JayMac: Sick of babysitting parents, kindergarten teacher quits

A former kindergarten teacher in Virginia said although she loves children she’s had enough; she’s calling it quits after 12 years.

It wasn’t the “lousy pay,” Jessica Gentry, the ex-educator, says.

If you look at any industry, the pay is not the No.1  thing workers want. Money is like 8th or 9th on the list. They want recognition, passion, success.  Forty-four percent of new teachers leave teaching within five years, according to a study.

The former teacher says she wasn’t unsatisfied with her job, as others have told her, because “kids have changed.” No, she insists, parenting has changed, society has changed. Kids are just the victims, Gentry says.

This is from her Facebook post on leaving teaching:

Let me tell you why those who ooze passion for teaching are leaving the occupation like their hair is on fire. Parents are working crazy hours, consumed by their devices, leaving kids in unstable parenting/co-parenting situations. Our classrooms are the first place they’ve ever heard ‘no,’ been given boundaries, shown love through respect.

She says sometimes it’s the first time the child has heard that no MEANS no, and the teacher is the first person who has had to deal with the fallout from that — “not very becoming behavior from the child.”

She says the emphasis on technology is keeping teachers from instructing children, i.e. teaching. But because the stress placed on technology is not working, she adds, teachers need more training, which again keeps teachers from instructing children.

What’s the matter with parents today?

I know quite a few coaches who are excellent at it and love it but had to leave because of the parents and their constant harangue on getting their kids more playing time, etc.

 News item: A dad in Roy, Utah, was arrested after he allegedly threatened his kid’s baseball coach with a bat because they “didn’t get to play in the game as much as he wanted,” court documents say.

It’s hard to see your kids suffer and you as a parent want them to be happy.  But the trap is: you want your kids to be happy now. Kids don’t stay kids. Your job is to teach your kid to be a functional adult. Not being their friends when they’re kids but when their adults, enjoying mutual respect.

The job of a parent is to let failure happen. Not big-time fail. But in doses that the child can understand and process. If you don’t, the kid will never feel successful. That’s exactly why micromanagement is such a dismal way to manage. There’s no chance to slip up and fall. So you’re robbed of the feeling of success. Watching a child fail is one of the toughest parts of being a parent. But that’s where self-confidence comes from.

What makes you stronger are the times you failed but then stood back up and dusted yourself off. Those times you remember. Fail, learn, repeat.

If you create an environment where your child never has to overcome obstacles and difficulties, then the child will never be able to cope or stand on their own when you are gone. This is a parenting style designed to fail.

As a parent, when my kids said: “My teacher got mad at me.”

I’d asked: “What did you do?”

Not “What did the teacher do?” I always trusted the adult first. That doesn’t seem to be the way it goes today, and it’s becoming more common.

Those time when I wasn’t rescuing my kids, but standing by coaching, loving and supporting them were some of the most important moments between me and my children.