In simple terms, helicopter parenting means doing too much. Beyond doing what’s best for the child, helicopter parents hover and control at dangerous levels. And if you still can’t grasp the concept, these stories from teachers and witnesses alike may help you.
1. Helicopter Family
A friend's parents are hyper-controlling. He was on a date and his sister called the parents because she was filling out her student loan forms, but was stuck.
Instead of saying "call your brother", the mom drove 2 1/2 hours to their college town, tracked him down on his date, and then brought him (but not the date) to the sister's apartment to do it for her.
But the worst part is, it rubbed off on his sister. Mom also came to the town when the sister said she saw his motorcycle parked in front of someone's house after dark.
It was not his motorcycle. It was just another shiny red motorcycle.
The helicopter parent seemed to have influenced a helicopter sister.
31. “My Son Would Never”
I’m a teacher and we had a student, in 5th grade, who was pretty sneaky at first. He acted innocent but he was far from it. He was a little monster.
He stepped on someone when they were laying down during free reading time. He would constantly talk and prevent the class from getting to lunch and specials on time and did this just to cause trouble.
He hit someone with a meter stick. He would "accidentally" kick people. He took stuff he had no right to. He cursed.
His mom came out and said we were singling him out and he would never do those things and told us to stop contacting her.
Later, he did something else, something like ripping up classroom decorations or something like that, and the principal saw it. The principal called mom.
Instead of accepting her child does wrong she pulled him out of school. Since he hadn't been doing his work this kid, who was actually quite smart, had all F's as transfer grades.
3. Overbearing Would Be An Understatement
My mom owned a daycare center, and I worked there when I wasn’t in school. There were some very unique kids and some crazy parents. The one that comes to mind though had a 6-year-old son. This kid was an incredible brat. As soon as you met his parents it all made sense.
He had just started school and was coming home upset because kids were making fun of him, because of his pacifier that he kept with him and used throughout the day.
So his mom decided to wait with him at the school bus stop and pick him up from there. One day they were waiting and he mentioned he had a wedgie.
So right there at the bus stop, in front of all the kids in his class, and the crossing guard, his mom picked it out for him. Just stuck her hand down his pants and took care of it for him.
She wouldn’t even let him handle his own wedgie.
Needless to say, that did not help with his teasing.
4. Just Thinking Ahead
In Kindergarten we have testing twice a year, in winter and again in the spring. A parent called in a conference because her daughter had received 2% under the cut-off that suggested her child may, by THIRD grade, need additional help meeting reading goals.
Now, that isn't why I consider her a helicopter parent. It gets so much worse.
Those test scores can be confusing and I could see why she might have been worried upon seeing that if she didn't really understand the way it worked. However, I and my mentor teacher spent about 45 minutes (with her kid in the room hearing everything) trying to console her that her daughter was doing fine and that we weren't concerned about her progress at all.
We told her she interacts well with her peers, feels confident and comfortable reading, and that these tests aren't a good way to showcase understanding, especially for a five-year-old.
The mother revealed that she makes her daughter do over thirty minutes of homework every night and won't even let her walk downstairs without reciting all of her weekly spelling words.
Other stuff too, but basically the mom was putting unreasonable pressure on this 5-year-old girl.
Like planning college and thinking years ahead.
Just relax, your kid is five. If we have any concerns, trust me, you would know.
Don't burn your kid out this early in their education.
5. Problematic Parent, Problematic Child
Not a teacher or child caretaker, but I remember when I was in 8th grade this little kid (about 3rd or 4th grade) was really weird and hung around us while we skateboarded.
One day he decided to come up after I fell and just hump me. I was obviously mad and told him to go away and he didn’t. Well, I fell another time and he humped me again. I was livid I told him if he doesn’t go away I’ll tell his parents.
Then he just walked up to me while I was sitting on the bench and humped me again. I told him “I’m going to tell your parents”, and he bolts inside his house closing everything. All the guys and I were with were fed up too, so I decided to go to walk to his house and knock on his door. We weren't prepared for what was coming.
No one answered for about a minute, then both his mom and Dad (Dad was an officer) come out. I told them what he did. Well, his mom completely ignores what I say, and then explains well he said you punched him multiple times.
Mind you I did not punch this kid, but I did push him off twice when I fell and pushed him away from me when I was on the bench. Not one of the times did he fall or stumble I just gave a simple push.
She continues to berate me, saying I’m a child beater and then the Dad chimes in and says he should arrest me. Well of course I start crying because I’m scared. I again reiterated that I never hit him. I simply pushed him because of his unacceptable behavior.
Then they tell me how he has ADHD and was just acting out. I say well I was diagnosed with ADHD a couple of years ago and it’s never made me do anything like what he did.
Then the dad screams “If you don’t get off my lawn I’m going to arrest you”, and starts walking towards his PD car. All of us run away as fast as we can and I run home. But this wasn't the end. Not by a long shot.
Well, after a while my dad gets home and I tell him all of this. So he calls his buddy who’s the guy’s superior and tells him what happens. Apparently, the dad was going to get a promotion but they just kept him as is.
He got suspended from the force for a couple of weeks and got kicked off the neighborhood board members committee.
They suspended him for unlawful use of power or something like that. He came up to my house and personally apologized.
He put his house up for sale but took it off because it never sold.
They’re still there and the kid is still as messed up today.
6. The Music Student (And Mom)
I’m a music teacher. I had a HeliMom of one of my guitar students sit in on him during his first lesson. She was sitting right by him, shoulder to shoulder. As I was talking about various things like how to hold the guitar and how to shape your hands and fingers around the neck she would grab his hand and do it for him.
Every single time.
For everything.
Time to strum some chords? Mom did that for him too. Can’t get the fret hand to squeeze hard enough to make the strings ring? She pressed his fingers for him. He cried out at that and that’s when I stopped and told her she had to let him do it on his own. All I got for that was a sharp look and a “Fine then”.
He tried on his own and the string just made kind of a thud noise and she said, “See he needs me to help him”. I told her that the only way he was going to be able to do it was to try and do it, on his own. He was the one who had to build up strength. Things didn’t really progress much after that and I ended the lesson.
With all of that, I wasn’t thinking they’d be sticking around for a second week but back they came. The second lesson started off the same and I politely told her she’d have to give him space in order to try. Still, she wasn’t thrilled but relented and got up in a huff, and went out into the hall to watch from there. The difference was unbelievable. After she left this kid took a deep breath and was visibly more relaxed. After she stepped out he was able to have his own space and he actually try on his own; he started to do better.
It was awesome.
At the end of the lesson, he said he couldn’t wait to come back and his mom came in and grilled him with something like “Why can’t you do that when I’m helping you? You don’t want my help? You don’t need my help”? I could understand stuff like this if he was a young kid, 7 or younger, but the dude was 14 years old. He’s going to be a freshman in the fall.
This poor kid has ended up being one of my best students. His mom still hovers and he’s still a super weird and socially awkward dude from living in a bubble but he’s finally found something he can be good at independently from his mom.
It’s really rewarding to see him gaining more and more confidence even if it is slowly, he’ll get there someday.
7. Parents With Selective Hearing
I taught middle school for a year. We had a student who was being disruptive in all the classes. He was refusing to turn in work, or even do it. He was constantly causing trouble.
We had each tried several strategies to deal with the behavior in our own time. We had each talked to the parents numerous times, but they never did anything nor believed that the student was doing anything inappropriate. No one was having any success.
Eventually one of the teachers had enough. He suggested we do a meeting between all of the student's teachers, the guidance counselor, a vice principal, the student, and his parents.
There were 6 teachers plus the vice principal and the guidance counselor all saying the same basic version: “Student needs to pay attention, needs to do the work, needs to stop distracting other students, needs to be respectful”, etc. etc.
The mother disbelieves us. It's not the student's fault.
We all have it in for the student.
So nothing changed.
Teaching sucks.
8. Mental Gymnastics To Exonerate Her Son
I was tutoring when in my senior year. I assisted teachers in helping strugglers after school. One boy, second year, keeps showing up but spends the whole time texting or puffing weed—which of course, he posts on Facebook.
Publicly.
My supervisor showed the boys' Mum his Facebook pics. The mum's reaction? "You faked those and "it doesn't even look like my son". We both just sat there speechless.
Then, when the kid WILLINGLY ADMITTED TO IT, SHOWED HER THE WEED, AND THE PICTURES ON HIS PHONE.
The Mum just blamed ME for "letting him." But somehow my supervisor was not responsible and got praised for their efforts.
I mean, I guess it's better that I got in trouble than them since it's not like they can fire me. But wow, parents are weird.
The kid came out to be OK though. It turned out Dad (who, lo and behold, wasn't ever present) had made him take the class and the kid was only taking my tutoring because he was failing at something he didn't want to do in the first place.
I got him to pass and in his Senior year, he transferred to cooking, which according to my sister (same year group) he excelled at.
So all is well that ends well I suppose. I just pray he didn't have siblings.
9. The Plagiarist And His HeliMom
While I was student teaching I had a student and his mom was the art teacher. The student was a straight-up jerk.
He would cheat on every assignment, belittle classmates, and the list goes on. Any time the student got in trouble or called out he would run to his mom (the art teacher) and she would fight for him.
All the teachers in the schools were afraid of her since she has been in the district for a long time and was thought to do no wrong by the administration.
The student ended up plagiarizing an essay in class. I gave the student a zero (as it was stated in the assignment sheet that all plagiarism would be an automatic zero). That's when things hit the fan.
Meetings with the principal were set up, mom would come in during my plan period and rip me for failing her kid, and the student would come fake crying to class.
The essay was a large portion of the grade and would mean he would fail the class. After about two weeks of the mom coming in I finally told her if he turned a new essay in by the end of the week he could get 50% credit on it (would move his grade to a “D” if he got a 100%).
The student comes waltzing into class on Friday and hands me his essay. After quickly scanning the essay it just seemed off. After a quick google search, the student took the entire Wikipedia page and copied it for his essay. I couldn't believe he'd be so stupid.
After school, I went down to the art room to talk to the mom. I still remember the conversation like it was yesterday.
Me: M***** did a great job on his essay!
Mom: Great! He was locked up in his room all week working on it.
Me: When I looked at his paper I did notice there was an odd section though.
Mom: What do you mean?
Me: This section has a superscript number on it and I don’t see where he cited it.
Mom: That is odd, I’ll ask him about it.
I pulled out the printed Wikipedia page over his topic which is a word-for-word copy.
Me: Here is the Wikipedia page over his topic if you want to look at it.
The mom scanned over both. Her face turns ghost white.
She then asks: Will he be able to make this up?
Me (with a look of disbelief on my face): Absolutely not!
The student ended up getting suspended and the mom tried to fight the suspension. She even went as far as to look into the legitimacy of the grade since a student teacher taught the course.
All in all, the mom is no longer a teacher in the district and the kid is in prison for selling illegal substances.
The rest of the staff loved me for standing up to her and her so.
10. Prohibition
My aunt never let my cousins have any kind of sugar or candy. She told them that it was poison and tasted nasty.
One time while our grandma was babysitting them (they were 6) she let them have 1 Capri-sun each.
They loved it, saying "grammy, sugar actually tastes GOOD" and threw up shortly after because their stomachs could not handle it.
My cousins are alcoholics now.
11. The Lighter
I work in after-school care while studying. One day a nine-year-old was showing everyone his lighter.
His demonstration was trying to set the shirt he was wearing on fire so I obviously took the lighter off him.
When his mother came to pick him up I handed it to her and told her about him trying to set his shirt on fire. I'll never forget her response.
Turns out it was her lighter, so I had "no right" to confiscate it. She also claimed her son just wouldn't try to set his clothes on fire because "He's not an idiot", so I must be making that up.
12. “He’s Just Sick”
I once had a parent tell me the reason his son told the band director "I don't have to listen to you, because you suck men" (the band director was a young gay male, fresh out of college), was because he was recently diagnosed with ADHD.
When I responded that “I had been diagnosed with ADHD as a child and still struggled with it, but it had never once caused me to tell anyone else that they sucked men”, he became belligerent and started threatening me.
Pretty sure the kid is in prison now.
13. Education First
Before university starts, we used to hold activities for first-year students (frosh week for Canadians reading this). Nothing educational, but always good fun. We had a student show up with his mother, and she questioned everything we were doing and how it will relate to her son's studies.
It didn't.
We were very clear that it was all for building relationships and a bit of pre-study enjoyment. It was also a chance to meet older students and get an idea of university life. She was having none of it. She wanted to speak with the head of the department and file an official complaint about these activities.
Clearly having fun was not part of education.
The second day she came again and triumphantly said the dean is coming to talk to us.
The dean did come, gave us a pep talk, and said how much he enjoyed this time of the year. He chugged a drink and told us to join him in the local pub later on. The look on her face is something I'll cherish forever.
She was speechless and left in a huff dragging her son by the hand.
Neither showed up for the rest of the week.
14. Destructive Mothering
My college had something like university initiation in the middle of summer. Anyone could come, but it was mandatory for out-of-town students to get familiar with the school and register for classes.
There was a girl whose mother was extremely upset that we didn't allow parents to sit in with their kids during the various events throughout the day. I started hearing from the supervisors (I was one of the leads) that during the free time/mixer periods, the girl's mother would pull her aside and berate her.
They said when the girl was away from her mother she was a completely different person.
I had a talk with the mother and was stunned when she told me her daughter wasn't strong or smart enough to go away to college and that she had picked an out-of-town school just to hurt her. She completely shot down any idea that maybe she should give her daughter a chance. I honestly wanted to slap her.
As all of the out-of-town students were staying on campus in one of the dorms, we locked it down at 10 pm.
The last few hours were basically just socializing, but the girl's mother spent that time telling her what a failure she was and how she wouldn't be able to handle spending a night without her.
By the time we kicked mom out of the dorm, the girl was out of control.
We tried to convince her to stay, but mother's poison was just too much and she grabbed her stuff, left orientation, and never returned to the school.
15. “Clingy” Doesn’t Even Begin To Explain It
While working at a new student orientation in college, I was told a story from a previous year.
The parents who attended orientation were housed separately from the students. One mom wanted to stay with her daughter and took the bed of another student.
The mom told the student she can find somewhere else to sleep.
The student, not knowing what to do, ended up sleeping in a chair in the common area of the dorm.
16. Opinions Are Forbidden
An incredibly quiet student just flat-out refused to engage in any discussion in class. She was an extremely pleasant girl, she just wouldn't speak.
I brought it up with her mother during an interview and she revealed the disturbing reason why: She'd forbidden her daughter to express her opinion and to just listen to the teacher out of fear they wouldn't agree with her opinion and mark her down out of bias.
I assured her that expressing an opinion wouldn't get a student marked down in my class and that developing one is important to her learning but she just said "I'd rather she didn't."
17. 23 = Child
I’m a defense lawyer. I was talking to my 23-year-old client in the hallway before court.
His mom walked up to me and said forcefully, “He is a CHILD, do you understand me? A CHILD”!
All because she was upset that he was in trouble with the law.
18. Mom Is Now In Session
I just had a very pleasant, reasonably intelligent man charged with driving inebriated.
His mom kept interrupting me in court to tell me that he was a disgusting pervert and a liar and an addict. She’d gotten him a treatment bed and wanted him in prison until the bed opened up.
Never mind that prison absolutely sucks. Never mind that he’s in his 30s and never mind that I represent HIM, not her.
The bailiff had to jump on her three times because she kept interrupting me all the time.
I wanted to tell her that I could see why her son was an alcoholic but I didn’t.
46. Wherever You Go…
I have these regulars where I work, an obsessed mom and a 20-year-old son.
He chose a school on the other side of the country. He thought he could escape her—he was wrong. She moved and bought a house near campus so that they could still live together. (Her husband is always overseas for work.)
She would call and ask us to do specific things for her son, like remind him to take his keys and charger, call and make appointments for him, arrange rides...etc.
Last I heard, he chose a grad school in another country! The mom did not follow him (thank god he finally has some freedom).
20. The Coach Must Be Jealous
I had a brief stint as a cheerleading coach. A kid gives an attitude about doing literally anything. Won’t follow any instructions and usually either sasses me or sits on her phone. Additionally, the kid skips practice to snort Xanax and put it on her Snapchat.
Ok. I told her that if she wasn’t interested in participating, she can sit in the stands Friday night instead. The kid proceeds to go to the bathroom and calls her mother. It’s not like I can actually take away their phones—try dealing with parents on THAT.
The mother drives from work 30 minutes. She proceeds to scream at me for almost an hour. Apparently, it is my fault.
Her child is the best on the team and I am clearly targeting her.
She says I have destroyed her confidence and am jealous of her talent. She can do whatever she wants if she’s the best on the squad.
Oookay lady. I stopped coaching after that year.
21. Constant Surveilance
Happened in 2006. A parent who volunteered in her child’s classroom just to videotape her child all day, every day.
She threatened to sue if we did not allow her to. She did this all through elementary.
It ended in middle school when they told her no. She stood outside the fence and videotaped him at PE. Someone saw this and called the authorities.
She pulled her kid out of school and home-schooled him.
22. Babysitting Tales
I'm a nanny on the upper east side of New York and while my boss is a good non-helicopter father, I routinely have play dates with other kids. I have a 4, 8, and 13-year-old, so I've seen it all.
My two favorites though:
A mother of one of my girl's little friends called my boss up furious and insisting he fire me because I let her child play with sidewalk paint. She was mad I made her seven-year-old use a paintbrush, instead of doing the drawing for him after he told me what he wants.
He could've poked his eye out with a brush according to her, and it was irresponsible. I almost laughed in her face.
The saddest part was that the little boy told me before he left how fun it was we made the paints ourselves and then got to use them.
My 13-year-old had a sleepover and I got a four-page list of things one girl wasn't allowed to do or eat. When I asked her about it, she told me she was only allergic to hazelnuts, and everything on the list was there because her mom “didn't want her getting fat”.
I let her eat with the girls (we had built your own nacho/quesadilla thing) and I took them to our bodega which is legitimately less than 250 feet away. It's the bottom level of an apartment building on our corner and we're not even in the middle of the block. We got candy and soda to watch movies around 10 after they begged me to do so.
Her mother informed my boss two days later her kid was no longer allowed to be friends with his daughter and it was my fault, as it was irresponsible for me to let four girls leave the house after dark, with a chaperone or not.
I also have a great one about my four-year-old's team hockey mom threatening to call CPS on me so she could get my boss' attention, but that's less helicopter parenting and more pathetic.
23. English Teacher Stories
I'll give two examples. One suburban, one inner city.
Suburban: A kid asked where dogs came from. Not sure why, I was an English teacher. I said they were bred from wolves, and gave two common explanations for how human interaction may have started. The mom called the school, then called me, freaking out that I mentioned evolution.
It turned into a whole thing.
Inner city: A teen sucker punched some poor girl, then punched me in the face when I broke them up.
Ended up getting escorted off by campus security.
The dad, who was obviously a crackhead, showed up to the school and started threatening to kick everyone.
24. The End Of Behavior Charts
I had a pretty typical red/yellow/green behavior chart. One child was just transferred to me, not a completely terrible kid but had a habit of not knowing where the line was. This got him in trouble from time to time.
Every time I flipped his card to a yellow or red, I would always let the parent know what happened and what we’re going to do to stop the behavior in future.
She then goes off on how it’s the other little kid causing the problems and her child is perfect.
I let her know that while there isn’t a perfect person in the scenario both kids could have acted in a different way. She then stated, and I’m not kidding, “I know that the other kid is a dirty foster child (still to this day don’t know how she learned this) and he was aggressive with my child”!
The truth is, the foster child pushed back after a play-hit by her child. SHE DID THIS IN FRONT OF THE OTHER CHILD!
I told her to meet me in the office. I had a meeting with the director and she was no longer allowed in my classroom.
However had to take down my behavior chart which kinda blew because of how well it was working.
25. The Definition Of “Helicopter Mom”
This happened to a brother and sister I went to high school with.
The son was socially awkward, tall, and a little round. He was in high school for only a year by himself but his mom was present at every band function we had. She even tried to come to every practice, even the ones from 9 am-9 pm.
But then she decided that her 7th-grade daughter was going to skip the 8th grade so she could enter high school early. Now she had 2 kids in high school, and she was always at school.
Even stopping by to lunch with them. It was painful. The kids were miserable.
Then she had her daughter skip the 11th grade, literally appealing to the school board.
Threatening to sue if they “held back” her child from her “destiny”. So now she has both kids in the same grade, and they graduate together.
Then the mom enrolls them in community college together, in the same classes...with her.
So she is now going to classes with them. She never actually passes the classes but she wants to be with them so that the professors know she is watching.
Since she is a student there are no grounds for having her removed. The kids get ready to transfer to the local university. They are done with mom.
She tries to “sit in” on classes but that is a big NO from day one.
They diverge in interests so they get their own majors. Then they go nuts with classes, appealing to the administration to take a huge load of credits.
They are in school all day—every day they can.
How I met up with them again was weird. I was working on campus and closed the library one night. I found them bedding down for the night in their old station wagon in the parking lot.
I offered to let them stay overnight with me. They came to my house and told the tale. Last I heard the daughter dropped out and went into the medical field.
26. The Disobedient Liar
I once took a babysitting job when I was 17 too earn some extra cash. The 9-year-old child wanted to play soccer inside. I told him many times not to do it and even took the ball away but he had another one and kicked the ball all around the house completely ignoring me.
He broke a lamp, and some picture frames after knocking down a shelf. And a window.
When the parents came home they blamed me for the damages and thought I was screwing around in the house, why? Because the kid said I was doing that.
I never took another babysitting job after that.
The breaking things part happened in a span of 1 minute so there wasn’t much I could do especially since he would basically just play keep away with me.
27. The Things Rich People Do
I work in a kindergarten in China. We have about 35 kids in each class, seated in 4 rows of 8 (with a split down the middle) facing the teacher.
We move the children about once a month; each child moves back one row, and the back row gets to sit in the front row.
One parent came in and told us that her child must always be seated in the front row. There's nothing wrong with the child's eyesight; she's just too special to be seated anywhere but the front row I guess. The parent did not request this; she ordered us.
Another time in primary the headmaster came to talk to me, aghast. We had one special group of children that was taught all in English for every subject. This is very expensive and all the parents are pretty rich (One guy has three Porsches, red, yellow, and blue. He drives whatever color he feels like to school. He also has several Harley-Davidsons.)
Anyway, this VERY rich mother was upset because the other rich kids didn't want to play with her daughter. Her daughter, having servants at home, tried to order the other kids around and you can imagine how popular that made her.
This mother threatened to have the other children assassinated unless they started playing with her daughter.
28. Secret Recordings
I had a third-grade student whose mother felt that I favored other students over her son.
She would call me and yell at me about not treating him fairly and lying. She snuck past the office a few times to come into the classroom to watch me teach (which of course isn’t allowed and I’d have to call the office).
She’d tell me and the principal that she was trying to “catch me in the act [of being dishonest]”. (Of course, my principal always defended me and dealt with the parent.)
But this was the final straw: the mother bought a watch with a voice recorder in it and the boy wore it to school. He yelled out in the middle of class suddenly, “I’m secretly recording you and you won’t teach here for much longer”! (An 8-year-old!)
Of course, the watch was confiscated and the child was moved into a different classroom, though the school district could have legally moved him into another.
But the mother still never backed down and the next teacher had similar issues.
29. Mishandled Teenage Frustrations
I'm a one-on-one aide for a student in public school. Kid has Downs Syndrome so while he's a preteen, he's obviously at a lower level with schoolwork & has socialization issues.
Unfortunately, kid also has hit puberty hard and has major anger issues in addition to acting sexually frustrated a lot.
He's tried to grab males & females in a provocative way, has gotten aggressive with multiple students, and has physically grabbed me (female) on more than one occasion.
When he's told "no" or that it's inappropriate to react that way, he either throws something or screams in your face. Mom insists he is not aware of his actions, that she's "talked with him" and he won't do it again. This is what she says after every incident, without fail it continues.
The aggression alone could get him suspended as he has shown that he's cognitively aware of his actions and the consequences, but his parents are "high-profile" persons in the community.
Also, I've watched the kid grab his mom's chest and hump her leg and she just waves it away with "oh he's just a little excited". You know, like one does with a dog...
30. Parent Denial
I’m a high school counselor. Last year I had this student who was a total sweetheart but really needed intervention. This girl was a sophomore and had a grand total of 20 credits toward graduation under her belt.
She should have had 90 by that point and was on track to fail 25 more that spring. She was failing miserably. Not only that but she would be constantly ditching class and often end up in my office because there was nowhere else to go.
The school has only one way in or out. I did everything in my power to help this girl and eventually was able to get a parent meeting with myself, teachers, the school psych, and school administrators involved.
I explained to her parents in great detail how at this point it was mathematically impossible for her to graduate from high school at that school at the rate she was failing classes. I offered continuation school that has a much higher rate of graduation for students in her situation.
I desperately wanted her to get tested for special education because it was obvious she had deficiencies and could have at least gotten some accommodations put in place for her in order to help her. But her parents just said no to everything.
No to continuation school because that’s where the “bad” kids went.
No to testing because special ed had a “bad stigma”.
No to after-school tutoring cuz “she’s capable of doing all of this work”.
No to working one on one with the school psych to sort out her emotional issues.
No to everything.
I’d never felt so defeated and knew then that I couldn’t save every kid no matter how much I wanted to.
31. “My Son In An Angel”
I had a boy who kept acting out in class; things like talking to classmates while I was giving directions, giving strange answers, hitting the boys sitting next to him in the arm, and grabbing a boy's crotch during class.
I kept notes and informed our academy director about what was happening and the director pulled him aside after school a few times to talk about his behavior.
One day, at the end of class, he reached across the table and forcefully flicked a girl in the forehead. She complained and he cocked back his arm like he was going to punch her in response.
I had him sit while I let everyone else leave and told him to stay seated while I discussed his behavior with the academy director. (If nothing else, being the last one to go would be a sort of punishment).
The director chewed him out and apparently, he told his mom about it. The mom came to the academy to say that her son was an angel and that I should be reprimanded for exaggerating or lying about the situation.
Cue the director listing off all the mess her son had created over the past few weeks and telling her that her son was no longer welcome at the academy.
We never saw him again after that.
32. Interstate Trip
I went to youth group with two kids who had the worst helicopter mom.
These kids had no muscle mass and were the least athletic kids ever because their parents wouldn't let them play sports. Their mom came to every youth meeting we had (usually just for the youth and the youth leaders).
The older kid begged his mom to go on a mission trip with us, only to another part of the state, not even out of the country. After we all kind of vouched for him and said he'd be taken care of, she let him go.
The story had a happy ending though. He ended up completely coming out of his shell because of that trip.
He got super independent and his mom let up seeing that he could take care of himself.
33. Even Confessions Don’t Work
I once had a kid bite another kid. I had pictures of the bite mark where teeth were clearly visible and the kid admitted to biting the other kid because he got in his way.
The parents said he would never bite anyone and that the picture could be of any type of injury.
34. The Dealer And The Territory
There was a kid in middle school, who was caught selling illicit substances. His mom gave the whole "my kid would never do such a thing" speech.
The best part?
His mom is a teacher at this same school.
35. “Expressing” Himself
Had a child who was inappropriately touching himself during my after-school program on a regular basis. Kept reminding him to do it privately in the bathroom because I know it was age appropriate in Kindergarten.
He keeps doing it.
Have a conversation with the mom and she says “It’s ok he is just expressing himself sexually at 5 years old. We should embrace that he touches himself and plays with himself all the time and the other children could learn from it”.
I’m sorry what?!
A child should not have one hand on their snack and the other hand down their pants while in the lunchroom with 19 other kindergarten students.
36. The Ghostwriting Mom
The mom of a girl I went to college with had a fax line installed in her daughter’s dorm room. She made her send all of her homework assignments and papers to her for edits and approval before turning anything in.
The girl is now a journalist at a prominent newspaper. I’ve always wondered if her mom is still ghostwriting.
37. Parenting Advice
We have a neighborhood newspaper, and a real estate agent with kids always writes an editorial on the first page. Her youngest kid is going off to college this fall, and this article was about what to do in the "empty nest" phase.
THIS WOMAN'S ADVICE was:
"This might be a new and quiet chapter of your life. One college-parent activity that's growing in popularity is buying a condo near the campus. For some parents, this offers the chance to visit their fledglings while having a stable and familiar place to stay".
38. Date Crasher
I tried to befriend this guy who was 18. I introduced him to one of my wife's single friends and his mom went to dinner with us. She drilled us with questions. We went to a movie after, and luckily his mom didn't go.
But we ended up missing the first showing and had to watch a later showing. His mom was furious that her baby boy was out so late partying with us.
He wasn't allowed to go out with us again. He's 26 now.
I saw him a couple of weeks ago at a store and his mom was walking a few feet behind him.
He has 2 older sisters that moved away as soon as they turned 18.
One moved to Mexico and the other moved to Japan.
We live in Kentucky.
I now know why they moved.
39. A Parent With A Complaint
A mom came with her kid to whine about a (deserved) poor grade.
The "kid" was a junior in college. Mom was not happy when I informed her I couldn't and wouldn't talk to parents.
And by "not happy" I mean "lost it and was escorted out by campus security".
The student was mortified, of course, and even came by to apologize. I was basically like "let's both just pretend that never happened, m'kay. So here's what you should work on for the next exam".
40. Inadvertent Babysitting
I'm in college, living off campus with my 20-year-old roommate.
She has to be in contact with her mom every single day. If she doesn't answer within a few hours, her mom gets extremely anxious about where she is and what she's doing. Her mom has called me more than once to see where she is.
Usually, I'm within 40 feet of my roommate and she's just doing homework or watching cable.
It's ridiculous that she's being monitored like a hawk when she's an adult.
41. A New Type Of Micromanaging
My sister taught Kindergarten for a while and she had a kid whose mother wouldn't let her play outside if it was below 70 degrees.
The mom told the school she was allergic to dairy but then admitted she lied about that because she "couldn't trust that the school wouldn't serve her spoiled milk" so she thought it would be easier to just say she was allergic.
Also, the kid was coincidentally sick and had to stay home from school on every single field trip.
42. Blame It On The Women
I had a student who was failing pretty badly, he had a pretty bad attitude and was extremely disrespectful.
When I called his father, his response blew my mind: “You’re a woman, he doesn’t need to respect you”.
I handed the phone to a male mentor teacher pretty dumbfounded and explained the situation.
The male teacher proceeded to ream the dad out and then had the kid transferred from my class to his class.
The kid still failed and was still a disrespectful jerk. Not sure what the dad had to say about that but at least he couldn’t blame it on me being a woman.
43. Test Scores
A dude came in to talk about his son's test scores.
The son was in my second-year university course, and the dad was a prof in the subject I was teaching who thought I was hard on his son.
We reviewed the midterm together, and in the end, I gave the kid back one mark so he went from a 73 to 74%.
Seriously cannot imagine what it was like for that kid going up.
44. No Stories At Camp
I work at a Summer Camp and we told scary stories.
One of the boys in the camp couldn't sleep for the whole week because of some of the stories so his mom demanded the scary stories be banned otherwise she would basically badmouth our programs.
The next Monday the boy complained to me that we couldn't tell scary stories anymore and was upset about it... Tell your mom!
45. A Monotonous Life
I was 11-13 at the time. I had a friend on the swim team that was also around that age. His parents were the most controlling people I had ever seen. His mother looked like the head of a catholic girls' school that punishes students for singing.
We all used to play Nintendo DS games during meets. He just watched over our shoulders because if he touched a gaming console he would be punished.
His parents always made him wear the same clothes every day. Tan khakis, white shirt, dark blue sweater vest. I once got him a T-shirt for his birthday. He gave it back saying that he wasn’t allowed to wear it.
He was homeschooled. Pretty sure his family spoke ecclesiastical Latin at home.
46. Mom Goes On A 5th-Grade Excursion…
My son told me about this one.
There was a 5th-grade overnight trip to the nature center. A kid’s mom went (she was the only parent to go). She had a complete meltdown when she was told that her kid would be sleeping in a cabin with other kids and not with her…
She’s been told this before the trip as well. Four teachers per cabin, basically overnight school.
He said she basically spent the entire night outside watching the cabin. It really creeped everyone out. But man the rants she went on Facebook…
At least her friends and family called her out on her nonsense. I imagine quite a few people got blocked that day.
47. Lawsuit Here, Lawsuit There
A parent at my school worked for the district but in a different department. Her daughter was really average. Not an A student but not failing. There was no way this kid was a top performer in any way but probably had a solid college career ahead of her.
Well, that wasn't good enough for mom and she wanted the kid to be valedictorian or nothing else. So she read the entire handbook on school accommodations and learning disabilities and began petitioning.
She managed to get her kid labeled as needing accommodations and then helicoptered the teacher to make sure they were being met. If the kid got lower than an A she would find something that the teacher didn’t do and bring it up with the administration.
It became such a problem that the teacher was receiving emails almost 2x per day, and the administrator was getting multiple calls per day. Then things got even more insane.
The teacher had to hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit for harassment by the union. The mom counter-sued, of course, and things got heated for a while. I remember the superintendent even getting involved.
Every person in the administration knew she was making it up. No one could call her out cause she was crazy, had money, and was ready to sue.
They managed to somehow settle with her. Basically, wait it out until summer.
The only consequence she faced was related to emails. Apparently, she was using her work email to harass the teacher. They started monitoring her computer use and she was no longer allowed to communicate with the teacher in question.
48. The Scammer
Less helicopter parent, more “my child is innocent” and a scam.
My mom was kicked out of work (temporarily) from her underprivileged school until this case was settled. A kindergartener had just gotten her ears pierced and she took the earrings out in class because they hurt.
The teacher sent her to the health secretary (my mom) and the little girl lost an earring somewhere along the way. Cleaned the ears and sent her back to class. The mother of the child sued my mom and filed a case with the school because I guess the earrings were solid gold and diamond.
I guess that’s what Claire’s pierced with, seems legit. Tried to accuse my mom of stealing the earring, no chance that a 6-year-old lost a tiny object. Of course, the woman did not win in this situation.
My mom got back to work but it was a whole bunch of baloney, threatening the teachers and office employees at the school over a lost earring and an injured earlobe.
49. “Parenting Is A Full-Time Job” Gone Too Far
There was a kid I knew from elementary-high school whose mom didn't have a job. She somehow managed to be at his school EVERY SINGLE DAY. Just watching over him.
In elementary, she was a volunteer Teacher's Aid every year which meant she would help out in whatever class he was in. By middle school, she was the head of the PTA and although not necessary she was at the campus almost every day.
She would just wander around and eventually, the school stopped caring and she could do whatever she wants. She would randomly pop into one of his classes and just observe or come up to him to hang out with him at lunch. The consequences were painful to watch.
The kid was stressed 24/7, his whole body always clenched up. His mom put IMMENSE pressure on him to do well in school both academically and behavior-wise.
He had an extremely hard time making friends and eventually he was bullied to the point of randomly getting beat up. Made it to the first year of high school before he had to transfer to another school.
It's her fault, all she wanted was for him to be smart and polite to teachers and he never got to learn how to just be a guy and make friends.
Sources: ,
