Mad as heck at a teacher

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I'm so furious. I had lunch today at my daughter's school. Having lunch with mom is a reward for having 3 "peaceful" days at school. During our meal, she pointed to a teacher and said, "That lady called me the devil!" My first instinct was to snatch that teacher out of her chair and tell her a thing or two, but I kept it together long enough to finish my lunch and then I went to talk to the principal. I know that this teacher doesn't know about my daughter's AS since she is a teacher from another classroom, but I still cant' find one good reason for a teacher to call a child "the devil". My daughter seems to think it was because the teacher saw her having a meltdown a couple of days prior to that. It's sad when our educators or so uneducated and when our educators act like children themselves. I just wanted to share my story and get it off my chest with others who know how I feel.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Unfortunately, I know of so many teachers just like that- and worse. There seems to be a lot more bad ones than good ones. At least around here anyway. You did the right thing by talking to the principal. He should definitely get on her case about it!

This is a flaw with social hierarchy. Adults think that it's proper to instruct/tell kids how to act without modelling that behavior. They often think it's okay to be condescending, rude, agressive or even violent towards kids without realizing that they're teaching those kids (especially autistic kids) to copy them. They're the ones that are so bewildered when those kids fly into rages, insult others and curse.

This may be controversial but when my son's teacher behaved in a rotten manner, I explained it to my son, "See, what he did was wrong, we don't do that". Quite the opposite of what MY parents taught, "If your teacher said, it's probably right, she's the teacher".

That's what I usually do, but I have to be so careful because she repeats my words with attitude. For example, I told her a couple of years ago that her daycare teacher had been told to let her have milk with her food instead of making her wait until she finished her food (stupid rule anyway). She then approached the teacher with, "You WILL give me milk because you have been told!" Imagine that being said with hands on hips and a sassy head roll. Though I have to say that I found if I talk to her as if it is a secret between us then things are better and she tends to keep it between us. I tell her that she doesn't have to tell her teachers what they she things they did wrong, but to come home and tell me so I can take care of it. I just find it so hard to get her to talk to me. This incident that happened today was something that teacher said to her back in September of last year and today was the first I heard of it. Does anyone else find that their child doesn't open up easily when someone has been really nasty to them?

Yep, the worse it is, the quieter he becomes. Which is very odd for him, as he's very outspoken. There are some things that the principal said or did to him that I still don't know about because no one will tell me.

I hate that for you but I sure am glad to hear that it's not just my child that clams up. She just recently told me about things that happen at least a year ago in daycare like having a bowl of yogurt smashed in her face by a teacher because she was misbehaving. Another teacher threatened to cut her "long pretty blond hair off, strand by strand" if she didn't behave. My daughter's hair is her pride and joy and the teacher knew that. Think of the torture that must have been for her. I still can't decide if I call that daycare and tell them or just leave it alone but it sure would make me feel better to let it be known.

Her teacher at her current school is wonderful, but her assistant teacher is really crummy. My daughter says the assistant teacher loves to say, "look me in the eyes when I talk to you" and the sad thing about that is the assistant teacher used to work at a school for "special" children and she should know better. Fortunatly the assistant teacher is not allowed to interact with my daughter anymore (principal's orders). It still happens from time to time, but I can deal with that versus an everyday battle.

My kids (5 and 10) will actually make up stuff to avoid telling me about school. According to the younger one he has a classmate named Chupacabra who's an expert on Mexican ghosts and monsters. Wishful thinking, I guess.

I'm wondering if the teacher called your daughter a devil to her face or if your daughter overheard her saying it to someone else. If it was the latter, maybe you could charitably view it as gallows humor, the way cops on tv wisecrack to relieve tension. Granted, she shouldn't have said it within earshot of you daughter, but don't parents sometimes think of our kids as demons too?

Anyway, I think its very sweet that your daughter considers lunch with Mom to be a big treat. I hope that lasts many more years!

Public school teachers are so f*****g dumb, it's amazing. If a child is anything other than the status quo, learns different, or has any quirks, most teachers don't even attempt to understand the child or their issues, they just see them as a nuisance or a disruption to their teaching. I had some terrible teachers in elementary school, to the point of me being bullied by the teacher. The sad part is, if you complain about a teacher mistreating a child with AS (or anything else for that matter) the faculty will always back up the teacher, never the student The best advice I can give is to try and get your kid to make it out of school alive, and when she is older, things will improve.

Yeah, we got so disgusted with incidents like the above, that we gave up and started home schooling our kid. Other kids would give him a hard time in ways that shouldn't have been allowed to continue, or staff would fail to do their jobs, then he'd have a meltdown, and usually wouldn't want to talk about what happened. So we kept being called to pick him up from school, and being told, in essence, "your kid just had another horrible meltdown for no reason." Hours or days later, we would find out what happened, and the problems were never instigated by him. The final straw was when, after being out of school for several days, he had a meltdown in his math class and got kicked out of it (a luxury the teacher had because he was working above his grade level and was attending classes in higher grades, hence it was not "his" class). The reason for the meltdown was that he didn't know how to do a new sort of problem that had been introduced while he was gone, and the teacher wouldn't spend the two minutes necessary to explain it to him. After a couple of days of frustration, and being given bad grades for not completing work that he couldn't understand, he lost it.

That they were willing to drop him a couple of grades in math, and make him spend years doing busywork that would teach him nothing, rather than put any effort into teaching him appalled us, and we were not about to accept it. So we pulled him out. Afterwards, they sent us a letter which tried to blame him some more -- something which we could only read as an attempt to cover their own butts. It was really disgusting. We'll be moving out of the area soon, and will not miss the local, substandard schools in the least.

We've had terrible teachers too who have said things like "we get paid whether you learn or not" and "we don't care about grades, we just want to move you on". And these teachers are supposedly in a good school district.

Hard for that attitude to still exist with the No Child Left Behind Act. The annual test that are taken now are more about the role of the teacher teaching as opposed to students learning which is why alot of school districts have changes to test prep only it seems.
Too much focus on the wrong things. At least it's that way here in the US.

just my two cents.....are you sure that your duaghter is telling the truth ?....my son used to tell stories that sounded credible, and AWFUL~i'd go into his school with a strong determination to make things right....and then be terribly embarassed in the end when it was proven ( by a friend he had in class), that the event did not take place as my son had interpreted it....

That remark wasnt very proper.
You know we don't know really what some people aare saying to our kids. I know my son clams up when i ask him about something i heard he just said i am not talking so leave me alone.

Ster you are right~ i have found my son to tell lies and i get upset about it and then find out not true.

Gosh, sometimes AS kids are so literal-I can only imagine what your daughter must be thinking! My son would be totally obsessed on how to get the devil out of him-after he 50 questioned my about what the devil was (20 questions in my house doesn't really cover it). It never occurred to me that I would have to worry about bullying from teachers too. Thanks for opening my eyes.

I am also having daily run-ins with my sons teacher, and have done with the previous three actually. All of them were determined to think badly of him. I was told when he was six "your son has all the makings of becoming a serious problem to this school", and another "hes like no other child I have taught before", they can be really cruel to the parents, and worse to the children. My son is only 8 and I cant wait for school to be over, I just have to re-dress the balance daily of the damage that is done to him at school by the teachers and his classmates.