How to deal with a jobsworth?

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She is a pedagogue at the boarding school of DD. I have had 3 contacts with her since early November and she has rubbed me up the wrong way proper now.

I had told her at the second meeting I was getting myself tested for AS to which she replied that she had wondered at the first meeting if I was on the spectrum myself.

At the third meeting it came up again and I told her te outcome of the testing was that I was not on the spectrum but that they were still writing the rapport. She asked me if anything had been mentioned and I said ADHD had been in the past. To which she replied in questioning form."You wouldn't like it if you was diagnosed with ADHD would you? Truth is I wouldn't. But the pedagogue must have already decided somewhere along the line I am an ADHD'er or she wouldn't make that statement to start with surely?
She also asked me during that meeting what I expected from our meetings. Only thing I could muster is that she was the one that set the appointments and that therefore I expected her to have more to say than me. I'm the type that if I do have a question I will ask it to the point I get an answer. I realize this antagonizes some people no end but the end in this case justifies the means to me. Now we have bi-monthly meetings instead of monthly.

Since then I have spoken to the psychologist regarding my test results and turns out I am not ADHD or Borderline. I have attachment issues and experienced early childhood trauma and the denial of the adults around me at the time have sort of defined who I am and beyond possible substance abuser i have no idea what will be in the rapport. The psychologist has already said I do not fit any one specific DSM diagnosis (Attachment Disorder is very unlikely as it is really only a childhood diagnosis).
Over the years I have amassed an enormous amount of self-knowledge and have also been told that psychiatry is not for me. I am hoping this rapport will once and for all silence those that seem to think there is something wrong with me that can be fixed by some pharmaceutical solution.
I am hoping to get a second opinion on the AS outcome but the cost of it might mean that could take a while, haven't paid of the first tests yet...

DD needs to be at boarding school so she can attend special education. The distance and cost of diesel is too high to do a round trip twice a day. The pedagogue is the contact between the boarding school and me. She deals with most of the paperwork and is also the co-ordinator for holiday arrangements, dental appointments and other dealings in-house.
I have to get on with this woman for the sake off DD without letting my own bias get in the way.

HELP!

Oh wow! I can see why you're finding it difficult to deal with this woman.

My first thoughts are that it would be beneficial to set boundaries and to clarify the purpose of your meetings, which are about your daughter - not you.

Maybe it would be helpful to say at your next meeting that you would find it helpful for you to know from her what routine information she will provide you with - some of it you have already mentioned - dental appointments etc. Then you might want to know about your daughter's behaviour and attitude - is she settling in well, how is she getting on with classmates and teachers - that sort of thing - more about social development.

It does seem that there has been too much discussion about you. This woman doesn't need to know anything personal about you. Her job is to keep you informed about your daughter, and maybe if you could clarify exactly what aspects of your daughter's education and welfare she will discuss with you, that would get you back onto a more professional and business-like footing.

Edited to add: looking at the title again, I thought maybe the answer is to be a jobs worth back at her, but on reflection, I'm not sure that she is being a jobs worth. If she were, she wouldn't be commenting on you.

This is just it. I had thought there would be more of a contact between the school and the boarding but there isn't. The school is independent from boarding but falls somehow under an umbrella set up that includes both (and more). This is in Belgium and why make something simple when it can be complicated.

I have had the first parent evening at school and am totally up to date with what is happening in school. It involved her teacher, the orthopedagogue and the speech therapist. She has also made friends at school and she seems to have a better understanding of her social inadequacies. She has no real behavioural issues beyond her disintrest in anything academic. She has been assessed and will now get extra remedial within school hours. her special interest for instance is horses and the only way you can get her interested in geography is by mentioning prezawalski, camargue or wild mustangs. They tought it funny but will now see in how far they can utilize her special interest to get her interested in what she is supposed to learn She has identified the bullies in her new school and has made a decision not to mix with them. No idea how the school addresses bullying but I'm being selfish on this one and have decided that if DD can deal with it I don't want to get involved. I am keeping on the ball though.

The meetings with the pedagogue woman are meant to be about how she is developing in the living unit but as she has only been there so short there was little to say.
The designation of her living unit is for children with emotional and behavioural problems. DD is the former after suffering from social exclusion in her previous school. She had totally withdrawn and never laughed no more. Her inability to deal with the emotional caused her to become a challenge on the behavioural hence she ended up where she is. This was after a year of remedial and it was through her old psychologist we managed to get a placecement.
Since she has been at boarding she has bloomed open again and she is receptive again to learning in general. She has found a friend in her living unit and is learning to deal with the boys.
I always stop to talk to the staff when I drop her off and pick her up and mention or ask anything that is relevant at the time. There is a back and forth book that allows us and the staff to communicate how the week/weekend went. We were talking of holiday arrangements as they organise camps but it turns out DD won't be going as I was informed there are children there that rarely go home these days! The age group is 6-12. There is this little thought gnawing at me that has me wondering wether the boarding is as much as a dumping ground for difficult children as anything. And wether misses jobsworth sees us as another problem case hence her wanting to know all about me.


At school they have something called SOVA which is basically social skills learning in a class setting but with another teacher coming in for that. They don't have that sort of training in the living unit. When I seemed surprised the pedagogue seemed surprised that I was. I suppose that is what makes her a jobsworth to me.

I'm a bit confused here (maybe it's my American English). If this is about your child and her school situation, how is your diagnosis relevant at all? In fact that would be my first response if someone in a professional setting were to ask me irrelevant questions about my personal life, especially rude and critical ones.

I have seen a strategy at times where a person, in an attempt to obstruct the true purpose of a meeting will completely derail the conversation. For example, in a court case over whether medicaid should fund a child's therapy, a "parent advocate" (in the pocket of the managed care company) went on a tirade about education laws and the responsibility of the school. My response was "I agree with you, but how is this relevant? We're here to talk about the managed care company's responsibilities." I restated my understanding of the purpose of the meeting and asked if she agreed, and then tried to redirect her back on track.

Often times rude people rely on others to be too polite, kind or forgiving to call them out for their rude behavior. I find that if you limit your response to describing their behavior and asking for an explanation (rather than insulting them, or raising your voice), it puts them on the spot, shames them and forces them to change course. It also keeps the blame solely on the rude person in the eyes of other people present.

If you are concerned that this is a tactic that they are using to deny you or your child of certain rights, then you may want to bring a recorder to the meeting and mention before starting that you intend to record the meeting for your records. I'm not sure about the legalities of this in Belgium, but in the US, it's typically a parent's prerogative to have records of any meetings with the school.

I also do not understand why this woman keeps asking about your business. The only thing I can think of is maybe she has some kind of vested interest in evaluating whether your daughter would be better off at boarding or with you and she is trying to figure out if your diagnosis has some bearing on that. I would be careful with her and just as others have said, just get her back on track.

Problem is that I don't deal with conflict very well. I will bite my nose off despite my face and have done so in the past. I find it next to impossible to identify my own emotions and even more so in Dutch. And I tend to get very defensive when people bring my mental health into it.


And this is usually the point where I really manage to get it totally wrong and rub others the wrong way...

Mini-derailment. Thanks for that. I tend to be the one who is too polite, kind, and forgiving at work. Sometimes (with relatively "normal" people--not as opposed to ASD, but as opposed to people with "issues") it eventually works because the person starts to feel bad for being so rude to someone who is always pleasant, but some people are just jerks and persist. I've never known how to deal with it without being rude back. Now I do.

DD does need to be assessed by a control doctor to see wether she qualifies for increased child benefit which then would pay for the boarding. The pedagogue is involved in so far that she is coming to the assesment at my request because I helps me deal with the stress to have some moral support dealing with this control doctor.
I can't pretend for the life of me and the whole system of disability is all about how thick you can lay it on at the control doctor assesment. Having the pedagogue with me sort of takes the pressure off me to pretend.

Boarding is voluntarily. The alternative is a school bus but that would mean DD spends 3 hours commuting back and forth every day. If DD don't pass the medical this willl be the only option.
Also boarding provides DD with social contacts of her own age group. Neither me or Mr. Guzzle are the most sociable of people and beyond her riding lessons and a friend that lives 20 miles away DD has no contact with peers.
I contacted her by mail today regarding the holiday arrangements. Hopefully that will get us back on track more and her mind off me.

InThisTogether - glad to give helpful advice. It's still a confrontation, but at least it gives a possible path to resolution.

guzzle - so it seems the pedagogue is there to help you, at least in some respect. I'm getting a sense that she may be a well-meaning person who just has no sense of boundaries. So she's treating you as if you were a family member rather than a professional acquaintance. Since you only have limited contact with her aside from this meeting, I'd probably just let it slide - As long as you're certain that she will actually be helpful at the meeting. It may be worth clarifying that with her and gently redirecting her back to topic, maybe even with an overshare: "I'm really anxious about this meeting, I just want to review all the points that we're going to bring up about my son, to help ease my mind...

One polite response to intrusive questions (such as whether you are diagnosed with something) is "Why do you ask?"

Another that might get the conversation back on track is, "Would that affect whether or not my daughter qualifies for boarding?" or "How would that change my daughter's course of treatment?"