We take the boys to a school with which I tend to have mixed emotions. Overall, we like it. It's nice, the boys like it, the teachers are friendly, and they all know the boys. While I like many of the "teachers", I often struggle with what appears to be a lack of ability on their part. We routinely receive memos home that tend to make little sense, are full of grammatical errors, or include various other interesting erroneous tidbits such as referring to Winnie, Corduroy and The Berenstein Bears as "non-fiction".
Here is something that drives me crazy about the school staff. They seem to pussy-foot around discussing behavioral issues with parents. Now, I can imagine that it's no fun to have to tell proud and loving parents that their little snookums was a real beast in class, and yet I'm fully aware that people can sometimes be their beastly selves, so just tell me about it.
In the past, the teachers seemed to approach gently, presenting anxious, a little vague, downplaying the issue a little. They present unsure of themselves, in this arena at least, and I, of course, want to know everything – the behavior, what led up to it, what he ate that day, whether he slept, whatever they can tell me about his social interactions or what the tone of the day was overall, and what Henry said about the behavior. Usually, I don’t get much feedback.
Here’s the weirdest part of all: they almost always apologize for telling me about my kid’s behavior. This then encourages me to try to ease their relief by saying things like, “It’s okay, I want to know what’s going on, I want to know when Henry is struggling.” This seems like a nutty dynamic, right? I get the feeling that they are so uncomfortable with sharing this information that they set up the conversation in order to be reassured.
Today, I walked into the class to get my snookums, and from behind me I heard a teacher say, "So, Henry had a rough day." I turned around so that I could see the person speaking to me, and true to my nature, I began asking questions. She informed me that in fact, he threw some things, didn't listen, and "seemed bored". After she told me this and I asked her what his reasoning for his behavior was, she said, "I didn't mean to make you upset."
This statement stunned me. I immediately began self-assessing. What was I doing? In fact, I had just walked in the room, was standing there looking at my child, with no specific expression on my face other than seriousness (I wasn’t smiling) – but nothing, and I mean nothing, was otherwise happening. What was she seeing, interpreting, guessing, or, more accurately – projecting?
In retrospect, I probably should have ignored her, but she threw out the bait and I, unthinking, grabbed it. Next thing I’m doing is reassuring her that no, really, I’m fine, she should tell me, I want to know. In retrospect, I should have said, “You actually can’t make me upset, but what you can do, and are obligated to do, is your job which includes bucking up and getting more comfortable with sharing the bad with the good, and not expect others to make you feel better about having to do the more difficult parts of your job.” You see, I wasn’t originally upset, but I sort of am now…
I don't appreciate being forced into a position where I feel like I'm helping the teacher feel better about telling me about my little monster's behavior. That's their job. Shouldn't they know that? Shouldn't they be more competent (there, I said it)? Shouldn't they be more confident? Can they not see the benefits of being open and honest about behaviors?
Parents need to hear about all the wonderful and snotty things their little darlings do - regardless of whether they wish to hear it or not. I don’t live under a rock. I love my little monkeys more than air, water, and sunshine, but I don’t expect you to necessarily. What I do expect is for educators and providers to be open and honest, assume that I’m a big girl and can handle whatever they have to say, and for them to be confident enough in their abilities to do what they need to without expecting me to jump in and take care of them.
