Teachers, what 'clicked' about a student after meeting their parents?

r slash askreddit teachers of reddit what clicked about a pupil after meeting their parents i noticed quite a few negative stories here well here is a positive one where it clicked i have a student who is really friendly really smart and amazing at english i am an esl teacher abroad she is always really friendly to me and always really hard working she constantly helps other kids in class who struggle with the material and overall just a great girl i met her dad once at a school event and holy goodness was this guy awesome he was a really genuine and generous character and even invited me to get to know different parts of the city with his family i could definitely tell they had a close bond in that he had raised her really well just an example of good people raising other good people edit a word this is from back when i was doing my student teaching there was a girl in one of my classes that never did any work in class turned into homework late and would ignore huge projects until literally the last minute and then asked to come and for help every day at lunch after school to make up for the missing work eventually i caught her cheating on a quiz she had written down the answers put them in the plastic cover of her binder and put her binder down by her feet i took her quiz gave her a zero and told her that cheating wasn't allowed about a week later we had parent teacher conferences the girl came with her mother who took out every assignment that had been graded and handed back and proceeded to argue with me over individual points things along the lines of well she spelled it all right so that deserves some credit right or she circled the right answer so she should still get some credit when that right answer had been crossed off and then another answer had been selected this took nearly an hour to go through finally the mother brought up the quiz and i told her about the cheating the mom said well you should give her some credit on it she was pretty clever to think of that trick from then on i made sure to schedule meetings with myself my mentor teacher and the principal present this girl in prep already showed traits of a narcissist sociopath she was an extremely clever but lacked empathy manipulative blatantly lied stolen so on yes this might just sound like characteristics of any child but there was definitely something different about her anyway met her mum who refused to accept that her child would do anything wrong and when the child admitted she stole a girl's bracelet because she wanted it her mum said that's okay we can't go buy you one on the way home college freshman was constantly late didn't turn work in on time or at all etc she had an excuse for every single thing i wasn't even asking she just volunteered excuses after getting a d in my class which was frankly a bit generous as her actual grade was a high f her mother called me i wasn't allowed to discuss a student's performance with anyone including their parents and i told her as much her mother then unprompted gave me a long string of excuses for her daughter and oddly herself i kind of thought oh that makes sense now not a teacher but i do volunteer work for a program designed to help students who are habitually truant had one middle schooler who was super bright genuinely seemed to love school got great grades but was absent about half the time he was very evasive about why he wasn't coming to class and i honestly didn't put him high on my list because he was doing fine even with the missed days when i was finally able to get a social worker to go by his house it turned out his single mother was having seizures and didn't have any health care so she couldn't get treatment for them and the kid was staying home to take care of both her and his younger brother i felt just terrible for the kid having to be so adult while still in middle school i was that kid father worked shifts and when he was home he was doing backyard car repairs to help make ends meet not because he didn't earn a good living he actually did but because my mother was a gambling addict instead of addressing the problem he focused on solving the symptoms i went to school from an unheated house with a mother still in bed and no breakfast in freezing weather with no coat because she spent the money on gambling went for years without medical treatments for the same reason no toothpaste no hair conditioner no haircuts old shoes socks and underwear with holes all because anything she could make us do without went to gambling pay was done in the frigid school gym in bare feet and a church because gym shoes and sweatshirts cost money that could be used to make bets instead one day the vice principal called me to her office not to reprimand me but to give me the optional pieces of uniform i didn't have like a coat and a school blazer they were the options without which you froze half to death as you walked or biked several miles to school she didn't make a big deal out of it she simply met a need her act of kindness lit a spark in me to this day almost 40 years later i still put money time and hard work into caring for others in charity work i'm the mum who will volunteer at school quietly contribute anything the teachers are short of that person not for recognition or thanks in fact i am embarrassed if you do that it's because nearly 40 years ago someone cared not a teacher but a student in kindergarten we had this kid who was really odd and smelled funny but he seemed cool so we would hang out at recess i had a birthday party and it was only supposed to last maybe a few hours all of the kids but him went home fairly early but it was really late and his parents still hadn't joe'd up i was getting tired and wanted to go to bed so my parents set up some blankets for us in the living room and we had a sleepover at 2am his parents finally show up after multiple calls with no answer instantly i realized what was up even as a small child i knew these parents were the definition of white trash they reeked of alcohol my mom's side of the family is full of alcoholics so i knew what it smelled like they also told some story about how they had new tires of their car and the speedometer showed the wrong speed and they got pulled over and some other it all clicked why he acted so odd and why he smelled it was cigarette smoke at the start of first grade he never showed up under like a month into the year he was there for a few days then randomly in third grade he showed back up again for a few weeks i never saw him again after that i looked him up on facebook a while back and it looks like he is following in his parents footsteps up falling into every white trash stereotype i asked my parents about this kid a while ago and they said that the reason he wasn't with us in school for a few years is that he got taken away by child protective services which my mom called then he came back the w times because that's when his parents got him back but he was taken away again and that's why he left us i feel bad for the kid because at first he was really nice but over time as i saw him again he became more mean and rude such shitty parents obviously an extreme example here but i had a student an 8th grader who was quiet to the point of absolute silence but who did extraordinarily well with the written word a few times he showed up with bruises which i naturally reported but he was adamant that they were from other students surprisingly his parents came in for ptc and seemed relatively normal until he went to speak for himself and i saw his father grip his arm so tightly that it left a mark i understood immediately that his parents basically didn't let him speak at all for fear of reprisal a few weeks afterward the kid stopped showing up to school and word eventually got around that he got caught up in a meth lab explosion in his parents house and was covered head to toe in second and third degree burns he came back a month or so later covered in bandages he couldn't move right or really do anything without excruciating pain i never cried so hard as i did that day sorry i know it got off track but there are certain stories that stick with you didn't actually meet the parents but was recently told about the parents of a 9th grader i have apparently the dad is super verbally abusive constantly belittling the sun like bordering on reportable abuse but just not quite over that line his former teacher said this kid acts out is constantly seeking positive attention has no self-esteem despite being pretty smart and capable it all just makes a lot of sense now edit for all the people who are saying that i should report it i have not personally witnessed the abuse nor have i even met the parents in question so it wouldn't be appropriate for me to report it anyway in fact in my state there are penalties if i were to do so but moreover i trust my colleagues who have taught him and have witnessed the negative interactions with the dad and i believe that they have the requisite experience and judgment to have been able to make the determination not to report the father edit too thank you all for your concern though and i'm very sorry for those who have gone through something like this i'm the kid when i was growing up i'd get pulled aside and asked if i smoked i'm talking elementary school my parents much like someone else had mentioned smoked in the house with the windows closed i was heavy really heavy with a lot of confidence issues that still stick around today i had problems with anger growing up not so much now but i was an excellent student when you could inspire me to focus or found something i was passionate about they'd meet my parents and nod to me my dad who would work swing and overtime every day almost to support my mom's two three pack a day habit at the time now it's only one pack supposedly my mom who basically looked strung out on drugs but was really just taking so many antipsychotics and pain meds that she might as well have been my parents tried to be supportive of me but i'm not sure they really knew how i'd keep a bottle of febreze on me starting in middle school because the questioning from teachers got worse i'm graduating college in june even though it's taken me twice as long as it should have mostly because of money a lack of guidance and my own mental bs i got a job working in student government for the first time ever and was sent to a conference in washington dc by my college last year i worked my first non-minimum wage job this summer and got invited to come back with another raise to my fourth and fifth grade teacher if you're reading this i'm okay i did it and i hope your ladybug collection has grown edit holy moly r.i.p my inbox and thank you to the lovely stranger with gifting my first gold but thank you so so much for all of the lovely comments i'm trying not to cry on the train to my vacation it means the world to me one female organ student i had always wore dresses that were very revealing both above the knee and in cleavage when she'd sit on the organ bench for a lesson it was almost embarrassing i wondered why she'd insist on dressing this way until i met her parents her mother dressed identically to the point where other parents would study her movements as she walked across the room at a reception after student recitals it was a classic case of like mother like daughter and her father seemed to revel in it a girl in my seventh grade class was really bright but almost never turned in her homework so she just skated by on test scores one time i commended her for helping another student who didn't understand the assignment only to realize that night that she didn't do her own i called her parent and then quickly realized they're the type that have an answer for everything and were all too quick to put the responsibility on me as if i should stand over their daughter to make sure she works i turned to ask the girl what she thought since she had been completely quiet and her parents began to answer for her again i put my finger index up and said no you've had your turn i want to hear what she thinks about all this well she apparently really appreciated that because she went on for about 30 minutes about all her views on education at the end i kept her parents quiet and told her that if she's willing to talk such a big game she needs to back it up and do the work without her parents or me interfering she didn't miss another assignment all year proud teacher moment my wife called a student's parents to talk about the kids wearing all the time and general bad attitude after explaining to the mom why she was calling i told that goddamn kid a million ducking times to watch his ducking mouth jesus christ wait till his duck and daddy gets home had a kid that you looked at and it was very much a light surround but nobody is home sort of feeling i teach high school so sometimes that's just the phase they're in but this one was basically living perpetually in that mode kid has an iep individualized educational plan which is a legal special education doc i can't reveal what was in there but it was suffice to say generic so it feels like there are pieces missing days go on this kid is the gold standard of something is up completely illegible handwriting to the point it doesn't resemble writing you ask about what we are doing in class and the answer is so random and off task that if the kid didn't look and act fairly childlike for their age you would assume hardcore drug use but this kid if anything had ralph wiggum jeans and didn't know what drugs were mum comes to back to school night which is supposed to be five minutes with the class of parents a nice how do you do and everyone moves on she corners me immediately starts telling me about her concerns that i don't fully appreciate her miracle baby who was mute until late didn't walk until four walked backwards first and had an iq of about 60. they told her this kid would never make it in school and didn't i think you just couldn't tell anything was ever delayed because this is a miracle that's why she blocked all mention of those conditions from the documents because people would never guess otherwise miracle when the word miracle comes up from a parent it always explains a lot 0.0 we had a crazy kid in sixth grade a few years back i mean he was the type of kid you assume will probably go on a shooting spree at some point he was diagnosed with all sorts of acronyms acrostics so he was on a ton of meds on his medicine he was defiant but manageable typical class clown type stuff off his medicine oh man we could all tell when he came in the building whether or not he had taken it it was in his eyes or something he routinely refused to do anything and had to be physically carried limp bodied to the principal's office a few times he hit a teacher once and called another one a beach to her face in the same day we had parent teacher night and his mom came in she was 26 he was 12. it became clear to us that the reason he was off med so much was because she was taking them she had also just had another baby so he was acting out more because of that his mother had a very low iq clearly and so did he he ended up getting sent to alternative school eventually never saw him again i had a second grade student who was constantly getting into pretty serious physical altercations with others stabbing kids with pencils slapping girls across the face etc the first time i met his mom was when she came up to the school threatening to choke me because i said her son couldn't come on a field trip to the pumpkin patch because he was too violent when i was student teaching second grade there was a little boy in the class who was just a genuinely friendly and sweet kid he struggled a little academically when it came to learning to read and his handwriting had some problems but he was the hardest worker and never got frustrated or thought that we was stupid like many other students with those difficulties do he was well liked by everyone and didn't have a mean bone in his body and he was extremely well adjusted despite the fact that his parents were divorced i ended up meeting both parents separately during field trips both parents are extremely involved in his life and put him ahead of any of their problems they have with each other they genuinely want what's best for him and it shows the dad takes them out to the sports bar for boys night where they share root beer which i thought was really cool both parents genuinely are awesome people with great attitudes and it definitely shows in their kid student teaching for high school seniors and juniors i had this guy that was a shady 80 no specific problems just very low intelligence but this guy worked his ass off never a late assignment did all extra credit that was offered usually extra credit is done by those who don't need it and ignored by those who do need it made flash cards for like every test and quiz even though i never said to model student just had low test scores if it was an assignment that could be done with time and effort he did it unfortunately tests aren't like that and that's where he had the most problems back to school night comes along and i meet his dad and co and the marines courteous well spoken and completely knowledgeable about all of his son's upcoming assignments and grades totally made sense kid is getting through with hard work and dedication and pulling off a b average amazing what support from parents can do in most cases a kid like this would probably be failing most of his classes one of my students is safe playing he won't try any new ideas while doing maths and would frequently look after applying some formulas i used to think that he genuinely is less creative than others but at times particularly when playing games he would show bursts of real brilliance when i met his mother it clipped why the mother burst into tears saying she was afraid what would happen if the child would fail she really desperately wanted him to succeed and because of this desire has all but sealed closed his chances of success he is so afraid of failure that he doesn't even try there was another one he was really afraid of both succeeding and failing his line of thinking went like if i succeed the parents would expect more so let's fail then he will flip if i fail they will scold me he led a torturous life i have a belief that the two biggest blocks in the development of a child are his school and his parents most of the flaws in a kid's personality can be attributed to one of the two or both i don't know if this counts but i used to help tutor esl to spanish-speaking immigrants there was one woman who was super focused and dedicated and was making real improvements lesson to lesson but she would miss massive amounts of time because she said she had to work take care of her kid and it really hurt her studies she was stressed and frustrated all of the time even though she said she loved her job and was doing all right for herself then one day she brought her mother in because she hadn't been to tutoring in a month and needed to come i guess that woman was a terror she wasn't even that old probably in her late 50s she yelled at her granddaughter who also came along and would smack her randomly complaining that she was so ill-behaved it clicked that the woman was missing so much time because she had to babysit her mother just as much as her daughter i felt so bad for her that she had such a burden and yet so much respect that she'd go through so much to care for her mother i work at an elementary school in a really bad part of town and i teach third graders parents coming in wreaking off pot and parents with like five other kids that they obviously can't care for individually are always the worst i've had to send many kids home with the police because parents could not decide who will pick the child up we even hold them until after six but mostly the children who yell scream curse and hit their parents will come in yelling and cursing at them this is less dramatic than the others but still one of those aha moments had an eighth grade student great kid 100 responsible academically talented and would always speak in short clip sentences and look like he was a frightened ear about to bolt had a conference with him and his parents together in which the kid was supposed to be leading the conference reflecting on his growth and identifying his challenges every time the kid opened his mouth to say something he'd get halfway through the sentence and mom would finish it for him poor kid was always trying to get ideas out quickly so he wouldn't be interrupted i wasn't a teacher but a student and i was close to one of the caseworkers in high school she dealt with more troubled teens and ones that grew up with horrible parents legal guardians and so on however there was this one girl who always wore the same clothes absolutely stunk like no showers or brushing of teeth she didn't brush her hair and was quite boisterous amongst other red flags the cw sat down with her one day and opened the purse the girl brought looking for a pen girl gave consent and out came at least five cockroaches needless to say my cw was taken aback as she didn't expect these vile things to come out when looking for a pen i'm pretty sure she called social services cps after that and they found out that her family were hoarders and neglected their well-being and their children this is kind of different but i thought it was sort of interesting two weeks after i started high school all the parents and students were invited to a informative tour around the school or something like that i do not remember but this was at 6 p.m so it was not mandatory for students to attend i was basically the only student we were welcomed to sit down randomly in our classroom the interesting thing is that almost every parent took their own child seat without knowing it or a seat very close to it it was so strange and i could see the similarities even the questions they asked after a mom asked about the library all i could think was that such a ducking sarah question to ask to guess what it was sarah's mom i teach grade 7 in the us 12 13 years olds 13 years old student constantly in low grade trouble the 3ds disobedience disrespect and disruption i shrugged it off figuring something was up at home meet mom at ptc she's obviously be young we start conference and she offers i'm sorry student name is such a handful i just don't have time to discipline him like he needs i'm 27 and i have five kids all four teachers in the conference can be seen subtracting 13 from 27. whoa you made it to the end you're a ducking beast i'll cast you a deal smash like and subscribe for more curated content bruh it's free and that's a great price [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

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Keywords: reddit, askreddit, askreddit funny, top posts, top posts of r/, r/, r/askreddit, reddit top posts, reddit cringe, comedy, reddit compilation, top posts of all time, askreddit question, askreddit top posts, ask reddit, askreddit reading, subreddit, reddit stories, best of r/askreddit, funny reddit, best reddit posts, best of reddit, emkay, ToadFilms, sir reddit, reddit and chill, giofilms

Id: 0VbmMKA9px0

Length: 23min 50sec (1430 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020