Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Navigating the Teacher-Parent Partnership in an Era of Educational Stress
Teachers are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress with mental health at a 50-year low and only 42% feeling their job is worth it, yet they continue showing up for students despite declining academic achievement nationwide.
• America's Education Report Card shows most 4th and 8th graders still performing below pre-pandemic levels in reading and math
• COVID severely impacted current elementary students who missed critical foundational learning in kindergarten and first grade
• Increased school absenteeism rates correlate directly with lower academic performance
• Teacher satisfaction has plummeted with only 18% reporting being very satisfied with their work
• Children with learning differences receive 10x more negative feedback than neurotypical peers
• Parents should establish open and honest relationships with teachers from day one
• Avoid defensive responses like "not my child" when receiving behavioral feedback
• Follow proper communication channels instead of jumping over teachers to administrators
• Each teacher brings unique gifts to children - some are nurturing, others push academic excellence
• Writing personalized thank-you notes expressing specific ways teachers impacted your child validates their work
Remember, when it comes to raising kids, you just have to be this side of good enough. Join us and we will show you how.
Welcome to Legit Parenting, where imperfect parents build resilient kids and families. A place to learn real solutions based in brain science to fit your unique parenting style. We show you how to tackle today's challenges for children and teens. Remember, when it comes to raising kids, you just have to be this side of good enough. Join us and we will show you how this side of good enough. Join us and we will show you how. I'm your host, craig Nippenberg. I've been a child and family therapist for nearly 40 years. I'm the business owner of one of Colorado's largest private practices, best-selling author and father of four. In my fathering world, I've been a birth dad, a single parent, a step-parent, adoptive parent, a parent of exceptional students and a grandparent of two. By my side is Sydney Moreau, our production manager and mother of three ages, preschool through 18. Together, we bring you a guilt-free parenting perspective with solutions that actually fit into your real life.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Legit Parenting. I'm your host, craig Nippenberg, along with my producer, sidney Moreau. Today we're going to be talking about teachers under stress and how, as parents and some of you may be teachers as well how parents can establish a positive working relationship with your teacher during these very difficult times for teachers. And I've got some the latest research statistics on teachers and reading and math score, and it's not rosy. First, I want to give a shout-out to the Courage to Risk conference. Courage to Risk was started 35 years ago, I think, by the Colorado Department of Education for special education teachers, social workers, psychologists. They have an annual conference with hundreds of young, eager special education people and it's down at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs and if you're not familiar with it, it is our most exclusive resort in Colorado. It is spectacular and they invited me down. I've done breakout sessions for years for them, but this year I got to be one of the keynote speakers and today's talk is based on that. The title of my presentation was the Care and Feeding of the Exceptional Parent-Teacher's Soul and how Difficult it is to Parent and Teach Exceptional Students. And I accomplish my goal of every lecture, which is I love to have the audience laugh a lot and if I can get them to cry as well, it's a good lecture and they were just very generous with their enthusiasm for the topic and their support. I also did a breakout session on how to teach executive functioning and frontal lobe functioning to students and it's all brain-based and just had a delightful time with this whole new generation of special educators. So today's topic is from that keynote Teachers Under Stress.
Speaker 2:First, I'm going to start with the latest news from the 2024 America's Report Card on Education. It's not so great. There's some spots, but so the title of the article was nearly five years after schools closed, the nation gets a new report card. The good news in math, many students have made up at least some of the academic ground they lost during the pandemic. The bad news in both reading and math, many students have made up at least some of the academic ground they lost during the pandemic. The bad news in both reading and math, most 4th and 8th graders in 2024 still performed below pre-pandemic 2019 levels. So we knew COVID just caused a huge hit, but it's still struggling. Huge hit, but it's still struggling.
Speaker 2:More specifically, in fourth grade, the average math score ticked up slightly compared to 2022, ending a pandemic slide. In fact, white, black, hispanic and economically disadvantaged students all showed modest gains on average. However, math scores peaked in 2013, and it's been downhill ever since. Now one of your thoughts about that is that no Child Left Behind, which I believe it was. President Bush started. That ended in 2012. So when you look at the charts, reading math scores were all climbing until 2020-12 when it ended, and it's been in a steady decline ever since.
Speaker 2:Sadly, the highest performing eighth graders improved in math compared with 2022, but the lowest performing students moved in the opposite direction, losing ground in 2024. Overall, 39% of fourth graders and 28% of eighth graders scored at or above standards for proficiency in math. That's a little better than 2022. And I read that and I whoa, so we're excited. They made a little progress, but it's only 39% and 28% of eighth graders that are at proficiency levels.
Speaker 2:Think about it In the old days, the standard for teachers was always 80%. If the kids the average number of kids are scoring 80%, then you can start to move the curriculum up. If they're below that, it's too hard and you need to take your time. Well, these numbers are abysmal. Reading the bad news gets worse. Fourth graders continue to lose ground in 2024. The reading score is slightly lower on average than they were in 2022, and much lower than they were in 2019. In 2019, 35% of fourth graders scored at or above the test reading proficiency standard In 2024, 31% in reading. Like what is going on and I have some thoughts about that.
Speaker 2:This current round just another quote this current round of fourth graders from the 23-24 school year were in kindergarten when the pandemic first closed schools and spent some or all of their first grade in learning remotely. Now we all knew that would hit that class really hard because when you think about kindergarten and especially first grade is the foundational year for elementary school. They learn how to pay attention, they learn social skills, they learn how to do the basics of reading and math and social skills. They learned how to do the basics of reading and math and they weren't there for it and they're still struggling from the hit. Also, school absenteeism rates are at an all-time high, with kids missing more than 10 days of school a year. That's a huge problem across the country and here in Colorado, across the board. All the way. Lower-performing students were more likely to report missing five or more school days in the previous month compared with higher-performing students. So, in other words, if you want to be well in school, you've got to show up. Your kid needs to be there and they're not.
Speaker 2:And we know that, and I've talked about this before, many middle school and high school students are afraid to go to school because of guns, so their academics are sliding because they're in fear. One quote by some organization. I can't even read it. It's not just affecting academics, she said of absenteeism. It's affecting social development and executive functioning. So what I like to call the president, which is your prefrontal cortex, it's like a muscle the more you use it, the better it gets. So if you're not in class, you're not rigorously working on learning how to pay attention, it doesn't develop. I also wonder about, in addition to in 2020-2012, when the program ended, it's also the timing of smartphones and the explosion of electronic gaming. So my guess is many of our children, instead of doing homework or gaming, or on their phones. I just met with a junior in high school yesterday who was telling me about all the social drama in their IBLA class, and IB is high-performing kids, where they're all on their phones showing embarrassing pictures of classmates, taking pictures of the embarrassing pictures, sending it to all their friends, and I'm like my God, why don't they take the phones away? They should all be locked up. Not a surprise Now, in today's paper I just read this morning, colorado scores were mostly stable, but gap between low and high performers widened.
Speaker 2:Colorado students continued to perform better than students in many other states and showed slight improvements on national math and reading tests, but they're still scoring below pre-pandemic levels. So we're not even in the worst state, but we're not good either. Students who are high-performing continue to improve, while students who are typically low-performing have continued to struggle. Average scores mask those widening gaps. The percentage this relates to reading the percentage of eighth graders who have below basic reading skills, according to NAEP, was the largest it's been in the exam's three-decade history and that's at 33%. The percentage of fourth graders at a basic level was the largest in 20 years, at 40%. So things aren't going well for our teachers, and I'll have more research in a second on statistics about our teachers at schools.
Speaker 2:Now I want to explain more about why teachers are under stress, and to do that before I get to the statistics, I wanted to share a cartoon. I absolutely love it. I read it every day it's called Baby Blues, and it's this young couple with their three young children and the son who's like in the old days we had Dennis the Menace, and then Calvin, calvin and Hobbes, and he's the Calvin and Dennis the Menace character and he comes to his mom in the kitchen and he said I gave my world reporter in the solar system today. And mom says how did it go? He said there are 15 boys my age in the classroom and mom says so, uranus got a big reaction. And the kid says the teacher didn't get us under control until lunchtime. There you go. That's what it's like being a teacher.
Speaker 2:So imagine you parenting one or two or three, maybe four or five kids, and imagine you've got 20, 25, 30 kids and they all start cracking up. All it takes is one kid to fart out loud and your class time is 20 minutes. Your class time is wasted, not 20 minutes, but a good chunk of class time is wasted trying to get the kids back under control. And one of the things that I mentioned in the lecture is that the sense of parental control meaning you have control as a parent is an oxymoron. You really don't, and kids are so unpredictable. Things happen and every teacher knows what it's like when you're teaching in class and all of a sudden, some kid starts to look pale and the next thing they projectile vomit everywhere and there goes the next half hour trying to get them under control and clean it up and move on. They're incredibly unpredictable.
Speaker 2:Now, in terms of statistics that I shared with the audience in 2018, 70% said teaching was worth the stress. That's pre-COVID, obviously, and I asked the audience how many of you were teaching during COVID, how many of you really struggled, and every in was up. Now, today, only 42%. It's worth the stress. They're not happy. They're not satisfied. Teacher exit rates reached a new high across the country, so teachers are leaving schools in droves. Mental health of teachers is at a 50-year low, so our teachers' mental health is the lowest it's been in 50 years. Only 18% of teachers said they're very satisfied. That's the lowest ever recorded Between 2019 and 2021, salaries fell 6%, adjusted for inflation.
Speaker 2:Now, ironically, I mentioned to the audience and I'll mention this again a little later on the last day of the NFL football season, before the playoffs, I watched several games. I watched several games I'm a football fanatic and numerous stories about players who had reached like their milestone, for number of catches or quarterbacks that reached their milestone, for number of passes completed or running backs, for the number of yards they needed or tackles by some linebacker, and all the bonuses they got for reaching those goals. The lowest was $500,000, up to $3 million. And I looked at those teachers and I'm like do you get a bonus for your performance? No, they don't. They're not getting paid big bucks, but their expectations for teachers is tremendous.
Speaker 2:And the old days I like to joke with. When I was a kid, if you were having a struggle in schools, it was your fault, pretty clear. Parents and teachers agreed. Then we took a shift to it must be the teacher's fault. And then teachers were getting the blame. And now we have many parents who think they're at fault, it's their fault, and I'm like no, this is called childhood, it's called development, it's just normal, it is what it is. But teachers take so much pressure.
Speaker 2:Now I also want to give a shout out to those parents of exceptional students, and by exceptional I've had with learning disabilities and by exceptional kids with learning disabilities, adhd, autism spectrum disorder, maybe mood regulation disorders. Those teachers have a special place in their heart for those kids and want them to do well and they are difficult to teach and it's difficult for parents as well to parent Exceptional students. Statistically, kids with ADHD get 10 times the negative messages at school than other children. They're always in trouble and a function of that is the teacher needs to try to have control. If you don't have a sense of control and stability in your classroom, there is no learning that's going to take place. Parents of exceptional students get 10 times the negative calls from teachers. They're inundated all the time.
Speaker 2:I had a flashback on that one when our daughter was at a local high school and every time she supposedly missed a class we would get two texts. Both my wife and I would get two texts and two voicemails each. We got eight contacts over in this class that turns out she didn't miss and you're just. It gets overwhelming. Now what I said to the group of teachers the parents are stressed by those calls, but you're the ones that have to make the calls and no teacher likes making those calls. It's very stressful for them. Very stressful for them to make those calls that your child's having a tough time or isn't behaving correctly.
Speaker 2:One of the things I said to the audience. I said one of the best things you can do. That I did for years at my school and a dear friend of mine, philippe Ernwein, is one of the best educators in the country, even got an award for it. We were both talking one night and I said one of the greatest joys for me was calling a parent to tell them how impressed I was by their child or their teen. Just totally random acts of kindness of calling them to say your kid's unbelievable and what's funny about that is anytime I would call and I'd say this is Mr Nippenberg, they're expecting the worst. And then I got to deliver the news and my friend Philippe looked at me and he said I do the same thing. And I told all the teachers you got to balance the negative calls with some positive calls to parents because the parents need it and it's great for them and it's great for your soul as well.
Speaker 2:The other issue that came up if any of you listeners have a child who's in special education or on an IEP, which is called an individual education plan, it is one of the most messed up systems you can ever imagine to get an IEP for your kid. These meetings they do test after test. All these different professionals meet with the student speech person, ot person, the psychologist, the social worker, the school nurse. Then they have the academic testing and basically in order to get your child help, they first have to have this four six-hour meeting with everyone in the room. So it's all the school professionals and one or two parents sitting there and they basically have to say, yes, your child is so screwed up they qualify. So those parents sit there and listen to nothing but negatives about your child because if they don't do that, you don't qualify. You have to meet these federal standards about. You're buying this, you're buying that, you're buying that, and those parents are in tears. I've been to so many of those where the parents are bawling. What a messed up process. But when you ask teachers, school psychologists, school social workers about sitting in on those and doing those, they feel just like the parents. It's just awful. They all hate it, just a brutal system and that adds even more to their stress.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to talk about my tips to the teacher and then I'm going to talk about tips for you as parents and what you can do to help with that. I first mentioned to them that to do what they're doing, you really have to have a sense of purpose, or what I grew up with in the church was you had to have a sense of calling. You'd been called to do this and I said to him I'd share a few stories from Columbine High School and I said you couldn't pay me enough to go through that again. You could give me a $3 million bonus and I'd turn it down. It was life-changing and at the end of today's podcast I have an amazing story of things of beauty make me cry from Columbine I want to share with you.
Speaker 2:Secondly and this is for parents too so this was for both parents and teachers, but 80% of the teachers in the room were parents as well, and about 60% of them had exceptional students. Secondly, you don't have to be perfect, and I made them all repeat that I don't have to be perfect, and I made them all repeat that I don't have to be perfect. There's no research. If you're a perfect parent or a perfect teacher, your kid's going to be much different. You just have to be good enough, or you just give the best you have that day, and that's for you parents too. You don't.
Speaker 2:Every day is not going to be all. You're all geared up, ready to go. I met with a husband last night and he said to me my wife is so burnt out with trying to wake the two 17-year-olds up, to get them ready for school, to get out on time, that my wife just said I'm staying in bed. I'm not doing it. I can't start another day this way. It's tough and you just give what you have. But we all go through slumps and we give grace to athletes. We know that athletes have a bad game. Baseball batters will get in a slump where they're just not hitting the ball and everybody knows that. You can't expect 100% performance, 110% performance, every day. It's not possible, and it's not possible for parents or teachers either, and none of us are getting a big fat bonus because we met some expectation.
Speaker 2:Three, it's okay to raise your voice sometimes. Now, I know we're in the age of gentle parenting and you should never yell at your child, but everybody does. It's not possible not to, and the same for teachers, I mean sometimes. There's two reasons sometimes that you do want to raise your voice. One, if it's a safety concern, if you see a child about to fall off the playground equipment or push somebody off. We had a kid, another child pushed another child off the snowman they had built on the field and he fractured his arm in three places.
Speaker 2:So when you see something unsafe you have to yell, and every now and then you raise your voice to get their attention and it works. And all of a sudden the kids in the class settle down because they know you really mean it Now and the same at home. If you're yelling all the time and raising your voice all the time, it doesn't get attention, it just gets drowned out. It's the same old thing. So you have to choose wisely about that. Number four I have a new phrase I'll introduce to you. I call it Bob Ross parenting and teaching. So if you've seen the Bob Ross show on, oh, what's the channel Public TV?
Speaker 4:It's PBS.
Speaker 2:PBS. I was blanking on that one. Bob Ross was this amazing painter who would teach you step-by-step how to paint and he had this gentle voice and it was so sweet and even the high school kids now watch him and he's been dead for quite some time, but the kids love him and Bob Ross's quote we don't make mistakes. We have happy accidents, and it's the same in your parenting and your teaching. There are some times you're going to mess up and it's okay. It's an opportunity to apologize. And it's important for parents and teachers to apologize if they kind of lose control or they misjudge situations. That one happens every day. On the playground you have two kids come in upset about something somebody did and then the teacher has to make the judgment call about who's to blame or not or how to resolve it. It goes on all the time and sometimes you misjudge the situation and you hold one kid accountable and then you find out later it really was the other kid doing it. But you apologize and you make it a learning experience for you as the parent or the teacher, for the student or your child and for the parents. It's all part of just normal life. This just happens every day for all of us. And then I shared my favorite ones for parents about the stained glass window and every child's development is billions of pieces of glass that make up their window and as a teacher, you're filling that stained glass window with lots of positives.
Speaker 2:Teachers, especially elementary teachers and middle school teachers, are a special breed. They get a lot of credit for me because they actually like the energy of middle schoolers and most people don't. Most people find them boring, but they love it. And elementary teachers they're teachers because they love kids. Most of them love school themselves and they want to help children learn. And they're giving your child so many pieces of glass every day because maybe the teacher was having a hard day or their kids were sick or their grandmother has Alzheimer's and had to put her in a nursing home the day before on Sunday and school's on Monday, and they feel stressed. My wife taught for 27 years and she had the same feeling every she said Friday I'd be so exhausted, we'd go to the movies and she'd fall asleep in the movie. Saturday was a free day, but then Sunday her anxiety would start about this. Back to school on Monday. She'd have anxiety every Sunday. It's a very stressful profession, but the idea that any mistakes you made are going to be so small in that child's life and is it going to affect how they come out? At the same time I shared with them. Is it going to affect how they come out? At the same time I shared with them, I'm going to share with you at the end. The difference a teacher can make in a child's life is incredible, and I have a couple of teachers from my life that changed my trajectory from being a dyslexic kid who hated school to doing fabulous, and it was because of a couple teachers. And finally, I shared, and I shared this with you all.
Speaker 2:As parents, you want to experience nakhez I can't say it the Jewish word for pride in your offspring. You share pride in your students as well, and every teacher just loves to have an alumni come back from elementary school. And they come back and they've just been accepted to a college or they've got their first career job and they thank their teacher. That means so much to those teachers and I told them to write it down and keep it, because there are days where you just want to quit and they are, and we need to have better, more mentally healthy teachers and support our teachers. Now tips for parents on how to do that. First, you want to start the year with a good working relationship, open and honest.
Speaker 2:Over the years I've had so many times where parents hid the evaluation. The school was concerned the year before they got the child evaluated and then they didn't want to share it with school. They were afraid it would label their child or they don't want to tell the child's diagnosis and that is just, in my mind, foolish. The school is there to help your child, to give them the services they can, and not being open and honest up front really sets you up for more controversial, negative relationship with the teacher. For our daughter, when she finished fifth grade, she went to an executive functioning camp for two weeks run by a dear friend of mine, and at the end the kids made a learning profile video so they could self-advocate. And before sixth grade started we met with her student advisor. He was also her math teacher and we played it and then explained about her learning and what helps her and what's hard for her, and the teaching was just all over it was great. What's hard for her? And the teacher was just all over it, it was great.
Speaker 2:So you want to be open and honest about your student, what their issues are, whether it's academic, social or emotional. Secondly, you are going to get calls from the school. Sometimes you're thinking this is just a bunch of bullshit. Why are they making a big scene out of this? Thinking this is just a bunch of bullshit? Why are they making a big scene out of this Other times? It is really something you need to take care of.
Speaker 2:But often when teachers call parents, they're met with hostility, especially the first call of the year. And I get it because parents will spend the summer getting their child tutoring, having them in one of our social skills groups. They're doing all these things, hoping next year will be better. And then when the teacher has to make that first call mid to late September, it's often met with anger and I told the teachers you just let it roll off your back. That's just a parent whose hope just got dashed. And the same when you get the call as a parent is give the teacher some grace. They're under stress. Give them some grace. It is not an easy job for them to do Now and, related to that, when a teacher calls to say that maybe your child did something, never say not my child.
Speaker 2:My child's not capable of doing that. You may have the most delightful Winnie the Pooh child with great self-control, but every child is Swiss cheese. Every human is Swiss cheese. We all have holes and sometimes we do things that are completely out of character for ourselves. Or your child does something that's totally out of their character. And when a parent immediately responds well, my child would never do anything like that and gets defensive, that's when things break down.
Speaker 2:My favorite story in that regard this was 25 years ago. I had a really wonderful mom call me and she said I'm just giving you a heads up. I'm worried about one of the students in my son's eighth grade class who I think is getting bullied. I said thank you so much, I'll just do some background research. And I had to call her back a couple of days later and I first said I want to thank you for telling me about that, but the bad news is it's your son that's doing it and she just matter-of-factly, she just said thank you for telling me it will stop and it did. That's the response you want to have when the school calls. Never say my child's not capable, because every child is capable of doing something that hurts other people emotionally or is mean or unkind. That's in all of us.
Speaker 2:Next, appreciate the teacher's perspective. The kids spend more time with the teacher than they do with you. Their teachers get them all day long and they see everything and they have this perspective on sort of normal child development, what's just normal child development and where your child might be behind. So when the first grade teacher said to me she was concerned my son was having some red flags from a reading disorder, I didn't get defensive because I'm dyslexic. So I'm like we'll get tested and we did and it turned out his mother was a prolific reader and a journalist. I'm not. I'm the other end of the spectrum and we got him tutoring through fifth grade and then he didn't need it anymore. He was doing great and I appreciate it. Mandy Keeley was her name for telling me that, and teachers often are afraid to tell parents things they don't like to do that. So be open-minded and remember that their teacher, your teacher has, especially the older ones have a lot of experience. They know kids and they see your child every day.
Speaker 2:Next, don't be the parent who jumps over the head of the teacher. Next, don't be the parent who jumps over the head of the teacher. How would you feel with your customer? You're working, you got a job, you're a manager or whatever, and the customer has a complaint and they immediately go to your supervisor. They don't even go to you first. Teachers hate that. That immediately makes your relationship. It sours your relationship with the teacher. Follow the chain of command. You go to the teacher first. If you're not able to resolve it, you ask the teacher If you could go to the principal or whoever the next person is up on the ladder. But sometimes the parents will just go right over everybody's head to the head person, the headmaster, the main principal. They just jump everybody and go right to the top. That's not good for your relationship with your teachers this year or your teacher in the future. Because teachers do talk the teachers along. You learn everything about the parents. They're under stress, they share it with their colleagues and then you've got a reputation as a head counselor.
Speaker 4:And it's also terrible for your kid. Yeah, because your kid learns to not respect authority. I see it all the time in my youngest, in their elementary school, and the kids I mean that's like a Karen, right, yeah, a classic Karen. But the kids that have that experience, they are often the bully's class.
Speaker 2:And you can see it a mile away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they feel entitled and they want to get what they want to get. And I always tell parents, you tell your little one they're so special and they're so unique which they are. But when you get to kindergarten, first grade, your child has to learn that. So is the kid next to me and my classmate over there. They're special and unique too. We're all special and unique and that means I have to give up what I want sometimes, that the whole world doesn't revolve around just me, and that's a big learning experience. You hit on this earlier with the demand in Sydney, but I wrote down don't be the parent who's always challenging the curriculum or the library books. Everything's the library books. It's so insane going after library books when everything's on social media and it's a thousand times worse than what's in some book on a shelf.
Speaker 4:Kids hardly read. I know they don't. Obviously, we know that.
Speaker 2:They don't read. 33% of kids could read the book.
Speaker 4:That's right. They're watching the YouTube video on it anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're going to see it online and learn way more than you wanted them to. But when my son was younger, you'd go to the back to school night and you just want to get out of there. You meet the teacher, you're open 20 minutes, let's just roll. Let's get home and always be some parent. 20 minutes, let's just roll. Let's get home and always be some parent. Now why did you pick this curriculum for reading or math when there's these other curriculums that we feel are better? And then the teacher asks for an explanation of why the school does that curriculum and the rest of the parents are rolling their eyes going. It's elementary school, it's pretty basic, and there's no magical bullet with any curriculum, and curriculums come and they go, it comes in waves and the people that make the curriculums make a fortune off schools. It's a huge industry, but don't be the one challenging everything all the time. Then one tip for you parents out there who may be divorced or separated. There's always some parents after a divorce. They're cool with each other. They can go to the sporting events the school plays, they can sit next to each other. They're there for their child. There's others that can't and they have this high level of attention and sometimes that comes out in your school meetings. What do you call it? The two or three times a year where you meet the teacher Conferences, conferences Sorry, I'm blanking. Today it's cold in here in Colorado today the teacher conferences, and there's always a couple that say could we have separate meetings? Why don't you just ask your teacher to spend another hour of their time that they're not getting paid any more for, to accommodate the fact that you and your ex can't put aside your differences and just focus on your child? And that's I highly recommend. If you're in that situation, try not to do that. It's going to be so hostile then it's going to be really uncomfortable for everyone. Then maybe request it, or just one of you go to the conference and get the notes from the teacher on what was discussed. It's not right putting that on teacher and this last section I made it a goal with my kids to really appreciate what each teacher offered my son or my daughter, what unique gifts they gave them. Now, there's always going to be when your child's looking for the next school year.
Speaker 2:You look at the teachers and kids get the reputation. They know the reputations of all the teachers at the school and they'll talk like oh, they're so strict right. Or oh, she's just so fun and kind and loving, and oh, you don't strict right. Or oh, she's just so fun and kind and loving, and oh, you don't want that one. And then the parents are all worried about their child or whatever.
Speaker 2:And there is this. If you think of a teeter-totter, on one side it is a teacher who's really loving and kind and soft, a gentle teacher, and then the other side maybe is more the disciplinarian teacher. And every teacher tries to balance that. It's very difficult. I have one teacher, my son's second grade teacher, robin, the best I've ever seen. She was so loving and kind, but boy was she strict. But she did it in the most loving fashion. And those children she was from the South and she was a stickler for manners and those kids learned manners and they learned how to behave in the classroom. So you've got to keep in mind teachers are always trying to balance that.
Speaker 2:Now in middle school my son was put in the advanced math class with a teacher who was very strict, very demanding, and he changed my son's life. My son went from being this middle-of-the-road slacker who didn't really care about school. He was like me and that teacher lit something on my son that to this it lasts to this day. And in fact, when my son got his cords for National Honor Society in high school, he could invite his parents and one other guest and he invited that teacher because he knew that teacher's expectations were high and it lit a fire for him. Now, at the same time, for other students that might be a little overwhelming for them, that teacher unfortunately was driven out by a couple parents that thought he was too strict and it was upsetting their children. It's a tough balance but you want those teachers. They're going to push your kids. It's the same with a coach. You want a coach who's going to be loving and supportive. But as they get older, you want a coach who's going to push them to excel and get the most out of themselves. But that's a tough one.
Speaker 2:My son's fourth grade teacher. She was just great and she understood hyperactive boys. She loved them. She raised two sons herself and the headmaster said to me she's the most loved and the most hated teacher here and that was from the parents. I was one of those parents that loved her. She did a great job with my son. There were other parents like, oh, she's too strict, my child's all upset. It's a fine line, but every year, what I would do at the end of every year, I would write a note. You get the teacher at the end of your gift, a gift card to Starbucks or whatever and I'd write a letter or a note just thanking them, and I would specifically mention how they changed my son's life and my daughter's life. And when my son graduated from eighth grade, I did a review of all those letters and gave it to all the middle school teachers to let them know what they did for my child and the same with our daughter. One of the most greatest blessings I gave to my daughter in high school graduation was to the school lunch lady who just loved my daughter and meant so much to her. My daughter would hang out with her every day and she was like thank you so much. I love these kids. Who knows that a lunch teacher would have such an impact on her? It was just beautiful. So let the teachers know what you appreciate about them. They need the warm fuzzies. It's a tough time to be a teacher.
Speaker 2:Okay, I want to end with things that make me cry. First, my legit parenting word goes to Megan, who runs the Cantina Book Club, and she interviewed me a couple of weeks ago. I think it's going to be posting soon. We spent about an hour together talking about my newest book Just had a lovely time. And she started the conversation with and I said where are you? And she said oh, we're in Chicago. And she said yeah, it's cold here and we got some snow on the ground. And she said my son, grader this morning, said can you please drive me to school? And she said it's two blocks away. And she said no, put on your coat, zip it up and walk. You have to learn to handle adversity. And at the start of the interview I said there you go, you're the legit parent, you get it. And kids need to learn how to be resilient and handle tough things. And finally, for things of beauty, make me cry. Two of them First, about two weeks ago, about a month ago, I was meeting with a student whose parents were recently divorced and were in the process.
Speaker 2:They're nesting right now, which I never heard of the concept. But basically this child stays in the house full time and the parents take turns living at the house the child, so the kid doesn't have to move back and forth. Now that's an expensive proposition for most people. They each have an apartment. But the child had told me about he felt like his dad was guilt tripping him because his dad was wanting to spend time with him and go play, catch and do things together. And his son's a high performing athlete and a high performing student. And he said I got homework or I got practice and he was telling me this and I said maybe you could talk to your dad about it. And I said have you talked to your mom? And he said yes. And I met with mom later and I said unless it's a safety issue if you're divorced and the child comes to you about something with the other parent, you listen to him, you support him and you direct them back to the other parent to tell that parent directly. Unless it's a safety issue If the other parent's drunk driving. That's a different story, but on this one she did.
Speaker 2:And the next week I met the dad and the son and I looked at John. I said did you tell your dad how you were feeling? And he said yes. And then the dad said yes, he did. And we talked and had a great conversation about it and I looked at them both and I said to the son I said you get the award for being brave and telling your dad a fourth grade boy. Tell him his dad and men are big and children size people up by how big they are and it's always easier to tell your mom, it's harder to tell your dad. That's historic. And then I looked at the dad and I said I'm proud of you too because your child felt like he could talk to you and that's a pattern I want you to repeat for the rest of your lives together. It was just beautiful. I was so proud.
Speaker 2:And then at the conference this past weekend I ran into an old colleague. She's now retired. She was a school psychologist, kathy, and I would see her every year at the conference and I'd run into her occasionally at professional events or she'd refer students to my practice. And she came up to me after my talk and she said in senior years and she was with her daughter, who is now a school psychologist as well. And she said and I was really touched by what she said about Columbine and she told me her story.
Speaker 2:She was at another school that she raced over there to support and she ended up at Leawood Elementary School, which was right next to Columbine, a couple blocks away, and that was the place that the police designated that parents should pick up their children, so they tried to get as many kids. Some kids just ran and we had them at our office. At my church we had hundreds of kids. Some just took off anywhere for safety or they went home and the rest of the parents went to Leawood and then they would put the kids that they escorted out with the police, they'd put them on buses and take them to Leawood and the parents would thankfully reconnect with their children. It was late that evening and Kathy told me the police and the sheriff gave her the list of kids who weren't coming on the bus.
Speaker 3:Flashback City.
Speaker 2:And it was Kathy's job as a psychologist to go into the gym to tell the 13-year-old parents waiting for their child that they weren't coming.
Speaker 3:And she said to me and her daughter was there. She said afterwards my daughter said to me Mom, you've lost your sparkle. And Kathy was just a beautiful person who always had a sparkle and was inspired to help kids loving and compassionate and she lost it. So have respect for your teachers. They're in a hard position, oh boy sorry, that's a hard story. It's still like yesterday. It was just so overwhelming to hear what she was doing. She was so needing and she's still and was just so overwhelming to hear her story.
Speaker 2:She was so needing, and she's still a wonderful person, soon to be grandmother but that changed her life.
Speaker 3:It changed a lot of teachers lives and it changed schools and I never thought it would happen again, thought that would be it and that was finished anyway. On that note, and I never thought it would happen again, thought that would be it. That was Phoenix. Anyway, on that note, thanks for tuning in today. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend.
Speaker 2:And until next, time, remember, you can relax. You just have to be this side of good enough. Thank you.