Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The Enabling Parent - Part 1

Don’t you just love how parents like to have important meetings at the spur of the moment? You know, like you’re prepared for anything and have all the answers without preparation for their questions? Well that’s what happened to me today.

Here’s a little back story before I tell you about the Enabling Mom.  One of my students didn’t finish his math assessment yesterday.  We took the assessment in the morning and he was the last student still working on his test, so I told him he could have the rest of the day to finish it during his free time.  Long story short, the kid didn’t finish his assessment because he chose to do “fun” things instead during his free time.  At the end of the day, I collected his test, graded it, and he received a 50%.  

Today as I was supposed to be watching the kids during after school dismissal, the mom (let’s refer to her as Nancy the Enabler) marches up to me wanting to have a long discussion about why I should allow her child to have extra time to finish his test.  I then proceeded to inform her that her son didn’t chose to finish his test during his free time.  Nancy was still very insistent that I allow her son the extra time since it was basically my fault for not reminding him.  Hold on! Here’s what I wanted to say in response, “You’re crazy, woman!  It’s because of your enabling that he’s become codependent. You remind him too much about what he needs to get done so he’s not learning responsibility.”

Of course that’s not what I really said... I do love my job and intent on keeping it.  Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Enabling Parent to see how I really responded.

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