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Seasoned Teachers Share The Most Intense Parents They've Had To Deal With

Seasoned Teachers Share The Most Intense Parents They've Had To Deal With

As a teacher, you deal with a lot of kids on a daily basis, which means you also have to answer to all of their parents. Parents of students can be pushy and overbearing when dealing with their child's education, but at the same time provide some of the best stories for teachers to tell.

madness2135 asks:

Teachers of Reddit- who's the craziest parent you've ever encountered?

How crazy do these parents get?

It's never too early to start preparing

I was a kindergarten teacher when during a parent teacher conference a father asked me what I was doing to prepare his 5 year old son for the SATs.

I tried to come up with a serious answer and told him that we've been coloring a lot in art class, and that this should help develop his dexterity for filling in the bubbles on a scantron.

Ouch, and gross

School nurse here. Had a girl with nasty case of head lice that went on for months. Called the parent a dozen times. Parent didn't see what the problem was and refused to treat her. The girl got tired of being teased about it and had a fellow classmate shave her head in the locker room. Parent called to yell at me for "ruining" her daughter and accused me of shaving the kid.

Those are some serious words

Woman straight up tried to get me fired. Screamed at my boss in front of my students, scaring them. Said I was taking away his autonomy and stifling his creativity.

Yikes!

Art teacher here. I had a student's mom accuse me of being racist because I asked the kids not to use black or brown colors on their assignment. It was a 2nd grade color blending assignment.

Now this is a special one...

I teach fifth grade. Evidently a parent came to my principal recently because when we group the fourth graders into class, she wants her daughter in any class but mine. Under no circumstances is her kid to be placed with me. The reasoning behind it being that I have large breasts which will hurt her 10 year old daughter's self esteem.

Sometimes parents don't accept the whole truth

Had a parent accuse the school of discriminating against his son because his son spoke mostly Russian and that's why his son was having issues at school.

I speak fluent Russian and helped translate for their son. His son was having issues because he kept pushing kids and hitting them.

This is extreme

A parent who blamed me for her son's inattention in class because I wore a red jumper. He was very sensitive to red and it messed with his aura or some such.

When things get way to personal and very uncomfortable

Racist dad didn't like the fact that I am mixed race, so he threatened me at the school gates with his Rottweiler.

There is also a serious lack of interest in children's schooling from parents

Halfway into a parent's meeting, the mother realized that we were speaking about her youngest daughter, not the son.

This actually doesn't sound that unreasonable...

Someone seeking Mandarin Chinese lessons for their 6 month old. Not kidding. I wish I was.

When the parents make you run and hide

I had this kid who was relatively bright, but absolutely clueless and hated at turning assignments in; as a result, he was often failing. Well, beginning of the school year, the parent flip out and decide that I must be the worst teacher in the world. Stalked my social media and LinkedIn, somehow got ahold of a bunch of other parent emails and started s***-talking about how I was brand new and incompetent (it was my 2nd year) and making really specific references to my previous job history. Principal sat down in a meeting with the parent, and the parent tried to act like none of it had ever happened. Eventually they just pulled their kid from the school; nothing was ever resolved. It was after that incident that I decided to shut down all of my social media. Just not worth the trouble.

These kids are not messing around

My mother, who is a teacher, once told me of a coworker of hers who punished a student for misbehaving or something. The student went home and told his older brother. Older brother came to school the next day and poured battery acid over the teachers car, presumably as a warning.

Who K.O.s a teacher!?

My boy Tyler (4th grader) had a dad that was taking roids and was also into cage fighting. He came after school once cause he wanted beef with me because I graded Tyler with a C on his essay. Suffise to say I stood by the grade I gave the boy and his dad escalated things until we got in an altercation. He knocked me out but he was taken away after that.

Control freak?

My lead teacher was handing out M&M's to reward the children for writing their letters correctly. She gave Luke, this lady's son, two brown M&M's.

The next day this lady storms in and gets her husband to come at my lead about how irresponsible and unhealthy this practice was. They send our supervisor a five paragraph text pushing her to get fired, ranting about how she put Luke in danger, and then condescendingly offering to provide "healthy snacks" since my lead was incapable of doing so and was trying to get Luke to have a reaction. Apparently. A similar response happened when the class was given pudding as a treat.

Oh dear!

Not a teacher, but my sister had a set of parents who still believed in the whole "left hand = devil's hand" thing. When conferencing with them, they kept saying "We're still working on his motor delay"

despite months earlier at the same conference she kept trying to explain to the parents that he is simply left handed. "we keep trying to get him to use his right hand"

That's just unnecessary

I had my rain stick threatened to be taken away because it is offends the Native American culture.

Rain sticks are from South America.

How friendly!

I once had a parent teacher conference where the parent came in and never spoke a word to me. She never said hi or anything, just came in, sat across from me and stared right into my eyes the entire time.

Oh snap!

Met this guy at the bar. Went home, told me I was the perfect combination of sexy and cute, then never called me again wtf.

Few days later was the PTA meeting, turns out this guy was the parent of one of my students and HAD A WIFE.

Military mom style

It was the first day of camp and another counselor's mom was helping him move in his stuff like a lot of parents do. Now for context these cabins get used about 3 maybe 4 weeks out of the year and are then locked up. These cabins are not bad for being cabins used by a camp this small. She saw the cabin and flipped out! She complained it was filthy and had every single person she could find help clean it up until it was spotless. it would of made a drill Sargent proud.

forget tying to communicate, just get them fired!

Not me, but a Chem teacher I'm currently a TA for.

She's had multiple parents call her racist, sexist, etc. She's equally "miserable" to everybody (not really miserable but strict and would rarely budge on her policies). Her best story was how a parent brought one of these absurd accusations straight to the school board, not the principal, not the superintendent.

College Professors Share Their Funniest 'I Don't Know How You Made It Out Of High School' Experiences

Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay

Now that college has become a standard requirement for so many jobs and careers, there is a massive push by high schools to get their graduating students accepted and enrolled at an undergraduate college.

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911 Operators Describe The Most Unnerving Calls They've Ever Received

Image by Gianni Crestani from Pixabay

*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.

The person on the other end of a 911 call has a truly remarkable job.

For those who don't play that professional role, we hope to never encounter the 911 call interaction. But if we do find ourselves making that call, the moment is an anomaly in our lives.

The chaos, the panic, the racing heart, and the desperation are all emotions we, ideally, don't experience on a regular basis.

But for the operator on the other end, our call is one in a long line of calls they've received all day, and all the workdays before that one.

It's difficult to imagine being embedded in those uniquely urgent, emergency moments all the time.

Some Redditors who are on the other end of that call shared their experiences on the job.

WhimsicalxxButcher asked, "911 dispatchers what has been your most creepy/unnerving call?"

For a few, the most unnerving moments were the calm callers.

There was something just so eerie about how level-headed the faceless human being on the other end could be through such a desperate, tragic moment.

Almost Clinical 

"I had a friend who worked as a 911 dispatcher and he always said the worst call he ever had was a ~20 year old kid who committed suicide by mixing a bunch of chemicals together in his car to produce hydrogen sulfide gas."

"He said that the most unnerving part was hearing him calmly listing off the chemicals, the type of gas produced, and the effects of hydrogen sulfide on the body (namely the almost instant death it causes at high concentrations)."

"He ended the call by providing the address of the parking lot he was in and saying that nobody should approach the vehicle without hazmat equipment."

"Apparently after that there was a whooshing sound as he dumped the last chemical into the mix, and then the line went dead silent aside for a quiet fizzing noise."

"I know that call screwed him up because he almost never talks about stuff that happens to him on the job. He quit a few months later to go into construction management, and frankly I can't blame him."

-- iunoyou

Planned Out 

"A woman called me, saying she was going to kill herself. She was gassing herself. Gave me her name & address then said she was just going to lie down and 'go to sleep.' And stopped responding to me."

"I kept the line open, trying to get her to speak to me, and eventually heard officers forcing their way in to find her body. I guess she just wanted someone to find her body."

-- mozgw4

Before It Set In 

"When I got a call from a 6 year old who got home from school and laid down to take a nap with his dad. His dad never woke up."

"The kid was so calm when calling it broke my heart."

"I ended up leaving dispatch shortly after. I was good at compartmentalizing the job for the year I was doing it, but it would've broken me in the long run."

-- tasha7712

Other 911 operators were unfortunate enough to receive a call from the very last person they wanted to hear from: a loved one.

These dispatchers' unique position gave them the unexpected access to a family member or friend at their most dire moments.

No More of That 

"My family member is a long time first responder, and 'retired' into doing dispatch. He heard the address (someone else was taking the call) and realized it was his daughter's house."

"He rushed over there just in time to see them wheeling her body out. Overdose."

"Five months later, he was called to his ex-wife's place because his grandson (son of the daughter who recently passed) had his door locked, lights on, but wasn't responding to his grandma."

"He broke the door down and found him deceased in bed. Overdose."

"He's very stoic after years of all sorts of traumatic situations but my heart hurts whenever I think of what all of this must have felt like. Like sand through your fingers."

-- bitchyhouseplant

Knowing the Address

"Not me, but my grandma. I was sitting in the dispatch office, (very small one only 2 dispatchers including my grandma) but she put out a dispatch that there was a gun shot from my best friends address."

"My heart sank to my stomach and broke later that day. He committed suicide."

-- OntaiSenpuu

When it Happened 

"My uncle passing away. Worked as a small town dispatcher for a year or so. Had a bunch of messed up stuff happen on shift, but this call came in in the still hours of the night. Small town, so not many calls after midnight."

"I answered and recognized the name and address on caller id. Aunt was in a frenzy so didn't recognize my voice. I remained calm and got ems and fire rolling to them, but by my aunt's own words he was already blue."

"I went thru debriefing and mandated therapy for a couple other things that happened, but never really talked to anyone about this. I just try not to think about it."

"That was the call I figured out I needed to find a different job."

-- dangitjon

Finally, some simply had a front row seat to sudden tragedy.

These operators were flies on the wall when disaster struck. They never asked to witness what they witnessed, but sometimes that came with the territory.

A Holiday Tragedy 

"My mom is a 911 dispatcher. Early on she said one Christmas Eve while working she got a call from an elderly lady who's husband had just collapsed(and died) from a heart attack and in the background Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas music was playing on blast."

"The lady was screaming and crying and begging for her husband to wake up but my mom could hear his gurgling in his last breathes. She doesn't listen to or watch Alvin and the chipmunks since."

-- Blueflowerbluehair

What is it About Christmas?

"Christmas night. 911 call with crying child on the other end. A neighbor had run her car over her mom during a domestic."

"The mom crawled to the porch bleeding and the child saw the car coming back. I had her hide quietly in a closet with the cordless phone."

"The 10 year old child was crying and screamed that she hated Christmas. She was afraid of the police when they got there."

"I kept her on the phone until she felt safe enough to give the phone to an officer. I almost fainted after that call was over. Had nightmares for a while."

-- 2FunBoofer

Close to Home 

"Not a dispatcher but I handle radio communications for the Coast Guard. One night I was on the radio and got a call from an 11 year old kid whose boat had started to sink. He was out with his dad and 6 year old brother."

"They had been hit by another boat and his father got knocked unconscious. I remember the entire conversation up until the radio had gone underwater."

"They ended up finding his dad floating on his back alive but the two boys didn't make it. That one really fu**ed with me because my two littlest brothers were around the same age as the youngest."

-- HIRSH2243

A Horrible Clock 

"Another one that stays with me was the man who called in. It was the anniversary of his adult son having hanged himself. He'd now come home to find his wife had done the same."

"That date is always going to be a black day for him."

-- mozgw4


If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

Again, we hope you never have to use the 911 call in your life. Nobody wants to be involved in a sudden emergency or a tragic incident.

But hopefully, if you do, an operator like one of these thoughtful, sensitive Redditors is on the other end.

emergency

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Image by Nguyen Dinh Lich from Pixabay

When I was moving on from middle school to high school my parents had me tested for the "gifted" program. By some miracle I passed and was accepted. And then I turned it down. Everyone was irritated. "This will pave the way for any college you want! You'll learn so much!" his path will set you up for life!" Every adult tried valiantly to sell me this merchandise but in my gut I just wasn't buying it. So I "settled" a level below, merely advanced classes. And upon reflection... it was the best choice I ever made.

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Image by Markus Spiske from Pixabay

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