Well, assuming that’s the entire email that was sent, some basic level of empathy might not have been amiss. “So sorry about that, are you okay? We’ll pay for the glasses. Obviously this behavior isn’t okay; we’ve discussed it and we’re going to try…”
They also clearly aren’t holding the kid accountable for his actions. To me that’s the larger problem. Trying to address root causes is fine, but you don’t get to go around attacking people even if you aren’t feeling well. Part of parenting is teaching emotional regulation and consequences for your actions.
“Little johnny goes around kicking dogs, but that’s society failing him, not anything we have done or latent inside him. He’s our little miracle, and we will sue you if you make him think otherwise”
The other possibility is that they’re thinking of it in a defensive mindset and aren’t wanting to put anything in writing that could be construed as acknowledging fault, in case it results in a lawsuit.
Assuming this is anything above pre-k, I’d be hoping that the parents would respond with “Sorry we’ve spoken with him about this unacceptable behavior / we’re connecting with a children’s counselor to address anger issues / etc.”
If it’s at the point that I’m getting punched in the face at work, I might also be annoyed at their response being
And if this was a teacher with a real incident in a public school, you’d expect their response to involve a parent/teacher conference with administration, possibly a behavioral intervention plan or other outcomes. Email isn’t enough.
That’s a false dichotomy. Reasonable responses are framed as either “kid has low blood sugar so I’m packing him a banana”, or “sorry, we’ll beat him with jumper cables”. There’s like 50 reasonable responses between those extremes.
Do you think that if you were teaching a class and one of the students punched you in the face so hard that they broke your expensive prescription eyewear, that you would actually just dust yourself off and go, “oh dear, you poor thing - are you acting out due to low blood sugar? I can go get you a banana”.
You really think that’s a reasonable response for any human?
Functional people don’t punch their teacher in the face because they don’t have enough to eat. He may have had low blood sugar AND a behavioral or mental issue that needs to be addressed.
At minimum I would expect a letter from the kid as to what they did was wrong and an apology from both parents and kid. I would expect an offer to pay for the glasses. I would expect the kid to be punished severely. A good example would be selling the kids ps5 to pay for the glasses and not getting him another console this year and making him spend his free time doing unpleasant chores for a month with no outings or rewards of any kind.
This is both non-violent, moral, memorable, directly exemplifies the direct connection between wrongdoing and restitution. It doesn’t assign blame to a condition as if being hungry forced him to punch his teacher in the face.
I’m hoping this was cut off from a longer email, but if it was not she probably could’ve at least expected the parents to apologize on behalf of their kid, ensure they spoke to their kid about why it’s inappropriate to hit people, probably have the kid apologize, and depending on some other factors offer some kind of compensation for the glasses at least as a token gesture.
If your kid hit someone in the face hard enough to break their glasses and your only response is maybe they were hungry here’s how I can address that, I can potentially see why they might have done it in the first place.
Yea completely likely there’s more going on. Sometimes kids with different needs can be more physical and it’s possible this kind of occurrence is seen as just part of the job. Not saying that’s acceptable, but it’s a possibility. With no other context though it’s not a great response if taken at face value.
It probably would have been more reassuring to get stronger protection guarantees on the teacher’s side. Unless the plan was for the teacher to slot in as the punchable feedback loop until they eventually “get him back on track”?
One key aspect to conflict resolution is to acknowledge the other side’s grievances, offer any appropriate apologies (being punched in the face and have glasses broken certainly warrants a heartfelt apology), and if necessary offer any remediation that would satisfy the other party (e.g. offering to pay for the broken glasses, and most importantly, suggesting that they spoke to their child to explain that behavior is inappropriate and unacceptable).
These parents did none of that, and just waved it off as if it’s okay for the kid to do this kind of thing “because they’re hungry”.
I suppose the reply could have been clipped, but there is no mention of a low blood sugar problem, no mention of a sorry l, just ‘little Timmy needs a super power not to be a violent prick’.
A reasonable place to start is teaching your kid that hitting people is wrong, remember teachers are people too, underpaid overworked people.
I don’t really see the issue here. Kid could be acting out due to low blood sugar. It’s certainly a reasonable place to start.
Did the teacher expect the parents to say, “Sorry about that, we just bought new jumper cables to beat him with so it won’t be a problem anymore.”
Well, assuming that’s the entire email that was sent, some basic level of empathy might not have been amiss. “So sorry about that, are you okay? We’ll pay for the glasses. Obviously this behavior isn’t okay; we’ve discussed it and we’re going to try…”
They also clearly aren’t holding the kid accountable for his actions. To me that’s the larger problem. Trying to address root causes is fine, but you don’t get to go around attacking people even if you aren’t feeling well. Part of parenting is teaching emotional regulation and consequences for your actions.
“Little johnny goes around kicking dogs, but that’s society failing him, not anything we have done or latent inside him. He’s our little miracle, and we will sue you if you make him think otherwise”
The other possibility is that they’re thinking of it in a defensive mindset and aren’t wanting to put anything in writing that could be construed as acknowledging fault, in case it results in a lawsuit.
And just how the fuck do you know that was the ENTIRE email that was sent, rather than just a clip of the relevant part?
I don’t, which is why I clearly stated the assumption I was making and positioned my comment as conditional on that assumption being true.
Assuming this is anything above pre-k, I’d be hoping that the parents would respond with “Sorry we’ve spoken with him about this unacceptable behavior / we’re connecting with a children’s counselor to address anger issues / etc.”
If it’s at the point that I’m getting punched in the face at work, I might also be annoyed at their response being
And if this was a teacher with a real incident in a public school, you’d expect their response to involve a parent/teacher conference with administration, possibly a behavioral intervention plan or other outcomes. Email isn’t enough.
That’s a false dichotomy. Reasonable responses are framed as either “kid has low blood sugar so I’m packing him a banana”, or “sorry, we’ll beat him with jumper cables”. There’s like 50 reasonable responses between those extremes.
Do you think that if you were teaching a class and one of the students punched you in the face so hard that they broke your expensive prescription eyewear, that you would actually just dust yourself off and go, “oh dear, you poor thing - are you acting out due to low blood sugar? I can go get you a banana”.
You really think that’s a reasonable response for any human?
Hear me out, maybe we need to teach the kid that hitting isn’t okay even when they’re hungry
Functional people don’t punch their teacher in the face because they don’t have enough to eat. He may have had low blood sugar AND a behavioral or mental issue that needs to be addressed.
At minimum I would expect a letter from the kid as to what they did was wrong and an apology from both parents and kid. I would expect an offer to pay for the glasses. I would expect the kid to be punished severely. A good example would be selling the kids ps5 to pay for the glasses and not getting him another console this year and making him spend his free time doing unpleasant chores for a month with no outings or rewards of any kind.
This is both non-violent, moral, memorable, directly exemplifies the direct connection between wrongdoing and restitution. It doesn’t assign blame to a condition as if being hungry forced him to punch his teacher in the face.
We have no idea how old the kid is.
I’m hoping this was cut off from a longer email, but if it was not she probably could’ve at least expected the parents to apologize on behalf of their kid, ensure they spoke to their kid about why it’s inappropriate to hit people, probably have the kid apologize, and depending on some other factors offer some kind of compensation for the glasses at least as a token gesture.
If your kid hit someone in the face hard enough to break their glasses and your only response is maybe they were hungry here’s how I can address that, I can potentially see why they might have done it in the first place.
There’s certainly more to the story just based on the use of the phrase, “break this routine.” Punching people in the face is a routine?
Yea completely likely there’s more going on. Sometimes kids with different needs can be more physical and it’s possible this kind of occurrence is seen as just part of the job. Not saying that’s acceptable, but it’s a possibility. With no other context though it’s not a great response if taken at face value.
It probably would have been more reassuring to get stronger protection guarantees on the teacher’s side. Unless the plan was for the teacher to slot in as the punchable feedback loop until they eventually “get him back on track”?
One key aspect to conflict resolution is to acknowledge the other side’s grievances, offer any appropriate apologies (being punched in the face and have glasses broken certainly warrants a heartfelt apology), and if necessary offer any remediation that would satisfy the other party (e.g. offering to pay for the broken glasses, and most importantly, suggesting that they spoke to their child to explain that behavior is inappropriate and unacceptable).
These parents did none of that, and just waved it off as if it’s okay for the kid to do this kind of thing “because they’re hungry”.
Did none of that which we can see. The email is cropped.
The issue is the parents’ refusal to take responsibility for their own child’s behavior.
Which is one of the tentpole requirement of being a parent.
I suppose the reply could have been clipped, but there is no mention of a low blood sugar problem, no mention of a sorry l, just ‘little Timmy needs a super power not to be a violent prick’.
A reasonable place to start is teaching your kid that hitting people is wrong, remember teachers are people too, underpaid overworked people.
“He may be hungry from the bus ride and is acting out from this.” That is where low blood sugar is referenced.
Accidentally skipped that entire line, reading is hard.
I have doubts it’s a real email anyway. Seems like rage bait to me.
The GOP party is acting out because of low economic output for the 1%.
Shit, when put like that, 100% yay orange pedo turd! I guess pedo boys will be pedo boys.