You Are Not Helping... sometimes

I know what you're thinking - another post about parents, ugh! And while I do have a list of topics I want to write about, this one kept nudging itself to the front of the line and so, here it is.

I am not a parent yet and so I realize that I look at life in a different perspective than someone who is in charge of another human being in which they have placed all their hopes and dreams on. I don't know what it's like to see a little mini-me or adopted-me running around and growing up and becoming an individual. What I get is a person in the middle of their academic career (usually) who is starting to figure out who they are and realizing the world is more than marshmallow manipulatives and sock puppets that teach you French.

I understand when I phone a parent to tell them that their son or daughter is not being the best they can be, they will be defensive. In general, though, I have found most parents are very supportive of me as a teacher and are behind me 100%. (Hopefully I didn't just jinx it). Sometimes, however, they can try to be helpful in the wrong way and as a teacher it's hard to tell them they are being the opposite of helpful.

For example, this one time I had to discipline a student and remove the student from class. A standard tactic that I'm sure was used since the beginning of time when they made all the bad cavemen who refused to hunt sit by themselves forever alone. Being a teacher who likes to keep parents informed, I phoned said parent to inform them of their child's behaviour. The result was that, as punishment, the student would be sent to school that day (it was a 'snow day' so she had allowed her children to stay home... except there are no snow days at my school).

Hello rock and hard place, I am in between you.

On the one hand, I could have told the parent that isn't a good idea to equate school with punishment. He should have been at school anyways. But doing that is basically saying "Parenting, you are doing it wrong" and I don't have that right. On the other hand, the student is by no means actually punished or received the message (particularly because in this instance, he just skipped my class anyways).

What would be nice when we find ourselves in this situation, is that both parent and teacher work together to find a solution/tactic/plan of attack to help the student get back on track. It shouldn't just be left up to the parent or the teacher to discipline. Like in war, the most successful operations are when simultaneous, well coordinated attacks take place on a target.

I know that realistically there is no book on how to have parents and teachers team up to help a struggling kid not be a meanie-poop-face (a technical term, I believe). But you'd think since schooling has been going on one way or another for centuries, that someone, somewhere, would at least have some do's and don'ts that we could all hand out at teachers' college and the maternity ward so we're all on the same page when your child jumps into the education system.

I'd even settle for an IKEA instruction manual.