Student: Chronic liar. Parent: Chronic believer of lies.

Yes, it's very perplexing, isn't it?

Yeah, I was bagged on for like, 3 months because I gave a student a 0 on an assignment that he simply didn't hand in.
Parents called me a liar.

I think it's a common situation in schools these days, candidone1. (I teach in Oz) Everything to do with the times we live in. Many years ago, if a teacher had rung my home to, say, inform my parents that I hadn't handed in an important assignment, I would have quite a bit of explaining to do! Now parents want to be "friends" with their children. They want to believe their children are truthful. Some flatly refuse to believe that their children might lie to them. It would never occur to some parents to wonder why a teacher would bother to make up stories about their child. It's certainly weird, having to explain to some parents that, yes, there was a deadline, an extension was granted, even ..... but, sadly little Johnny didn't do what he was supposed to do. I find this sort of thing ebarrassing & a bit weird, really ...

It goes hand-in-hand with the old "You're just picking on my kid" routine. It never occurs to parents that their kid's an a$$hole.

The best is when you fail a student for not handing in the assignment and you are accused of being a racist. Never mind the fact that 100% of your students are minorities and that you passed the students who did hand in the assignment.

Poor teachers, we just can't win!

Too bad. With parents like his, he is doomed to failure!

I will never understand it. Never having had children of my own, I figure that it's just beyond my comprehension but I meet more parents and kids who function that way than those who don't.

I find it hard to understand, too, eoe. But yes, it is very common now. Schools have to cope with this sort of attitude on a fairly regular basis, from my observation & experience.

Having to deal with other peoples' kids nowadays must be a nightmare much of the time. I feel for the educators of the world.

I think some parents would like teachers to treat their children exactly as they do. And get angry & offended when they don't. Of course, working with up to 25 individuals in a classroom is quite a different kettle of fish to a one to one relationship.

Many of the offending parents firmly believe that life is unjust--"It isn't what you know, it's who you know.

They don't relate school assignments and test scores to knowlege--they see honor roll grades as a ladder to an affluent life and they figure their kids deserve an affluent life.

Partnership with the teacher? Of course not. The teacher represents "them", the oppressors, the establishment, the enemy.

god forbid a teacher ever called my parents (and said anything bad about me). my butt would have been grounded/beaten/confined to my room with nothing but my school books). ok well not really beaten, but confined to my room with school books -yup. so sorry candidone, that just stinks. esp. since all you are doing is trying to teach a kid that he/she has to be responsible. geez.

By the time my mother and father were through guilting and shaming me, I'd wish they would have just beaten me.

I taught at an affluent school my first year out here in the Las Vegas area; it wasn't unheard of for parents to bring an attorney to parent/teacher conferences.

Gee, really? That amazes me.

My supervising administrator at the time told me that happened about a half-dozen times a year. It was far more common for parents to contact the principal and/or regional superintendent and demand a teacher's dismissal when their kid was reprimanded or received a poor grade (luckily, the administration tends to back the teacher unless he/she really did do something wrong).

Thankfully, I was able to transfer out of there at the end of that year.

How many of you had to deal with the question "do you have kids?" as if that is a prerequisit of being a teacher, or that if you don't have kids you can't understand them. Never mind that the kid needs a generic beating.
What concerns me most is that these parents come from my generation and we were brought up better. We were brought up with manners and discipline. What happened?

I don't envy you teachers one bit. In fact, I don't know how you do it!

The only time I started butting heads with teachers is when they pushed me to drug my son with Ritalin. That was crossing a huge line!

I've met plenty of the "my child wouldn't do that" parents, but I certainly wasn't one of them.

You teachers, the good ones anyway (you know who you are) truly have my respect! I could never do it!