From a Parenting Coach. Thoughts?

I had 2 male students who’s dad pulled my aside at parent night. He said, something similar. If they give you a hard time, call me & I’ll take care of it. The thing is, the parents were already doing their job at home. These boys were awesome students, looked up to by their peers. Kind, respectful, super fun, and just go getters. Their student conferences also showed how supportive and kind the parents were to their kids too.

So, there’s truth to this, but if you’re a 💩 parent, someone has to discipline your kids. If you’re a good parent, you usually don’t have to worry about it. As an educator, I can tell you good parenting makes our lives so much easier.

About 95% of the time, the students’ behavior matches the parents. At least it was like that when I was over middle school discipline office

Wait… sooo… “Don’t discipline my child. Tell me what happened, and then I’ll either discipline my child… or I’ll do nothing if I decide my child didn’t do anything wrong.” Hard to imagine a more thorough way of removing a teacher’s control over a classroom.

While this is ideal, it’s not reality. And, we have to handle the situation if it gets in the way of instruction. So, it depends on what she means by “never discipline them”.

100% agree with the 1st part...it IS the parents job to raise their kids. Hard disagree with the 2d part...if a kid is acting up, the teacher should handle it, then let the parent know.

what does never discipline them mean? You can’t change their seat bc they are too chatty? They can’t serve detention bc of a school related infraction? Too vague, sometimes kids need consequences.

I agree with everything except for her request that the teacher never discipline her own children. A teacher cannot maintain order in a classroom without imposing some degree of immediate consequence for misbehavior, even if it is something as simple as threatening to call the parents. She is, however, correct in requesting that the teacher communicate any misbehavior with her. Parents who expressly invite the teacher to communicate incentivize the teacher to be comfortable reaching out to parents, which is helpful especially for less experienced teachers, and may ultimately lead to a more reliable line of contact. Parents should be careful, however, to not feel entitled to daily feedback considering the teacher's other obligations.

As a former middle school and high school teacher I would absolutely work with a parent like this AS LONG AS THE PARENT ACTUALLY DOES MANAGE THEIR CHILD. If I have repeated problems with your kid then my class discipline WILL be applied.

Truth.