<p>I think it’s kinda sad.</p>
<p>Honestly, the whole “helicopter parent” thing is kinda oxymoronic to me. They say they only want their kids to do well, but obviously they have no trust that their kid can accomplish anything on their own, so they have to make it happen themselves.</p>
<p>I’m so glad that my parents let me make mistakes and do things on my own. I know when to ask for help, but I also know that they can’t help me with every problem I have. And I would never expect them to.</p>
<p>I was a teacher for several years. Oh, I could tell you stories…</p>
<p>I loved my students. I loved my subject. I loved (most) of my colleagues. I wanted to smack the helicopter parents and the admins that licked their boots. And yes, I left teaching.</p>
<p>Helicopter parents are one thing, but parents sometimes do legitimately have to intervene with a teacher on behalf of their child. I did intervene ONCE through all of high school, in the case of one English teacher who treated S outrageously. Many instances of inappropriate behavior, comments, total unwillingness to meet with S outside of class and general prejudice against S (interesting, S had no problems with any of his other teachers). Old-school teacher with giant ego, overdue for retirement, had a problem with bright students having ideas different from his own. Stifling. Other kids told S “just write papers where you repeat back what he tells us in class and you’ll do fine.” Teacher also had a practice of handing back papers to students in class, announcing the grades, and then ridiculing those who he thought hadn’t done well in front of the class. Doing this is illegal in a public school (FERPA) but not at a private school. I could go on. We insisted that S be transferred to a different teacher, but damage was done even during the process of effecting the transfer.</p>
<p>I have intervened when I thought teachers were behaving inappropriately. I have a great respect for many teachers, but some of them just shouldn’t be in the profession. I am not a believer a kid should learn to adjust or “tough it out” when it’s not working work with a teacher. As adults, we have options of finding a new job when we do not like our boss. The flip side is why should a young kid be forced to work with a difficult teacher for a whole year? I am not much of a squeaky wheel at my daughters’ school, but when I speak up I could usually get the admistration’s attention.</p>
<p>I teach, and I love my kids. Parents, however…I could tell you stories. The parent who ran out of the room crying, stealing the forged document so we wouldn’t have the evidence to discipline the kid…believing everything their perfect child says…and administration that is too afraid of the parents to support the teachers. There is even a group of parents in my district that have banded together knowing that all their children are gifted and talented and will never get below a B. They WILL be successful! But don’t give them any work that will interfere with the EC’s that they need to get into the “right” college. And if you demand that they do what it takes to really learn the subject, you are mean, too hard, and not working with kids. They even keep a notebook and pass it on to the next generation and to all new members, with notes on the teachers that give easier grades, etc. The don’t care if the child is learning, just that they get the right grades. These parents and kids harass, badger, and otherwise make life impossible for teachers who do not believe in grade inflation, expect the students to be responsible for their actions or lack of work, and teach kids there are ramifications for their actions. (In other words, the teachers who are there to do their jobs, not to be the kids’ friends and just hand out grades.)They band together and do everything they can to have teachers fired who don’t do what they want. One of my students asked me if someone was going to be fired because the parents of her friend said they were going to get it done. Yes, it has gotten to that point. I, and many wonderful teachers with a lot of experience are counting the years to retirement. And it is the parents that are driving us away, when we would have stayed longer for the kids.</p>
<p>Oh, yayverily, you’re absolutely right.</p>
<p>My 9th grade year, I was in the musical. We had the option to either pay $50 or to sell tickets to raise at least that amount. My dad ended up buying enough tickets to make that up, and wrote a check…so for whatever reason, the lady decided that I was a “problem child” and proceeded to call me into her office and yell at me for half an hour in front of one of my good friends (funny, all the other teachers love me), in the end reducing me to tears. My mom did intervene on that instance.</p>
<p>I have great respect for my teachers…it’s often a thankless job, and I understand that. However, sometimes I wonder why they’re really teaching (the teacher I referred to likes very few students and makes that well known. She’s reduced quite a few students to tears besides me).</p>
<p>Eh. I say, what goes around comes around. For a long time, teachers were almost never questioned by parents, no matter how unfairly they treated students. Hopefully, equilibrium can be achieved.</p>
<p>RacinReaver,</p>
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<p>Well, yes, it came across that way, because that was the way you meant it. 
It’s okay. Kids that can’t keep up with the normal classes usually ARE special ed kids; I’m not denying that! “Can’t keep up” is a subset of special ed; they aren’t the whole set. That’s all I was trying to convey.</p>
<p>I have told both D’s that once they get into high school, they have to do all the advocating/questioning teachers themselves - the only HS teachers of D1 that I know are her Latin teacher, that she has had since 7th grade, and the band director, who is a personal friend. </p>
<p>I think though that I am in the same situation that Muffy laid out - the (probably will be) valedictorian of D1s class has parents that constantly question grades, show up in class, get their D moved into classes and out of them when grades get too low in order to maximize GPA, avoid hard grading teachers, etc. She is going to be an Ivy-recruited athlete anyway, the parents are both doctors and can afford to send her anywhere they want…geez!</p>
<p>Really, when you read these it just gets worse and worse…so your child gets a “bad” teacher…your child will inevitably have a “bad” boss, perhaps a “bad” co-workers, a less than enthusiastic team member…if we do not teach our children how to deal with all these little speed bumps in life we are doing a great disservice. Also what is one person’s “bad” can be another person’s “good.” Now, that said, I have intervened at school once already (with 1 more in high school ans soon to be in high school) in that S1 was engaged in a “he said”, “she said” argument one year with the upshot being that I received an unpleasant e-mail from the teacher…I forwarded the e-mail to the principal and asked him to put son and teacher in a room and not to let them out til they worked things out, which was the exact right thing to do and to which the principal agreed whole heartedly. To advocate on behalf of a 16, 17 or 18 year old is not helping that kid grow up. This quote from a previous poster says it all: “They say they only want their kids to do well, but obviously they have no trust that their kid can accomplish anything on their own, so they have to make it happen themselves.”</p>
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<p>Amen. </p>
<p>Also, in my S’s case involving grades, the teacher taught a class with a subjective grading component, and was a control freak, according to S. S fought “doing it her way” all year and got the expected result. The life lesson was more important than the difference in the grade. S and I talked about it, but I stayed completely out of the issue. S got into college, got merit scholarships and is doing well at college. </p>
<p>Surprise, surprise, he isn’t calling home to whine about his professors, he’s just dealing with what he draws.</p>
<p>In my S’s HS behavior case, WHAT had happened was not in dispute. The issue was responsibility and punishment. The private school had a process (which excluded direct parental involvment) and S had to go through it sans parents. He really learned a lot when HE had to face this w/o “help.”</p>
<p>I counseled S, but was up front that I was going to go with whatever punishment that system decided on. In my opinion, S got off very light. Ultimately, the other boy later got expelled permenantly.</p>
<p>The assistant head of upper school in charge of discipline was required to communicate with me through out the process. After it was resolved (and he was furious that there was next to no punishment) he told me that in the three years he had held that position, I was the first parent that had not tried to argue my S’s case and pressure/threaten him to not come down “too hard” on my S.</p>
<p>These kids can grow up without parents filling the “Rescue Ranger” role whenever there is trouble.</p>
<p>My S is in a particular program in his high school; the coordinator for that program told kids and parents that she was going to institute a plan to monitor homework for ninth graders. (Yay! for that, I say!) It’s a three-tiered program: something like the first couple of missing assignments in particular core subjects, and she talks to the student. Next missing assignment, and she calls the parent. Another missing assignment after that, and she calls the parent AND child has a three-hour Saturday detention, during which student does work related to class in which homework is missing.</p>
<p>Guess which parent got called yesterday? I have been telling S to make sure he gets his homework in; he hasn’t been good about this. During the phone conversation with coordinator, she said S was missing five homework assignments; I asked, “Math or science? Because he’s missing assignments in both.” Oh, she didn’t know about the missing science homework assignments!</p>
<p>I think the math and science teachers have been reluctant to invoke the escalating repercussions for missing homework; this is the first time the coordinator’s found out about all this missing homework. </p>
<p>I was glad she called; she said if S misses one more homework assignment, he’s getting detention. I’m okay with this.</p>
<p>I recounted the conversation to S’s dad, my exhusband. “You ratted out our kid?!” was one of the comments I got back, this because of my comment about S missing assignments in both math and science (and, actually, in all his other classes, too, at least one assignment in each).</p>
<p>And today, ex called to ask me the coordinator’s phone number. (Ah, can you not look it up on the school’s website, which is what I have to do to get you the number?!) He is going to call to tell her he wants S to have a warning before getting detention, as he didn’t get the first-step conversation with the coordinator before being threatened with detention.</p>
<p>This from him after pronouncements of letting the kid take the consequences for his actions. Oy!</p>
<p>(The teachers should have let the coordinator know earlier, is my opinion.)</p>
<p>I think it’s a matter of degree. If a parent contacts a teacher or administrator once or twice in a four-year high school career, that’s probably OK. Kids can be bullied by teachers, too, and once in a great while it may be necessary to level the playing field.</p>
<p>The problematic parents, IMO, are the ones who seem to have multiple problems with multiple teachers or administrators every year. To me, that indicates over-involvement. Or, the kid is in the wrong school - if I was tempted to keep intervening in my kid’s high school issues, I’d assume that either the fit was wrong or the school was bad enough to justify changing schools, even if it required moving to a different public system.</p>
<p>As a high school teacher, I always hesitate to jump into this kind of discussion.<br>
owlice–I truly don’t mean to be defensive or confrontational, but I would like to offer a suggestion. If you are checking your son’s grades online almost every day, why don’t you inform his program coordinator when he has missing assignments. Your son’s teachers probably each have 130 or more students a day, and it is very likely that 20% or more of them don’t have their work to turn in on any given day. I’ve been teaching for a long time, and I would say that’s a conservative estimate, even in higher level classes. I just don’t think it is reasonable to expect that kind of individual monitoring and follow-up, with 20 or more contacts likely every day. Is this AVID or a similar program? Actually someone in the school should be able to set it up so that the coordinator can access the same reports you do for each student in the program.</p>
<p>I have to say my experience parallels ejr1’s, and it is discouraging. I have many wonderful students and love my work, but “the group” of parents seems to get a bit bigger and noisier every year, and it’s hard not to get worn down. The saddest consequence, in my opinion, is the result I see in a few kids with such a hyper-inflated sense of self esteem and entitlement that they really aren’t even teachable.</p>
<p>^I’m so sorry that you have to deal with that. 
Would it help if I said that I, and many of my friends, really appreciate the work that teachers do? And to point out that without teachers, there would be no lawyers, doctors, or anything else for that matter?</p>
<p>Grace: Oh, thank you! Be sure to drop a quick note to your own high school teachers around this time next year and let them know how you are doing and something about what you are learning and wondering. I’ve had a few emails like that from former students recently, and they are very meaningful (and appreciated!).</p>
<p>happens now and then at my school
girl gets B. mom comes to class and demands to know why.</p>
<p>Will do. It’s especially nice being in an SLC, because my teachers are a lot more like my friends than my teachers. In fact, the teacher I’m an aide for this year has become like a second mom to me (This is the 3rd year I’ve had her).</p>
<p>To venture out as a devil’s advocate…</p>
<p>The schools have a monopoly. Teachers can’t be fired.</p>
<p>Think of any other business that would do a good job
under those circumstances. Then the people running the
operation are upset when they get anything less than
fawning feedback. They think the people complaining
have psychological problems.</p>
<p>It could be that there’s another side to this story.</p>
<p>I apologize in advance to any good teachers who are
reading this, but you have to admit the incentives in this
system are so bad that any rational person might have
a smidgen of doubt about the general competence of
teachers.</p>
<p>I’m a student, and helicopter parents are the worst! We have an online grading system, and I could tell you the stories… (Not of my parents, they’re great, but of others’, whew!) Kids have been grounded for MONTHS, teachers have been called up. At least most of the teachers seem not to care. I’m in IB, and most of 'em just say, “Kay, then your kid can try AP or Honors, bye.” But parents can go ballistic at the kids (my public’s so big it’s pretty hard to get to the teachers unless you’re actually a decent student; otherwise, they may not even know your name). </p>
<p>See, I totally think parents should take a role in their kids’ lives. But ask THEM about their work, and talk to them about solutions. You can’t expect us just to waltz throughout school without a glitch, but DON’T SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS. My mom and dad will help me talk about whatever I’m worried about, but they don’t even check the online grades. It’s my job to correct a wrong paper, even though my parents may offer to call a teacher if something’s WAY OFF (remember, big public, big mistakes lol). </p>
<p>Help US, don’t patronize the poor teachers.</p>