I cannot sleep right now because I cannot stop dwelling on how frustrating it is to deal with angry parents. I truly believe that the most difficult part about being a teacher is having to deal with a parent who finds little things to gripe about.
Some parents have legitimate reasons to have concerns with their child while he/she is at school. This year I have dealt with parents who were worried about their child's relationship with other students, grades, TAKS testing, and such; nothing petty, nothing to do with me personally and usually easy to resolve.
However, occasionally you have that one particular parent who finds irrelevant things to complain about, and rarely does this parent discuss these concerns with you personally. Instead they write little notes expressing their concerns. They write notes because these little irrelevant complaints are usually in regards to me. I refer to this kind of parent as the "helicopter parent" because they are always at their child's rescue on anything and everything rather the child is at fault.
Parents like these have a lot of nerve on paper, but like I said, they rarely bring their concerns to me either in person or in a phone conversation. It's easier to be ugly and mad on a piece of paper when there's not a way for them to get an immediate response.
Well, in my opinion, helicopter parents are only teaching their kids that they can never do anything wrong, and that they are never at fault for breaking rules of authority. I believe this is doing their kids more harm than good. Yes, they may be trying to protect their child and make things right for them, but when they fail to allow their children to receive consequences for their mistakes, imagine how they will be as teenagers? These types of parents are almost harder to deal with than the actual student.
I'm still frustrated, but at least I have blown off a little bit of steam. Okay, maybe now I can get some sleep.
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