ahhhh parents

School started up again on Monday, I didn't want to go back. Honestly, I do love the fact that in these uncertain times that I am employed, but 2 weeks never seems enough time off. My students get off the bus surprisingly happy when vacation is over. A fact that doesn't escape me is they are all special needs and don"t quite grasp the concept of time, vacation, the joy of sleeping in and that you HAVE to wear clothing at school. As cranky as I can be on a Monday returning from a vacation, they jump, limp, waddle or wheel themselves off the bus and i get drooly hugs and kisses and huge smiles. Then I like my job for about an hour, till some one barfs or poops on me. Regardless, my job is quite entertaining if not full of surprises, mostly because of the kids. Sometimes it's shocking and sad because of the parents, it's an emotional job. You have the extreme parents: These parents expect miracles, they hire or get the district to hire specialists on top of the regular teachers to help their disabled child to learn things. This is great, but if your child has a hearing specialist, a vision specialist, a speech specialist an occupational specialist and a tech specialist, they are out of the classroom 90% of the time with these people working on goals. This leaves 10% of the day for diapering, feeding and the basic goal that we are working on like recognizing their written name. Then the parents complain and say we aren't doing our job cuz the kid can't find his name on the board. Then you have the stalker parent: This parent doesn't just drop their kid off, he/she stays to talk to the staff and inquire about our personal lives and follows us into the classroom. Most of the time stalker parents have no jobs, they have all day to drop by unannounced and disrupt the class. They usually have younger siblings in tow who aren't in school yet making it even more disruptive to pop into class for no reason. Then there are the stealth parents: these parents are sneaky, usually they don't speak English and don't answer phone calls when their child needs a change of clothing. They manage to drop their kid off with our classroom while waiting outside for the buses to come without ever saying a word or us seeing them. then we turn around and find the kid quietly nestled among the kids who have already arrived leaving us wondering when the kid was dropped off or has he/she been here all along and we are loosing our minds. these parents are the ones who never open the kids back pack to retrieve notes, home work, art projects or the x-mas gift we had made in class and it's now broken. There are the phantom parents: not to be confused with the before mentioned stealth parent. These parents have their kid bussed to school. It can be years before we actually see this parent. Sometimes they are just voices on the phone. This parent never seems to show up when their is a meting or a birthday often leaving the staff scrambling to come up with enough money to run to the store to get birthday cup cakes. These parents never send a classroom snack even when it's their turn and fail to sign field trip papers so their child has to be left behind when we go on a fun outing making us feel rotten for having to follow the rules. There is the day care parent: this parent has zero goals for their child. They think we are a day care instead of an educational institution. They have pretty much giving up and let the child run their lives. They don't take the child anywhere because of their behavior and just stay at home. They think nothing of their child grabbing others or exposing themselves to others. Often times if the child doesn't like to bathe the parent lets them go with out for weeks. They usually explain away inappropriate behaviors with a swat of their hand and say "he is special." usually a parent like this derails all the teaching we have done over a weekend simply for not enforcing and rules. We have to start again every Monday. Then we have the rare balanced parents: these parents will always check backpacks help their child with homework and not just do it for them, they sign all papers, show up for meetings, read what we have sent home and prepare the child for the next day with all their needs, they can always answer the phone and get to school with a change of clothing if needed, always have cash for a field trip, know when to step back and when to be involved, they ask what we are doing and follow it up at home. Oddly enough these rare balanced parents all seem to be teachers in another school. Go figure. After 10 years of teaching special needs, I have decided that if I ever ended up squirting out a kid, I would end up a stealth parent. I just have that feeling. LOL