Dear Parents,
Let me start by saying that we, as teachers, love your kids. Our jobs are hard - much too hard to put up with if we didn't really, really love what we do. And we can't truly love what we do without being heavily invested in the happiness and well-being of your children.
Too much of what I see involving students' relationships with their parents involves far too much apathy on the parts of parents. Moms who refuse to let kids participate in after school activities because they don't want to be bothered to pick their child up. Dads who don't at all care what their kids are doing in school, how they feel about what's going on in their lives, or much of anything else involving their children. Kids who say that nobody ever read to them as a child.
Those are the truly heartbreaking stories. And they are heartbreaking. I don't know a single teacher who wouldn't wince at stories like these, feeling emotional pain so real that it actually feels like we were beaten, scalded, or otherwise abused. Even my friends who got into the profession before deciding that it wasn't really for them would feel much sympathy for kids in these types of situations, and do whatever they could to help.
So, in looking at the big picture, the problem of an over-protective parent is a good problem for a teacher to have. I am so, so, so glad that you are there to listen to your child's complaints. That you care enough about what is bothering your child to contact the school about it. That your child's pain hurts you even worse than it hurts her. These are good things that compassionate and caring teachers recognize. I am relieved to find that your child is not one of the ones who needs my love, because she is getting it at home. But that doesn't mean that I don't still love her.
I know that when your child is struggling in my class, and finds it frustrating, it can seem like I am picking on her. I remember being absolutely convinced that some of my teachers were out to get me when I was in school. I was 100% sure of it. Now that I'm a teacher, I wish I could go back and talk to all of them and say how wrong I realize I was. Even the teachers for whom I was sure that spiting me was their primary reason for getting out of bed in the morning almost certainly had my best interests at heart. Their attacks on me were, at worst, mistakes in judgment or speech. More likely, they were imagined by me because of stress and frustration.
Being a teenager is hard. I think it's much harder than being an adult. I don't think there is a kid in any high school in America who doesn't sometimes feel awkward, bumbling, uncool, and like everyone hates him. And then we teachers expect them to deal with that, troubles with significant others, troubles with siblings, troubles with parents, exhaustion from working and going to school simultaneously, and all the work from their other classes while they listen to us talk about what we are teaching that day. Teenagers are fucking soldiers for dealing with all of that.
So I don't blame your child if he feels put upon in my class. I think it's almost inevitable at one time or another for your child to feel persecuted. It's an unfortunate fact of growing up that a teenager's emotional cortex develops well before his center for reasoning. I hope that your child is able to tell me when he feels that I have been unfair or he needs something so that we can work out a solution that results in both his comfort and learning. I am human and I make mistakes: I say the wrong thing, or something doesn't come out the way that I mean it to. I get frustrated and become impatient. I try my best to limit these mistakes, but they happen to everyone, and a slip up like that can make a child who already feels like everyone hates him be even more certain of that.
But I do not hate your child. I have never, will never consciously do anything to hurt him. If your student has a problem with something I did or said, please try to assure him that it was not malicious, and that any embarrassment or anger or resentment that your child feels was the accidental by-product of an innocent mistake by someone who wants nothing but the best for every single person in his classroom. It is not often that I run into parents who feel that I or another teacher hold special hatred in our hearts for students, but it has happened. Nothing has hurt me more as a teacher than finding out that a student felt like I really hated her. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are sometimes certain things about students that I dislike (The student I mentioned didn't even have any qualities I didn't like), but I have never once had a student that I wished I hadn't met.
It is really great that you love your child enough to stick up for her. But please, instead of attacking me like an enemy, ask me how we can work together to help your child succeed. That is what everyone involved wants.
Sincerely,
A teacher who loves your child and every other child who sets foot in my classroom.
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