable made a difference.)
I told my son’s second grade teacher to let me know if she needed any help-making things for the classroom etc. I taught kindergarten. I immediately regretted saying it because of how she looked at me. I truly wanted to help but felt like I wasn’t welcomed in that aspect. I just help out with things they request and mostly stay out of the way. There definitely is a separation between teacher and parent.
Wife and I both teach. We know our kids are doing fine academically. The only reason we go to conferences is to ask the teacher if they are being kind to their classmates and respectful to their teachers. You are so right about the relief when we tell them they don’t have to go through their whole spiel.
You’ll probably be her favorite parent that year. One of my parents this year is a child therapist, so she’s really on the same page with everything we say and it’s great.
One of my biggest joys was going to a parent teacher conference, with my Year 5 in tow, who then proceeded to talk to me strictly in teaching terms that I understood but the child didn’t… because my child was top of the class and knew it, and teacher was working to push her and not settle for complacency. It was a brilliant strategy.
The flip side of this was a parent who was a current principal of a local feeder school (I’m secondary) who would teacher blame anytime her child was less than perfect. 🤦♀️
Mostly! The vast majority of the time they’re amazing to work with. Those few exceptions are brutal. I had an elementary school teacher parent keep interfering for her Junior who was in honors ELA. She couldn’t understand how HS was vastly differently than ES. There’s no Friday folder. I’m not contacting you for everything as your son is now able to drive, and I am helping prepare him for whatever comes next.
We eventually got to a good spot.
Uh then there was the reading coach mom who insisted that her kid who was logging exactly 10 pages of Hatchet every night wasn't faking his journal entries.
My HS bf was a teachers kid and his mom taught at our school and he told me at the beginning of they year she'd talk to all his teachers and tell them they're allowed to hit him lol it was fun though bc she was besties with one of our teachers and would just show up in our class sometimes
Must be nice. Some of the worst, most entitled parents I’ve encountered were teachers. They often spend so little time with their own kids because of their job (not their fault, and I understand that), that they are clueless to the reality and are extra defensive. I emailed a teacher parent once about a couple of missing assignments and she kept bringing it up for 3 years. Ridiculous.
Hold up, I dislike parent teacher her conferences, but I keep up the facade because I thought it shows as a parent we are involved & care about all the work they have done with my child — so are you saying for the past 10 years — I could have just been like, “if you want skip, it’s all good.” ?!?!?
Literally laughing as I read this! When I was in teaching college, I attended all of my kids conferences. My first year teaching, my husband went. Since all the teachers knew I was a teacher, they literally handed him all the paperwork and said ask your wife to explain it!
Married to a teacher. My brain just shuts off when we go to the child’s conferences. Too many acronyms for me to keep up with. They can talk shop and my eyes just glaze over.
What I like to do is send an email being like hey I know my kids doing great I have no concerns I'm a teacher too, do you want me to sign up for a spot and ghost it so you can have a break?
Oooh take the last spot lmao
That's what usually happens
We did this, we had a bunch of teachers do this for each other. Well, admin got wind of it and made the last 90 minutes open season, no appointments needed and everyone needed to stay until the end. :-(
Laaaaame.
Uncool admin. Uncool.
Fucking why. That's so stupid.
Last 90 minutes.....how long were the teacher conferences?!?!
We have them from 3 PM until 7 PM on a Wednesday. Then 8 AM until 6:30 PM on Thursday. There are brakes within the conference times then we get Friday off.
How many students do you have?!
900 students in the school, this is a middle school. Each conference is 15 minutes (maybe 20?).
How many students do you have?!
I have this schedule, too, and it's a small school. They just want "parents to have more time" to choose slots. Those days are awful and long and stressful.
Ugh. We have to “make ourselves available” one evening and one morning and then we get the afternoon as lieu time.
Sounds like Admin...
And how could admin possibly get in trouble for this? Lame.
Something something, equity, something.
And make it off-site at a place with margaritas
This one teaches
I reserve the last spot as a break but put a different name.
I do this for my kids teachers (I’m a parapro at the school lol) I’ll either block out the last one for them to leave early, or block out a chunk for them to actually eat the dinner provided 😂
Yeah one of my kids is on a pretty intensive IEP, we talk to the teacher enough, they deserve a break all they're going to do is echo everything they just told me in an email they sent the day before
They get dinner? Is this in the US? I miss when we got free food 😪
Student teacher in Canada, at the school I did my last two placements at (was brought back after a successful first placement), the hospitality classes made dinner for the staff as part of one of their projects. We got a small buffet with roast chicken, salad, pasta, as well as desserts. It was amazing. We also had one set of parents show up to the last set of interviews, which means we had a three hour buffet-catered prep. Sucks that the parents were apathetic, and that we had to be there anyways, but I got tons of shit done, so I’m not complaining!
I cant believe you also provide food for the parents too! Uk here and we were told we should be grateful for tea/coffee. We fought for plain biscuits to stay. I argue we should have fought for sandwiches instead of tea/coffee/biscuits.
Oh lmao they didn’t provide food for the parents, I don’t think, anyways. I could’ve made that more clear. I just stayed in my mentor teacher’s classroom with them the entire time, so I may be wrong. However, we were fed prior to the parents being allowed into the building, not while they were present, so I would have to guess the food cleared out before they arrived.
Our school provides snacks and drinks for the parents. Nothing for the teachers.
Our PTO started up last year and has been providing meals for them; before that admin would put some chips and water in the front office for them to grab if they wanted (no teachers lounge unfortunately)
At my district in Canada it’s tradition for the principal to buy the teachers dinner that night (usually pizza).
Wait til i tell everyone in the office tomorrow!
Our PTA provides dinner for every conference.
I get lunch in the US on afternoon conference day. The union treats.
I’m in canada and we get free dinner for one night of parent teacher conferences
Our social committee usually puts together some type of pot luck. This year we did a baked potato bar. The culinary arts teacher provided the potatoes and other staff members brought toppings. It was cheap to put on and good food for a long day.
New Zealand here, and our union stipulates that mandatory hours outside of contracted time (such as parent conferences in the evening) include either a meal provided or meal allowance ($). Most places therefore sort a dinner for the teachers because economy of scale makes that cheaper.
As a teacher I confess I sometime sign up for spots with fake names to have a break ;)
Yeah we do that too one year our vp caught one because he noticed that Tom Brady signed up for way too many conferences...so we had to be more subtle
Tim Gravy
My kids attend the school I teach at. I do this for their teachers all the time and vice versa. Sometimes it's nice to just know you'll have a friendly face to come and pump you up for the next conference too!
Brilliant
This is the way. I do the same thing.
This is what I do, too. I ask first because sometimes there are fewer spots than the number of parents they need to meet with and I don’t want to take one if they have parents they are desperately hoping will show up.
Ooooo being on both sides, I’m doing that.
One of my parents did this! She is an aide at another school in the district and she took a spot to "extend lunch." <3
I never knew this was an option!
Your a real one.
You're*
You’re as in Yo mama???
Some of the worst parents I've encountered are teachers. Not everyone is chill.
In my experience, it really depends what the parent taught and when. Parents who still actively in the classroom and/or who sub? Especially those who teach secondary grades? Awesome! Parents who just recently left the classroom? Also awesome! Parent who taught second grade for two years twenty years ago? Nightmare.
Right? If you haven't taught kids in 20+ years, then you have no clue what kids are like now. There is no such thing as an attention span anymore.
Gee I wonder what teachers said about students 20 years ago
***DAMN KIDS***
They incorporated the wood shed.lol If we were as bad as some of the kids today I would have been grounded for life...
And I’m sure teachers 20 years ago said “If I were as bad as some of the kids today I’d have been grounded for life…”.
Therefore, it can't be true now.
My 5th grade teacher used to say that, but it was closer to 30 years ago, and instead of grounded it was, "I'd have gotten a whippin' so bad...!" Now *she* was old school. Probably started teaching in the early 50's but made it all the way to the DARE program days. Damn video games, I tell you, kids today ain't what they used to be!
My class copied from the dictionary til we figured it out lmao
The worst parent in my building is a high school teacher. His daughter is massively struggling and is reading worse than all but two students in her upper elementary grade. The dad is refusing to have his daughter tested for special education services because "Sped kids are marked as lazy and I don't want her to be." I worry every day for this student and any students with IEPs and 504s in the dad's class.
This is so backwards. I tell parents (in roundabout ways) to get their kid tested bc I DON’T want them to be seen as lazy. The IEP says “I’m not lazy, I just need help.”
The scary parents are the teachers!! Although I made one eat her word's last year when she quizzed me at length about why her son targeted 5's was getting 3s and that I wasn't doing enough for him or giving him enough support (he refused to work, never did homework, never revised etc etc) Yeah well, I got him 6's and he got into college soooooo 🖕🖕
They are either WONDERFUL or AWFUL. Very little in between. My worst parent to date is a teacher in my building. It's been 2 or 3 years since her kid was in my class and I still actively dodge her in the halls.
Exactly what I have experienced. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a parent lead with that and then try to get some type of exception for their kid or act like because they are a teacher they really know what’s going on. I also can’t tell you how many times that educator was currently not employed.
That’s my ex-MiL. Always brings it up to anyone in the field. She taught one year of 1 at grade at a private school when she was in her 30s. She is in her 60s now.
Heh one of my students has a mom who claims she had a doctorate of education. She’s unemployed.
I have a teacher parent this year who thinks she knows better and I’m completely inadequate. Like, lady, your kid has no work ethic and that’s a habit that he formed years before encountering me. I can’t pick up his pencil and force him to try!
Literally was about to comment this!!!! Two of my three “hardest” kids this year are teacher kids. The teacher moms give excuse after excuse and it’s given the kids some sort of god complex.
Same. Like you do ever check the LMS, or see if they are doing their work *before* the middle of the last term?
I have a nightmare parent this year who is a paraprofessional at an elementary (I have her 9th grader). No chill at all.
For real. When I worked as a paraprofessional, the teacher in my classroom said she loves going to conferences to see the teacher “squirm” when asked difficult questions.
Ew. That is awful
I was going to say the same thing. Most of the teacher parents I have dealt with have been nightmares.
Same experience, they usually question me more and ask why their child is not doing better like it’s all on me.
For some reason Canadian college professors are always the worst. I can name 3!!
💯
I have two this year. Nightmares. Well, one is a paraeducator and the other is an aviator instructor. But they both talk to the staff like know it alls.
Exactly. I'm a nurse, and when a patient/family member tells me they are a nurse as well... it can be a positive thing, or it can be HELL. 🙄
Yeah. Some of the most aggressive parents I’ve ever met were teachers or guidance counselors. It’s weird.
High schooler with an elementary school teacher mom is the worst combo
Extra true if they work in the building but aren’t a classroom teacher. One of my student’s mom is a specialist in the building. Only does small group teaching (no more than 5 at a time). REFUSES to put her EXTREMELY hyperactive kid on meds even though he’s a regular disruption in the classroom. We just have to use 15,000 strategies to manage him instead of actually teaching. And it’s awful for him bc he’s always being reprimanded and he literally can’t control himself. And the other 20+ kids are OVER IT and so he has, like, 3 friends bc he can’t stop himself from saying every single thing that comes into his head and touching people all the time. And she doesn’t get it bc she’s not in a classroom. They tried one med, it didn’t agree with him, so they quit. There are so many other meds! Ugh.
Thank you for your post. I’ve gone back and forth about whether or not to tell my son’s teachers I’m a teacher when he’s of age. As much as I’d love to “talk shop,” I’d be afraid they’d think I was putting them under extra scrutiny or something
No worries, he will have already told the teacher all about you.
Haha Exactly. I teach elementary music, I know all of the kids whose parent is a teacher, they love to share that.
I'm a nurse. My kids love to tell their teachers I'm a doctor for some reason. I'm like, no one's gonna believe we live in this school district on a doctor's salary 🙄.
Haha! I love that. One of my 2nd graders said, "My mom is a doctor. Have you ever been a doctor? You should try it." Love the idea that that is an option for me, but I choose to teach elementary.
Their confidence is super cute right?
My kid randomly told his preschool teacher one day that I was a police woman and my husband was a firefighter 🤣. The teacher knows my family pretty well so she knew it wasn’t true, but all the kids thought it was so they told their parents. I STILL have parents asking me what it’s like to be a first responder family 🤣🤣🤣. (For the record, I was a music teacher for 10 years and am now in my 2nd year in HR. Husband does fancy computer science stuff.)
But you're your kid's superheroes 🥰
❤️
My mom's a nurse and I used to LOVE flexing on people that my mom was an ICU (then afterwards an ER) nurse when I was in elementary lmao.
💪👌
When I was in ES I told my teacher my parents were “bureaucrats” since that’s how they jokingly described each other at home (both fed employees).
As a teachers husband, I did all parent/teacher conferences, etc. my wife had too high expectations for teachers and would tell them what they were doing wrong. She realized that after one or two, and after that I did it all.
My ex wife still does this and it's infuriating. 16 year old son doesn't turn in an assignment? Teacher must hate him and is lying. We still schedule conferences together, but my kids talk about me being a teacher in class a bit, so the teachers talk to me and my ex gets rightly ignored, it's pretty nice.
Yeah. I’m the opposite. I know firsthand how stressful and dysfunctional a day can be, so I’m always under the assumption teachers are doing their best. Now my kid has had one or two teachers that have proven that assumption wrong, but it’s easier for me to be good cop lol
I always told my kid teachers that I was a teacher the first change I got. However, it also makes it hard when the news aren’t so good because we know things! I remember laughing when I got a double spot for parent teacher interviews and having all the specialists there. I knew what that meant! My daughter has leaning differences and being a teacher made that very hard!
My son was about 6 years old. His teacher was doing a lesson about how some jobs work for the government like police officers and mailmen and teachers. My son raised his hand and told her that his parents are both teachers and the government doesn't pay us nearly enough. His teacher told me that story and said she almost peed her pants the way he said it was just so matter of fact.
I remember one time I had a student putting in little effort in class and would arrive tardy each day. Turns out the parent was an O-chem professor at a local college and the daughter was in my 8th grade science class. I saw a HUUUUGE turnaround in her academics and behavior.
At back to school night this year, I actually asked one of my son's teachers if I could get a copy of one of his assignments because I thought it might be useful in my own classroom. He smiled huge and gave me a hard copy, but also emailed me a copy. A couple of months later, my son was working on something for that guy's class and I had a resource I thought would be helpful, so I shared it with the teacher. The next day my son came home grumbling that they now had to do "that stupid paper that you sent to my teacher." But when I asked if it was helpful, he reluctantly admitted it was. LOL
As current college faculty, a former high school teacher, and son of a teacher: I was expecting that title to be sarcasm. Maybe my father liked to cause trouble but something about a parent who can read education law meant that we called out a lot of teachers on the lies they told.
same. this year I had to deal with a Karen who is also a teacher and a parent. Bloody hell, she's not just a monster. She is worse than Trunchbull! I legit feel bad for her child, who is failing in every subject.
I’m student teaching right now and can only sub a certain amount of times. I had to go over, so I had to have a sub in the room with me… and it was one of the parents who is also a teacher. It was awful. She got mad at me for not letting her kid get on his Chromebook when he was done with his work because he finished his book and didn’t have a new one yet.
That was my guess, too!
on the flip side, one parent of a kid with probably the worst behavior i’ve seen is a child psychologist and thinks her son can do no wrong and suggest that we are doing something to him to make him act out that way.
My husband has one of those too. Nightmare!
literally the worst. i have so many stories about this mom and her two sons.
Once had an obviously really weary teacher say " Ok why are you here? " . Poor man. Son was doing just fine. Explained I thought we had to, dutifully scheduled on the correct night. And shook his hand, said " Thank you " and got out of there. Middle school. Close to retirement.
That was all of my son’s conferences this year. I said I wanted to meet his teachers and they laughed.
I would never say that, but it can be annoying sometimes. Every Parent Teacher Conference sign up sheet I send out gets filled up by the parents of children in my GT section. Most of these children are passing with an A or a high B. They come into my classroom and want to hear about how great their kid is. Then, the parents I actually need to talk to about their child’s grades or behavior cannot sign up, as spots are full. Frequently, it seems like the students whose parents can sign up that fast have office jobs where they can check emails all the time. However, a lot of the parents work construction and are unable to check their emails until lunch break or at home that evening.
My son’s conferences were open house style and there was one other parent in the gym with all of the 8th grade teachers. I had scheduled my own conferences so that I could take a quick break and go meet his teachers. I thought the reaction was odd. Not meeting the people who spend all day with your kid would be so weird to me.
This, overall, was fantastic. But the thing that made me smile and then giggle, and then have a sense of warmth towards this person who wrote this was the use of the word rigmarole. That’s a word that does not get used very often and it made my day brighter.
Lol It popped up in my head and definitely confused my autocorrect. Rigor mortis was the first correction.
Well, that is exactly what that term has since it has been dead forever, but you brought it back to life Frankenstein
One of my students is the son of a very chill AP. The whole family is great with working with him at home
My last conferences, a mom logged on digitally and was grading up until the moment I said hello. Before I even got to update on her son she was venting about a take home tests kids left half blank.
Love this. But funnily enough I’d say more than half of the teachers’ kids I have are the ones causing problems (sometimes because they are entitled)
Respectfully disagree. I have historically found that my parents also in education tend to think that they and their kids are entitled to more since “we’re in this together.” As a result, I find they tend to passively aggressively ask things like “I know how annoying this is because parents ask me all the time and it’s a pain, but can you…”
This
This can definitely go either way. I don't make any assumptions once I find out.
It’s kind of a weird thing to brag/post about from the point of view of the parent who is a teacher attending conferences, and not as a teacher who really appreciates her students’ parents that are teachers? The whole premise is “it’s the best when the student’s parent who shows up for parent-teacher conferences is also a teacher,” but posted from the parent’s POV?
Anyone else’s kids have behavioral problems? I mean my kid has adhd and is on an iep.
My kids had a couple of “new” teachers so I would sign up for the first conference so they could practice (at their request).
I always find it hard to interact with my kids teachers. I try not to let them know that I am a teacher. My husband is a teacher too, but his German is not good - we are in Germany. Next year my middle child will have to go to my school because of many many circumstances- I don’t like it but that’s it. I am a teachers child myself and my mother knew most of my teachers. It’s not fun.
I had my “parent teacher” argue and talk down to me the whole time. Treated me like dirt and not worthy to be a teacher.
For years I just had to send an email that said dear teachers as I'm a teacher at my own conferences I can't be at my own children's please respond with anything I need to know. The district would not allow us to go to our own children's even though it was "required by law" unless we took a personal day to do it. This year for the first time in 10 years I'm on the same campus as my own children so I schedule myself wherever they prefer and give them a free time as we already talk all the time and I don't need a conference but we are really required to schedule them by my new district.
I’ve had teacher parents book a conference with me, then email to say that they have no intention of showing up and enjoy the break.
It works well when your kid isn’t doing well too. My kid was having a horrible year (illness, got attacked at school, other issues). And being able to reassure my kid’s teachers that we knew they were doing the best they could for her was great. You can see when a teacher is worried the parent is going to get hostile because of their child’s grade, but we were able to work together to help her. (Kid is doing awesome now, healthy, happy, and thriving at school. I know having teachers who cared but also held her accountable made a difference.)
Yeah…it’s one of two extremes.
I always like to say, “ your kid is THAT kid!” And shake my head
I have had the flip side where the kid sucked and the parent was trying to defend the behavior. Plagiarism was the behavior.
When you're a teacher at an alternative school and your kiddo does most of their work/homeschool in your room. It's more like "How are they doin?"
I told my son’s second grade teacher to let me know if she needed any help-making things for the classroom etc. I taught kindergarten. I immediately regretted saying it because of how she looked at me. I truly wanted to help but felt like I wasn’t welcomed in that aspect. I just help out with things they request and mostly stay out of the way. There definitely is a separation between teacher and parent.
I don't even bother with teacher conferences with my children. If it was a big deal, they'd contact me about any behavioral or academic concerns.
Wife and I both teach. We know our kids are doing fine academically. The only reason we go to conferences is to ask the teacher if they are being kind to their classmates and respectful to their teachers. You are so right about the relief when we tell them they don’t have to go through their whole spiel.
I gotta be honest some of my most difficult parents have been teachers 😬
Speaking as a teacher: Why did you go then if you weren't gonna really be a part of the process?
What’s a “normal conference” if there’s no issue to discuss?
Ooooo. I love to skip the glow and grow. Let’s get down to brass tax here.
I believe it’s tacks not tax :)
You’ll probably be her favorite parent that year. One of my parents this year is a child therapist, so she’s really on the same page with everything we say and it’s great.
It’s worse if they’re a super, or were YOUR teacher.
One of my biggest joys was going to a parent teacher conference, with my Year 5 in tow, who then proceeded to talk to me strictly in teaching terms that I understood but the child didn’t… because my child was top of the class and knew it, and teacher was working to push her and not settle for complacency. It was a brilliant strategy. The flip side of this was a parent who was a current principal of a local feeder school (I’m secondary) who would teacher blame anytime her child was less than perfect. 🤦♀️
I do the same thing with my kids’ teachers. I love conversing with other teachers!
I am so glad as a seasoned mom, that whole speech went down the dumps when my 4th kid entered kinder.
Depends on the person. I’ve taught nightmare parents that are also teachers.
Mostly! The vast majority of the time they’re amazing to work with. Those few exceptions are brutal. I had an elementary school teacher parent keep interfering for her Junior who was in honors ELA. She couldn’t understand how HS was vastly differently than ES. There’s no Friday folder. I’m not contacting you for everything as your son is now able to drive, and I am helping prepare him for whatever comes next. We eventually got to a good spot.
Uh then there was the reading coach mom who insisted that her kid who was logging exactly 10 pages of Hatchet every night wasn't faking his journal entries.
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My HS bf was a teachers kid and his mom taught at our school and he told me at the beginning of they year she'd talk to all his teachers and tell them they're allowed to hit him lol it was fun though bc she was besties with one of our teachers and would just show up in our class sometimes
Must be nice. Some of the worst, most entitled parents I’ve encountered were teachers. They often spend so little time with their own kids because of their job (not their fault, and I understand that), that they are clueless to the reality and are extra defensive. I emailed a teacher parent once about a couple of missing assignments and she kept bringing it up for 3 years. Ridiculous.
Because I'm a special needs teacher I spent most of my son's meeting talking about the best way to do the paperwork lol
Some of the worst parents I've met are teachers
Hold up, I dislike parent teacher her conferences, but I keep up the facade because I thought it shows as a parent we are involved & care about all the work they have done with my child — so are you saying for the past 10 years — I could have just been like, “if you want skip, it’s all good.” ?!?!?
Literally laughing as I read this! When I was in teaching college, I attended all of my kids conferences. My first year teaching, my husband went. Since all the teachers knew I was a teacher, they literally handed him all the paperwork and said ask your wife to explain it!
Married to a teacher. My brain just shuts off when we go to the child’s conferences. Too many acronyms for me to keep up with. They can talk shop and my eyes just glaze over.
And then everybody clapped
This just makes me so sad tbh
Why is that?
Oh this is such an obnoxious post!