He had a slightly timid look on his face, and seemed to be searching for a smile to appear on my face. It did not appear. Then he said, "I'm gonna pway wif dis," motioning to the football. I turned my attention back to the piano student that I was teaching. In the other room, I heard the child to say to the parent, "Come on, lets pway wif dis!" During the whole entire time, the parent did not correct the child once, at least as far as I could hear. I ignored the situation and continued to teach the lesson.Ok. I have to say, this whole situation really, really bothered me. It irritates me that a parent would give their three-year-old child the freedom to roam around my house unattended. Honestly, I could care less about the child playing with the football, but it's the fact that he got it out of my bedroom, without supervision, or permission. It bothers me even more that the parent allowed this behavior. I don't expect a three-year-old to exactly know better, but the parent does, and the parent is responsible for teaching the children to behave apropriately. My house isn't exactly childproof. So I guess now I will keep my bedroom door shut while I teach that lesson. Perhaps the parent will get the subliminal hint. The only problem is that the shutting the bedroom door eliminates access to the bathroom. Oh well.
We're taking the dog to the vet today around lunch-time. We will soon find out whether or not we will be keeping the dog.
1 comment:
Michele,
You are a teacher and a professional and should not be expected to put up with this. It may be hard to change horses mid stream but in the future you might need to make it clear from the beginning that you do not have a waiting room set up to accommodate parents. Knowing where you live, it’s not an imposition for those folks to run and do some shopping or go get a coke and then return for their child.
In addition, your home owners or renters insurance will not cover said three year old if he were injured while there during a business transaction (which is what it was).
Heck – blame it on Joel! Just like I blame a phantom supervisor whenever I need to exercise a rule and don’t want to look like the heavy.
As for parents not teaching their children to behave, I see this over and over in my line of work. A child isn’t taught to sit still for even five minutes or respect the property of others and so when he goes to school and can’t abide by common rules he is labeled ADHD. I think many such cases are not true disorders but rather lazy inept parenting.
It’s hard work to be a parent and most folks today don’t want to work that hard. It’s easier to ignore it and let the school or legal system deal with the end result. As a society we don’t want anyone to tell us whether we can smoke, drink, wear a seat belt, where to live or work or what to watch on TV but then we turn around and abdicate our most precious role in life to any and everyone else simply out of laziness. What a shame.
Oops, sorry this is your blog not mine - Dee
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