Parenting Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for parents, grandparents, nannies and others with a parenting role. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I just had my son's kindergarten teacher tell me that 'the way you are raising him is making my job harder'. I was offended by this but don't have much experience with teachers and don't know if I am overreacting.
For context, the issue was that I play with him a lot and the teacher thinks this has made him a prankster. He hid a flashlight and it took her 30 minutes to find it. I discourage him from hiding my own things, which he likes to do, but I don't punish him for it.
I have never encountered this, and find it to be inappropriate unless there is a lot of detail you are leaving out. This statement just strains relations, and warrants a frank but respectful conversation with the instructor, at least.
The difficulty of the teachers job, by itself, is entirely irrelevant to what constitutes appropriate behavior in class. Assuming this is not the latest event in a chain of parent-supported class clowning, the teacher should relay the inappropriate behavior, what the in-class response is going to be, and what is expected of you to help ensure success.
I would certainly consider it inappropriate to say those words in the way you relayed them to us. Teachers generally should not give unsolicited advice to parents about how to raise their children; rather, they should give feedback to the parents as to how the child is doing in school. This can convey much the same information, but in a more respectful manner:
Please teach Johnny better table manners!
versus
At lunchtime, Johnny is often seen to be eating with his hands and making quite a mess of the table.
The latter is appropriate; the former is not, as it implies you don't teach him manners to your satisfaction.
In the case above, the teacher should have described the behaviors, and then asked (politely) for your help in managing them.
Schools might sometimes give general advice to the population of parents, however; i.e., sending home fliers about how to talk to your child about X topic, or similar. That's much more appropriate, as it doesn't single you out and is instead simply providing reference material to those who want it.
