Educator Abuse Must Stop
Offending parents must respect their child’s educators and teach their children to respect them, too.
My role as
Family Engagement Influencer
is extensive. I provide parents and educators with reliable family engagement strategies to improve their mutual relationship for the benefit of student growth and development. Next, I explore current events and issues that will either grow or diminish family engagement in schools. Additionally, I speak my truth even though educators who represent the school districts and professional organizations that they are employed by must keep their voices relatively silent. Finally, I diligently work extremely hard to advance my professional mission to
Ignite Family Engagement In Education.
These critical things represent my purpose driven motivation for writing this article.
There are many educators who are not able to relate to the words that will be unleashed in this piece. For these teachers, guidance counselors, principals, and other educators, their life’s work continues to fulfill their dream to report to their school each day with sunshine dancing on their face and rainbows reflecting on their horizon as they enter their building every morning. While these educators work hard each day and confront stressful moments, they leave their school filled with anticipation as they look forward to returning to their classrooms and offices the next day in anticipation of what will unfold for their learners the next day. These educators may experience some minor challenges at times but their happiness is well preserved as they serve their school community as a highly respected and highly qualified professional.
These educators will not comprehend nor will they have the capacity to empathize with the educators who are the subject of this article.
The Dawn of Each School Day
The struggle to embrace a new school day is very real for many educators because they remain
conflicted.
Passion for their chosen teaching profession continues to burn within their heart. There is the intrinsic desire to positively contribute to the lives of learners by fulfilling their calling to serve as a teacher. But, anguish fills their total being. A shadow of despair falls on their face and a cloud of doom fills their horizon as they enter their building everyday.
All of the authentic, confusing, and inconsistent emotions that these educators experience are attributed to some but certainly not all,
parents.
What Some Parents Do
This segment of the article excludes families and students impacted by behavior and mental health conditions as well as medical diagnosis that impacts their interactions with others. It also excludes parents who diligently work through what sometimes appears to be a convoluted and perplexing health care system that delays the supports that children and young people desperately need. Instead, this component is targeted to those who represent
a very poor example of a parent.
The failures of some parents reflects the reasons why many educators experience professional dread and unhappiness day after day.
Parenting Failures
There is a popular quote penned by an unknown author that reads:
“Children live what they learn.”
Parents are poor role models when they engage lewd conduct, use profane language, and consider it highly amusing when their children do the same. Since I believe that parents are their child’s first teacher, the unacceptable behavior that younger children observe their parents display will be learned. Once these behaviors become a part of a child’s nature, they will them manifest when they enroll in and matriculate through school. Children who behave terribly at school prevent other children from learning and they prevent teachers from providing continuous instruction for the benefit of all learners.
This is true because some of these behaviors are explosive and violent. In addition, some of the student behaviors reflect a total disregard for the authority of a teacher or school administrator. Even though educators receive various types of training related to classroom management, student trauma, and every other trends in education, nothing prepares a teacher, school administrator, or any other school employee for enduring the willful and persistent behavior of an unruly and disrespectful student day after day. For these educators, there are few if any supports that will resolve the accumulation of distress that a student creates when he or she acts out based on what parents taught them.
Another parenting failure occurs when they fail to teach their children behavioral boundaries. When this happens, children lack self control. This, too, will be devastating for a school. It will then become the exclusive responsibility of the classroom teacher as well as others to teach, monitor, and reinforce this life skill that should have been taught in the home. Unfortunately, it becomes humanly impossible for educators to manage the student behaviors that ensue while performing all of the other professional duties and obligations associated with their jobs.
School districts and classroom teachers are responsible for communicating and reinforcing the Student Code of Conduct and classroom behavioral expectations. One of the most devastating parental failures erupts when they blatantly object to their child receiving any type of behavioral intervention or consequence administered by a teacher or school official. Verbally combative and demeaning parents make it extremely difficult for educators to hold students accountable for their unacceptable behavioral choices. This is especially true when such parents forcefully object to their child being redirected and when they deny that he or she was a fault. Parental disputes that result when they do not want educators to correct their children makes the life of an educator miserable.
Abusive and Disgraceful Parent Conduct
Many people who work in schools are routinely victimize by parents. Whether it is the school secretary who answers the telephone, the custodian who locks the school doors at a certain time to maintain a secure environment for all students and staff members, or the classroom teachers who tabulates the student grades that they earn, there are some parents who are self empowered to verbally assault school employees day after day after day.
For these parents, degrading insults erupt when they yell at school personnel who simply perform the daily intricate tasks associated with their jobs. This also includes parents who shout vulgarities and profanities to professionals as well as those who make lewd gestures during interactions with them.
One of the most troubling acts that some parents engage in is threatening to harm an educator and his or her family. The very sad reality is that some of these disturbed parents act on the verbal threats that they have made.
Simply stated, the shocking behavior of such parents is
abusive.
No educator, regardless of their position within the educational structure should have to tolerate abuse. Unfortunately, there is little help for many educators who are forced to endure such maltreatment at the hand of the parents of the children and young people that they serve.
The Impact of Educator Abuse
Parenting failures and the way that they treat educators equals abuse. Very sadly, educator abuse results in several troubling outcomes for these professionals. Some of these include:
trauma; resignations; various behavior, mental, and physical health conditions; leaving the education profession; marital and family struggles; fear; hopelessness; eating disorders including but not limited to obesity; insomnia; substance abuse; financial problems; and suicide.
It is morally wrong for educators and their loved ones to endure such horrible outcomes.
A Call To Action: Now Is The Time
Educator Abuse is a serious issue that occurs in many schools and it must be resolved
NOW.
Therefore, I encourage you to:
- Be a consumer of knowledge about family engagement to understand that abuse is not a part of the mutual relationship building process that must exist between educators and parents.
- Honor the work that educators perform by being a voice for them. Advocate for their professional treatment within your school, school district, and local community by forming partnerships with members of the board of school directors. Demand that policies be developed to hold parents accountable for maintaining respectful interactions with them. Collaborate with local law enforcement to ensure that consequences be given to parents when they compromise the health, safety, and well-being of educators.
- Share your knowledge about this topic by using your voice to speak your truth. This includes raising the awareness of this serious problem by participating in round table discussions and registering to speak at school board meetings as well as during special forums.
- Join me by uniting together to create change in this along with other areas related to family engagement. Sign up to be on my email list at [email protected] to advance the
Ignite Family Engagement In Education Movement.
What are your thoughts about Educator Abuse and solving this terrible problem that impact so many professionals?
Here’s my golden ticket that helps me accomplish my mission.
Dr. Deborah M. Vereen is a retired family and consumer sciences teacher, school principal, director of pupil personnel services, assistant to the superintendent for family and community engagement, and professor of multicultural education. Her website is www.Drdeborahmvereen.com and her YouTube Channel is “Ignite Family Engagement”.
