Lessons for Education from Dr. Phil

I was watching Dr. Phil the other day. He claimed that these parents were some of the most difficult guests he's ever had. They reached out for help because their two teenage daughters were out of control. Dr. Phil had provided help and they sabotaged his efforts, lashed out at him, and were generally rude.

I was trying to watch how he handled them. Let's face it, as a teacher, I often try to help parents with their difficult children only to have them sabotage my efforts, lash out, or be generally rude. While watching this show, I came to the following conclusion: I need a studio audience to help me deal with these types.

Whenever the parents would say something really crazy, Dr. Phil would just look at the audience and they would roar with laughter. The problem with these type of parents in a meeting at a school is that it's always closed door. I need a jury of my peers to make my point. Instead, you close the door and suddenly these parents are describing some illogical world where up is down and black is white. Their crazy reality suddenly has as many or more votes as actual reality. How can you talk people out of that? I mean I can tell them that another student looking at their child doesn't justify their child punching another student in the nose, but if they continue to insist that it does, how do you work with them?

Well, everyone who wants to reform schools, here's my suggestion, when teachers are forced to endure stupid meetings about crazy complaints they should get a studio audience. They just should.

How Do You Fight Stress about Parent Issues???

I am sorry if I am annoying anyone who is used to my anecdotal writing, but lately I'm in a mood to get advice. My job is hard this year, and I am doing the best that I can, but I want to get better, truly, I do.

I spend a lot of time flirting with the idea of quitting teaching. My favorite analogy for teaching is that it is like a bad boyfriend. You can be in love with him, but he is always threatening to break up with you, mistreats you, and constantly tells you you're not good enough for him. You love him, but he's bad for you. It's breaks the hearts of your loved ones to see you in a long term relationship with teaching, but they're not quite sure how to talk to you about it because you love him.

Seriously, I could bitch about this all day, but it is not getting me anywhere. Either I want to continue teaching or I don't. So, recently, I am trying on the idea that I will keep teaching for my entire career.

That is a tough thing for me to believe. I worry, frankly, that teaching will just suck the life out of me and destroy who I am before I notice what it has done to me. I try to remember what my life was like before teaching was my full time job. It's only been four years, but I can barely remember. I liked to read a lot more. I was more social. Was I happier?

I sometimes wonder what would be different if I wasn't teaching. Would I be in a long-term relationship. Honestly, I am so tired that it makes me not want to meet new people. I think about work when I'm not at work. I don't know if I would still be like that without teaching or not.

One of the things that makes me think I don't want to keep teaching forever is my reaction to unreasonable adults. I get twisted up inside anytime a parent has an issue. I am jealous of people who shake it off and forget about it. I would enjoy my job more if I could not worry about parent issues. I know that they come up for everyone, but not everyone loses sleep over it.

So, I want to know, what do you do to let go of anxiety or never have anxiety about issues with parents? If you are like me and you can't figure it out, I'd like to know that too. Misery loves company. Seriously, though, a part of me wants to stick this gig out, but there are things that have to change about me before I will be able to sustain a long term teaching career. Help me change, blogging friends.

You're My Hero

I never asked to switch grade levels. Actually it was no secret here or in my real life that I did not want to go to a younger grade level. There are still a lot of things I miss about working in an older grade. The best thing for me, though, about the switch is that I have gotten to learn from two really experienced third grade teachers. They've become two really good friends as well, but I know that for my career which is just starting (I totally cringe when I say that) I've been so fortunate to learn from people who are well into their careers and really good. For the rest of my career, I will be better because I have worked with them.

Anyway, I say all this because I was listening to my next door neighbor handle a parent meeting today, and she is just so much better than me at handling that. Really, I need to learn from her how to handle parents. I won't let kids walk all over me and I know how to work with my colleagues, but I get nervous and don't do well with difficult parents.

Partially, I get intimidated because I am almost always the young one in the room. Partially, though, I just don't know how to handle it well when parents are being manipulative or dishonest or unreasonable, and the reality is that those things happen.

My superstar neighbor had this parent trying to blame her because the child was behind. Now, a little background information, is that this woman hadn't returned superstar teacher's phone calls, progress reports, refused to attend conferences, and doesn't answer e-mails. So, superstar teacher called her on the carpet. She didn't sweat it at all before the meeting and she was professional without being manipulated or allowing a parent to treat her rudely.

I know that I have it in me to be more like that, but it's been difficult. Listening to her was the first time I realized how it should look when I am dealing with an adult being dishonest or manipulative.

Unreasonable parents just can't always have their way. This year I've been having to e-mail the Hulk's parents his behavior chart because they feel that his self-esteem will be ruined if he monitors his own behavior. I know that this plan is terrible and that it would be better for the Hulk and my class if he were accountable for his own actions. Instead, I am constantly hearing complaints of "unfair treatment" from the Hulk's parents.

You know, my superstar neighbor would not have let this situation get to this point. I really need to learn to preempt things like this better. I know what to do, but I just sometimes don't do it when it comes to the parents.

Parent Satisfaction Survey

You know, we are always having to hear about the "Parent Satisfaction Survey" telling how satisfied parents are with their child's teacher. I want a parent satisfaction survey that tells how satisfied I am with the parents I have to deal with. I tell you what, this year I am not satisfied at all! I have two parents in my room this year. Ha ha. That speaks for itself.

The first one is "the parent" at our school. I think you know what I mean. "The parent" that makes the office staff argue about who is going to take the call when their name comes up on the caller I.D. "The parent" who administration tells the secretary to always tell them the principal is in a meeting. "The parent" who is amazed that every year they have the same problems with a different teacher. Yeah, . She actually started complaining about me before the first day of school because "she hadn't heard of me."

Today, apparently she called the principal to demand a different teacher because: I am young. She says that she had a young teacher last year and her son didn't learn anything. She feels sure that this will happen again because I am young. She says that she believes I am a good teacher, but I am a bad fit for her son because he can't be taught by a young teacher. When asked why she felt this way her only justification is that "a mother knows, her son doesn't seem to have enough sparkle in his eyes after going to school, and it is her right as a parent to demand the teacher she wants."

The other parent I have is one of those parents whose idea of being a good parent is ensuring her child gets a good education by regularly complaining. The latest e-mail I got from her was that the homework doesn't have enough Social Studies. "When she was a child she took text books home every night, and her angel has yet to take a text book home this year." The very same day I received a two page e-mail about the lack of Social Studies in the homework; she emailed the teacher of her other child with a different list of complaints. Really, did she just stay up the night before dreaming up a list of complaints for all her children's teachers?

I have so many high needs kids to deal with this year, but what is taking up my VALUABLE time? Entitled. Parents.

Please, someone give me a Parent Satisfaction Survey!

All the Things That Didn't Get a Full Post Because of My Virus

I think it is really important that kids be able to give something to their mothers for Mother's Day. I don't do too many crafts in school, but we did make Mother's Day magnets. I learned how to use a glue gun! It's not as exciting as it sounds, I always hoped it would be used from a long distance. Anyway, I thought it was sooo sweet that my ELL student translated her Mother's Day Cinquain to Chinese. It just seems like a neat picture of what her education is doing for her family.


In Other News:

We had to parents ready to come to blows today in Parent Pick-Up. They didn't fight yet, but one of them promised to come back and "shame" the other in front of everyone tomorrow. There was also a lot of screeching tires when one parent tried to park her car in the parent pick-up line. I told her that she couldn't park there, so she got back in, slammed the car door in my face, and laid on the accelerator in our school parking lot. Never a dull moment there!

Our staff went bowling on the PTO to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week. I always thought that if I heard everyone on my staff yelling "strike" it would be over something different...

Finally, why haven't I posted in so long?? I got a virus on my computer!! It was my work computer too, but it seems to have been cured by the magical box we are supposed to plug these machines into once a week.

Top 5 Real Life Moments from Parent Teacher Conferences

I started prepping today for Parent-Teacher Conferences. I haven't had a lot of contact with most of my parents this year because most of my kids are doing well. One thing I know, though, is you never know what you're going to get at parent conferences. Below are some real life quotes and experiences from past Parent-Teacher Conferences. I tell you; they just don't teach you how to deal with these things during college!


5.) Two parents start arguing about the way they are raising their child during conference. Mom looks at me, "you need to tell my husband to back off."
4.) Parent who speaks no English at all shows up alone and does not say one word for the entire 20 minute conference--not one word.
3.) A younger sibling writes with permanent marker all the way down my whiteboard while I am talking to parents and my student.
2.) "I think my child is being controlled by Satan, I really do," says Mom.
1.) "All the little boys want to be in your class and I can see why," says single dad during conferences.

Who knows what is in store during this year's conference extravaganza!!! Ha ha ha ha some of these things still make me laugh. So, awkward: when someone says something like the above comments.