Parent Meeting

I had a parent meeting with one of my most challenging students yesterday. This student has been a pain in the neck for the past month or so and we have butted heads many times. Most of this comes from this student being a drama queen and always speaking about how spoiled he is. There are some other personal issues with this particular student, but that is not for me to speak about.

I will say that this student has been very disrespectful and disruptive in class. I have held him after school many times because he decided to not work in class. One day, I had to kick him out of class because he wouldn't stop laughing. After class, I spoke with him and he didn't feel like listening so he started to walk away in the middle of my conversation. I got mad and yelled at him. That night I received a phone call from the father, saying we need to have a meeting. This is an Indian family and the father was very strong with his words and it was hard for me to get a few words in over the phone. In my short time dealing with Indians, it is my experience that they are very forceful with their words and often viewed as rude since they interrupt often and try to have their voice heard.

I had expected this meeting to be a very difficult one, based on my conversation with the father over the phone and my interactions with the student. Also, I had found out that the mother had been in to have meetings about the student before (since other teachers have had problems with him) and nothing seems to come from those meetings. In fact, Simon said that he has never met the father in the year and a half he has been at the school. I'm not sure if its a good thing that I brought the father in or not, but at least he is involved with what is happening and what his son is doing.

I was aware that this student has been causing problems in other classes as well and he is very spoiled. I have had to take two different cell phones away from him over the course of two days, one five minutes after the other. Also, several times I have had to advise him that mentioning how much his 5 maids do for him (clean up after him, make his bed, pack his bag, etc.) is not always a good thing, even in the culture at the school of well-off students. So there are some issues with this student and definitely a sense of entitlement.

Like I said, I had notes and was ready to defend myself with tooth and nail, because I thought this was going to be an attack on me. I had Simon in the meeting with us and allowed the student to say a few things. The student and the mother were on the attack a little, but not as bad as I thought. The mother said a few things about what was happening in my class (or what her son was telling her was happening) and I quickly disagreed with those statements. Not that I was rude, but she was not on the attack as much. The student was a little more on the offensive, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Overall, he felt that I was treating him unfairly compared to the other students, letting some go to the bathroom while I didn't let him go a few days earlier. I did take this personally, but was not too upset about it because I felt it was the only way the student knew how to defend the meeting and his actions.

As the meeting progressed, I had mentioned a few times that I may have been harder on the student because of expectations and amount of effort put into my class. The other students are working when I ask them, this student is not. However, I did not have to say everything I was expecting to say because the father was actually coming down on the student and taking control of the situation. This also made the mother more humble and quiet, and she didn't have much else to say once the father began scolding the son for some behavior problems. Which again, I feel led to the student attacking me more as a defense mechanism.

Overall, it was a good meeting. I think we did get some things out in the open and I am extremely happy the father was able to make it in for the meeting. My goal was to make sure that all people involved were at the meeting and there was no miscommunication. I think I achieved this during the meeting.

I did have a few meetings with the parent of another difficult child earlier and the mother was very supportive and scolding of the child's actions. It is refreshing to know that to this point, the parents I have had to deal with have been very supportive. I have heard horror stories about parents taking the side of the student and not agreeing with the parent. I'm sure I will run into this in the future ( I actually already have with the mother of this student), but for now, I'm happy with the supportive parents I have been dealing with.

Aaron