How do you deal with a cranky teacher?

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Allegra

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My kids have been in school for the first time for about a month now. Both kids love the school and enjoy being there. They love the activities and frequently talk about the things they’ve learned at home. My son’s teacher is very cheerful and always gives us positive reports when we pick him up. By positive, I mean that she tells us a couple of cute or funny things he did or said or something that he enjoyed in addition to any issues he might have had.

My daughter’s teacher, on the other hand, always seems very cranky. She never has anything pleasant to say about what my daughter did that day. She generally has a litany of things she did “wrong”, many of which are normal 4yo misunderstandings. (Example- today she apparently was setting up the cones on the playground a certain way and wasn’t sharing them with other kids. The teacher told her she had to share. And she did. The end.) The closest thing to a compliment she gives is “she did better than yesterday,” which with as many times as she’s been “better than yesterday” she ought to be doing pretty good by now! I wonder if she just doesn’t like my daughter much, but she doesn’t seem to be particularly positive about any of the other kids either. Not that she tells me personal things about them, but in the time I’m in the room she never compliments any of the kids or tells them anything positive.

Has anyone had to address this with a student this young before? Should I say something? My instinct is to say something along the lines of, “Well, hopefully something positive happened today.” and hope she takes the hint. However, if she’s that negative to the parents, it kind of bothers me that she’s probably even more negative when there aren’t adults in the room. I mean, I’m a teacher and even when I’m giving a report on a really wild kid, I try to say a couple positive things before stating one thing to work on. I don’t think she’s mentioned a single positive thing about my kid since she’s started there. Is this a “we need to have a talk” issue? My daughter doesn’t seem to be too upset by it. I’m sure she’d like to have a teacher that says nice things to her occasionally, but as long as there are things and people to play with, she doesn’t much care. What do you think?
 
If your child seemed to be affected by this teacher’s negativity, I’d say have a talk with teacher. But if your child seems to be doing fine and generally enjoying her school experience, I’d let it go. It’s only 1 year and she will have a new teacher. I had a kindergarten teacher when I was 4 who was also kind of a negative crab, but I mostly didn’t notice at that age. My mother did notice and never had anything good to say about that teacher.
It’s when the kid gets a couple years older and is more interested in trying to please teacher and more cognizant of negativity that such a teacher becomes a problem.
 
As a teacher myself, the thing that struck me about your post is that you are getting daily reports from your children’s teachers. Did I misread that? If I had to talk with a parent of every student I taught in a day, I would be outside for a couple hours (I teach K-5 music and teach about 180 kids a day).

I rarely see a teacher talking to more than a couple parents a day (I have after school duty in the K-2 pickup area), and usually only if there was a problem with a child that day.

Anyway, I second what @Tis_Bearself said above – if your daughter is enjoying school, don’t rock her boat by letting her hear your concerns. She may be experiencing plenty of positive feedback during her school time. Your concerns might confuse her or make her believe her teacher doesn’t like her.

If you’re genuinely concerned about how she might be treating your daughter in class, talk privately with the teacher about it.

Not every teacher is going to be sunshine and daisies. My students – even the older ones – have expressed great love for even the most curmudgeonly of teachers. They innately know when they’re cared about.

Best of luck with these school years. My son is 14 and has just started high school. 😬 That’s a whole new world of concerns about teachers!
 
I’m having a similar issue with one of my kids’ teachers. He seems to be happy, so I’m leaving it alone. BUT, I am making note of transgressions in the event I have to escalate the matter. Being a teacher myself, I understand that the stress of the job can get to you, but at some point you have to learn to compartmentalize.
 
This is a pre-K class, and they always give a report when you pick up your child. They also only have 8 to 10 kids in a class and they aren’t all picked up at the same time.
 
Allegra said:
This is a pre-K class, and they always give a report when you pick up your child. They also only have 8 to 10 kids in a class and they aren’t all picked up at the same time.
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I assumed it was a Pre-K class, given that your daughter is four. You’re very fortunate to be able to get a report everyday.

At our school, we have six half-day preschool classes, and one full-day preschool class, two teachers and fifteen kids in each class. Students all arrive and leave at the same time. Unless something significant happened, a teacher would only have time to say something brief, like “Maria had a great day today.”
 
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So, I had pretty much decided to take everyone’s advice and not say anything. But I talked to my mom the other night and I brought up Grandparent’s Day and asked how it went. She told me that it was a stunningly beautiful school and looked like a lot of fun, but she thought my daughter’s teacher was the Wicked Witch of the West. I was a little surprised because my mom is basically the least tolerant of young children of anyone I know. I frequently have to remind her that it isn’t okay to kick children, even if they deserve it. Her general opinion is that all children are inherently hoodlums and should be spanked regularly whether you catch them doing anything or not for the sake of civilization itself. If she assesses that an adult is “too stern” that’s saying a lot!

Naturally, I asked her what happened and she said that when she was bringing my daughter back to her classroom after the event, she still had a cookie in her hand. According to her, the teacher “barked” at her to get rid of the cookie and then went on a “rant” about how not all of the children got cookies because not all of them had a grandparent that could come and it was unfair of her to bring it back to the room. Mom wasn’t sure if the guilt trip was for the 4yo who dared to take a cookie that an adult had given her as she left the room, or for her for allowing her to bring it, but needless to say, she was unimpressed.

Then, yesterday, when I went to pick up my kids, my daughter’s teacher was out of the room when I got there. She came in and began barking again about some toys that were apparently not supposed to be out. (The teacher who was left in the room apparently didn’t care about it.) Even though two other kids were playing with the toys, my daughter was named as the one who had gotten them out and the teacher griped at her about that. My daughter left where she was coloring and went and picked up the toys. When she came back, another boy was sitting in her spot, beginning to color on her paper. She said, “No! That’s mine! I got that out for me to color!” The teacher straight up flipped out on her, accused her of “snatching” the paper, (she hadn’t touched it), and told her she was “very mean”. I was done at that point. I got her things and went and found the director and told her what was going on. She seemed very sympathetic and apparently spoke to the teacher about it.
 
I immediately wished I hadn’t said anything, but what was done was done. Today, when I went to pick her up, the teacher was yelling at my daughter and my daughter was bawling and ran right to me. Once I had calmed her down, I had a very stern discussion with the teacher. It was pretty long, but I basically told her how to do her job. She confessed that she was not allowed to use “time outs”, have kids sit out of activities, or take away toys. Apparently, in lieu of age-appropriate consequences she has gotten into the habit of yelling, criticizing, and ranting, none of which is even remotely productive. She complained that she tells my daughter to do something six times and she isn’t listening. I pointed out that she should stop “telling” after the first warning and follow up with either physically escorting her to do the task, removing distractions, or imposing a consequence and that would soon stop. She’s undermining her own authority with that nonsense. Even if she’s not allowed to use normal consequences, hollering from across the room clearly isn’t working. I explained about “counting down” in order to give a time limit. I explained about breaking down complex things like clean up the toys and put away your cot into smaller steps. She seemed to be at least somewhat receptive to these ideas. I guess we’ll see if things improve over the next couple of weeks. She is turning five shortly and if I don’t start hearing more positive things from the teacher, I think I will ask the director to move her into a different class. They do have a couple other teachers that teach the same level.
 
Allegra said:
Today, when I went to pick her up, the teacher was yelling at my daughter and my daughter was bawling and ran right to me.
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😱 😱 😱

I would have completely lost it if this had happened to my son. That is a “teacher” who needs to get out of the classroom – yesterday.

Golly, I’m angry just reading about it. I’m gonna go hug our preschool teachers this morning for being so awesome, and I will be keeping your family and your daughter’s school situation in my prayers.
 
I teach kindergarten. This made me angry in so many ways but unfortunately it does not shock me. I have seen far too many teachers like the one you describe. Most are either very young preK/daycare teachers, who seem to be in way over their heads, or older teachers (any grade) that are simply done with teaching. Of course some are just simply people who have no business working in a classroom at all. You have much more patience in this situation than I would have. One of my nephews had a teacher similar to what you describe. I talked to the director, and the next day when it was worse (not better) I pulled all three kids out. I had not had custody of the kids for long. They came to me from a bad situation. They needed to know that there are safe people who would protect them.
 
In my experience, it has less to do with age, as it is a teacher who feels unsupported (This one obviously does because of the “rules” against normal age-appropriate consequences.) or who don’t have many strategies for helping students with transitions. (Which also seems to be a weak point for this teacher.) I think many adults have realized that they’ve gotten frustrated with a situation and unintentionally taken it out on others. When people begin to feel helpless, like a situation just isn’t going to get any better, they often get into phases of complaining and frustrated melt-downs, which in retrospect isn’t even remotely productive and tends to make situations much worse!
 
I’m hopeful that things are getting better. When I picked my kids up on Friday, the teacher’s attitude was much more positive and she put many compliments and smiley faces on my daughter’s report. The paper snatching kid told me as I came in that room that she had a “great day”. Hopefully this will continue!
 
Allegra said:
I’m hopeful that things are getting better. When I picked my kids up on Friday, the teacher’s attitude was much more positive and she put many compliments and smiley faces on my daughter’s report. The paper snatching kid told me as I came in that room that she had a “great day”. Hopefully this will continue!
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I’m out of likes for now, but am so thankful that the situation is getting better. Still praying though, because you know, it’s what we Catholics do. 😃
 
Why are there ‘rules’ against age appropriate consequences? Seems like there is something wrong with the whole school
 
Probably to avoid a kid being made to sit in time out for an excessive amount of time, is my guess. I have no idea about why she thinks she’s not allowed to take toys away. I don’t think she’s right that it’s a school-wide rule though. Maybe SHE was specifically told not to use those consequences because she was abusing the privilege?
 
Things have been going much better this week. The teacher actually seemed to take some things to heart. Apparently my daughter is still having some difficulty with nap time, but is otherwise having great days. Also, they’ve hired another teacher for the room who seems to perpetually leak positive energy and is all hugs and high fives, so I think the situation is improving! Hopefully having another adult in the room will take some of the stress of Teacher Cranky-Pants while also providing a witness to prevent things from getting out of hand with the negativity.
 
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