Absurt Parents

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Home : 2004 : January : 10

Absurt Parents
By Melissastarr

During my second year of teaching my boss had her 5 year old child with Downs Sydrome in my class. He was not toilet trained and she expected me to toilet train him and change his diapers (no aide for most of the day.)
Yet I wasn't allowed to leave the other kids in the room for 5 minutes to walk him to the bathroom and I shouldn't disrupt instruction every 15 minutes to bring them all to the bathroom to make her son use the toilet. Also, I wasn't allowed to change his diaper in the classroom (even in a private area) but if she walked in and he was wet I was in deep trouble. My job was threatened every

day because I hadn't gotten him toilet trained yet. When I told the school I wouldn't be returning the next year she absolutely couldn't understand why I'd want to leave.

The next year I taught 4th grade- no potty training issues there! My first parent interaction, about a week into the school year, was a parent coming into my classroom saying she was suing me and the school. I requested that we meet with the principal (it was a private school) immediately to discuss the situation. What was she going to sue us about? She didn't want her child sitting next to the child that I had assigned her to sit next to. The parent had not mentioned it before the threatened lawsuit... and I guess she couldn't have simply asked for me to change the child's seat? Ahh... sometimes teaching is about being entertained by parents!

Melissa