Saturday, May 9, 2009

Why Do Parents Believe Children?

Seriously.  If your 12-year-old tells you that she doesn't have homework anymore because we've had our standardized test... don't believe her.

If your son, a 6th grader, tells you that they don't send report cards home anymore, even though the sign at the front of the school says they go home on the 10th, don't believe him.

I must have had a different type of mother, because she never believed my crazy lies.  I don't believe my student's crazy tales, but their parents do.

And that's really sad.

But if I get one more voicemail or email from a parent, claiming crazy things, I am seriously going to have to restrain myself from saying something to the effect of, "Do you really think that I said that?  That, even though on the progress report, her grade was a 11%, she actually has a 95%, and it was just a mistake?  Are you that stupid?"  

Because this past progress report, the children apparently all joined in a conspiracy to lie to their parents, causing an endless stream of confusion and consternation, culminating in parents yelling about how they can't believe that we don't fix the errors in the computers before sending progress reports home.

Um, parents? 

Your child lies.  It's a phase they go through several times in their growth to adults, and apparently especially right now.  Love them, trust them, but then check everything they say, especially if it seems like it doesn't make sense.

And stop blaming me!  I promise I didn't tell your child that they don't need to pass my class to get out of 6th grade.

I actually said, "Do your work or you'll have summer school."

Believe me.  I outgrew the lying phase years ago.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Too funny! Wouldn't it be great if you could anonymously e-mail this to all parents of 5th-10th graders? :) You're almost done, hang in there!