Entitlement - Parents & Kids

[Ryan]

For the last several years, you hear a lot about the incredible entitlement of parents and kids, particularly when it comes to the school system.  When I hear parents complaining about some policy in the school and the administration bends over to accommodate, I think to myself that it will only encourage others to do the same.  In my school district, there is a test to determine if you'll make the advanced math.  You have to basically score well on the placement test, the standardized test, and have a teachers recommendation.  There is limited space, so they SHOULD just take the top 15 or whatever.  The administrative team then went and ruined it by creating an official appeal process in case you didn't make the cut.  This just led to the very loud parent advocating for their kid and leapfrogging another kid that maybe was a little more right on the cusp.

Of course, I say that and then I find myself doing the same thing I used to roll my eyes at.  For instance, my kid spent 30 minutes on math homework, I saw that he did the homework.  His sister said she saw him turn the homework in.  The teacher couldn't find this homework and, when my son protested, she said that he must not have done it so he'd have to redo.  I reached out to the teacher and then, magic, she found the homework.  

More recently, the school instituted a policy where basically kids can't go to the bathroom during class.  The problem is that they don't have time to go between class (3 min passing period and long distances between classes).  I find myself very close to emailing the principal because my kids rush into the door to go to the bathroom or talk about how they aren't paying attention in class because they have to go.

30 years ago, there is NO WAY my parents would've called the school and here I am.  Still though, is this entitlement or just speaking out on something that doesn't make sense?  What are your thoughts?  

[busymom]

I agree that some of the new "normal" is ridiculous, regarding parents whining when their kid doesn't get in the advanced classes, make the football team, etc.


However, that 3 minute passing time is crazy.  And, no bathroom breaks during class?  Just how long can an average kid hold their pee?  I'd be emailing AND calling the school, and probably telling my kid to go ahead & use the bathroom during passing time, and if they end up arriving late to class, to have their teacher call ME.  

[Tiny]

More recently, the school instituted a policy where basically kids can't go to the bathroom during class. The problem is that they don't have time to go between class (3 min passing period and long distances between classes). I find myself very close to emailing the principal because my kids rush into the door to go to the bathroom or talk about how they aren't paying attention in class because they have to go.

Personally, I think kids should have access to bathrooms between classes.   A kid needing to go to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom should be a rare occassion.   I get why it's not allowed.    I dont' think it's an issue of entitlement - but more an issue of of something that doesn't make sense (or that can be done to make the school day better.)    

I clearly remember High School and local Jr. College courses as being a challenge to get to the bathroom between certain classes because of the distance between classrooms.   AFter the first week of the new course schedule - it would become obvious which "between" times were more convenient for bathroom breaks and which weren't (and also how much books/etc you needed to carry because you weren't going to be able to go back to your locker to swap out books/etc.)      Bathroom breaks became a "manage my time between classes" thing.    

3 minutes seems like a short time - but maybe it's not based on the distance between classrooms.    

this isn't an issue of entitlement - it's an issue of "common sense". 

If kids are avoiding the bathrooms when there are other kids in them - due to bullying or some other reason - then it's a whole different issue.   

 

[haapai]

Three minutes between classes is rough, especially if everyone else has been holding it in.  There will be a line.  It's even worse if it's three minutes between classes several classes in a row. 

I can easily see this leading to reliably time-stamped video and/or audio recordings explaining tardiness and only the older kids have the know-how and courage to do that.   May the goodness of the universe smile on the not-so-smart, or very angry, or very desperate kid who records a bit more than anyone thinks is proper just to prove that they aren't faking anything. 

[raeoflyte]

I don't believe in restricting water or bathroom access so I'd be speaking to the teachers/school on that. If leaving class is being abused address that with those individuals, don't make stupid blanket rules.

There's balance in all things. There is no reason your son should redo an assignment when it turns out the teacher had it. It's unfortunate it took you asking for them to double check and find it, but that is why sometimes parents need to get involved. You're not hovering over every assignment or arguing grades, and I'm assuming you were polite.

With classes, by middle school I'd let my kid handle advocating for a 2nd chance.

[Tennesseer]

Regarding school bathrooms:  Back in the late'50s and '60s I attended Carholic schools.  In Grammer school after lunch in the gymnatorium was over, we students had to stay outdoors on the school playground while the nuns were in the convent having their lunch.  The school doors were locked to keep us outside.

I noticed one younger girl in distress.  She had to use the bathroom but no adults would let her in to use it.  She starting crying really hard and then her bowels let loose and her legs were covered with excrement.  School uniforms back then were dresses for girls.

Finally, one nun leaving the convent after eating lunch saw the girl and her accident.  The the nun rushed her into to the school and cleaned her up as best she could.  The girl's parent came to the school to pick her up.

I never saw the girl student again.  Her parents probably took her out of that school and placed her in a better school, especially when it came time for bathroom use.

Kid's (and adults too) have accidents and often have no control of their inner functions.

[busymom]

I witnessed a "peeing" accident at the Christian school my DD attended.  They were rehearsing for a Christmas program, and a couple of the boys were begging to use the bathroom, but the teacher told them no.  One of them didn't make it to the bathroom in time after rehearsal.

[billisonboard]

Oct 7, 2022 12:49:13 GMT -5 Ryan said:

...

Of course, I say that and then I find myself doing the same thing I used to roll my eyes at.  For instance, my kid spent 30 minutes on math homework, I saw that he did the homework.  His sister said she saw him turn the homework in.  The teacher couldn't find this homework and, when my son protested, she said that he must not have done it so he'd have to redo.  I reached out to the teacher and then, magic, she found the homework.  

...

My guess would be it wasn't magic but extra time and effort spent by the teacher to find the assignment that may or may not have been misplaced by her in the first place. Shit happens. This was an opportunity for your son to learn that. It would have cost him thirty minutes. I think that it would have been appropriate to step in if she had denied him the chance to (re)do it.

[NoNamePerson]

Teachers not letting children go to restroom goes way back. Not a new thing. I had a 4th grade teacher who was a bitch about saying no. I remember raising my hand and telling teacher I didn’t feel good and wanted to go to bathroom. NO.  A few minutes later I threw up all over my desk!  And the two more kids threw up seeing me throw up.

Our room wasn’t far from the cafeteria and they were cooking liver. The smell was making me sick. Heck to this day can’t be in any place it is being cooked. But she did loosen up her hardass attitude a bit.  

[TheOtherMe]

During my school years in the dark ages, the bathroom during class was only for emergencies.  Most teachers defined that as throwing up.

In 2nd grade, I still remember a puddle forming on the floor under a girl's desk.  She came from a very poor family and only had one dress.  She was sent home and did return the next day.  There was no option in that small town to send her anywhere else.

[NoNamePerson]

Oct 8, 2022 8:39:26 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

During my school years in the dark ages, the bathroom during class was only for emergencies.  Most teachers defined that as throwing up.

In 2nd grade, I still remember a puddle forming on the floor under a girl's desk.  She came from a very poor family and only had one dress.  She was sent home and did return the next day.  There was no option in that small town to send her anywhere else.

She let me go after I had thrown up     Feeling bad wasn't an emergency in that old bats mind. and her name was Mrs. Lamb

[TheOtherMe]

I'm sorry you had to go through that.  

I know in junior and senior high we had 5 minutes between classes.  That worked okay in junior high, even though the bathrooms were crowded.  

In high school, the building was sprawled out.  It was a very old building so the bathrooms were small.  Most teachers didn't count us tardy if you were late getting to class.  If it was an every day thing, that didn't work.  

[NoNamePerson]

I went to a really old high school also. Three stories at that. I really don't remember the time frame for getting to classes but it was a rush sometimes getting from first to third floor classes. But I also don't remember teachers giving hard time about letting us leave class for bathroom. We must have had more had more than 3 minutes though. As for the throwing up incident it worked in my favor - I raised my hand and teacher practically carried me to restroom    Silver lining in there somewhere  

[Tennesseer]

Oct 8, 2022 7:09:23 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

Teachers not letting children go to restroom goes way back. Not a new thing. I had a 4th grade teacher who was a bitch about saying no. I remember raising my hand and telling teacher I didn’t feel good and wanted to go to bathroom. NO.  A few minutes later I threw up all over my desk!  And the two more kids threw up seeing me throw up.

Our room wasn’t far from the cafeteria and they were cooking liver. The smell was making me sick. Heck to this day can’t be in any place it is being cooked. But she did loosen up her hardass attitude a bit.  

I would have been one of those two kids.

[Tennesseer]

Back to first grade Catholic grammar school in 1957.  Timothy H. had to go to the bathroom during class.  Sister Ann Paula would not let him leave the class room.  Timothy H. then peed in his pants.  Sister AP got mad at him.  Sister AP then put a blanket on the floor in the front of the classroom.

Sister AP then told Timothy H. to take his shoes and socks off and to sit on the blanket.  Sister AP told us if Timothy H. was going to act like a baby she was going to treat him like a baby.

[busymom]

Oct 8, 2022 11:11:49 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Back to first grade Catholic grammar school in 1957.  Timothy H. had to go to the bathroom during class.  Sister Ann Paula would not let him leave the class room.  Timothy H. then peed in his pants.  Sister AP got mad at him.  Sister AP then put a blanket on the floor in the front of the classroom.

Sister AP then told Timothy H. to take his shoes and socks off and to sit on the blanket.  Sister AP told us if Timothy H. was going to act like a baby she was going to treat him like a baby.

    It's a blessing that woman never became a parent.  But I do feel badly for the many children she probably tormented over the years.  The worst boss I ever had to deal with was originally going to be a teacher, and as horribly as she treated the people who worked for her, I think she would have destroyed children.

[TheOtherMe]

Oct 8, 2022 11:11:49 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Back to first grade Catholic grammar school in 1957.  Timothy H. had to go to the bathroom during class.  Sister Ann Paula would not let him leave the class room.  Timothy H. then peed in his pants.  Sister AP got mad at him.  Sister AP then put a blanket on the floor in the front of the classroom.

Sister AP then told Timothy H. to take his shoes and socks off and to sit on the blanket.  Sister AP told us if Timothy H. was going to act like a baby she was going to treat him like a baby.

What a horrible way to treat a child.  Did Timothy's parents make him continue in that school?  

I am not Catholic.  I assume since the nun did this she saw nothing wrong with it, so no confession for her on the terrible thing she did?

[Tennesseer]

Oct 8, 2022 14:33:48 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Oct 8, 2022 11:11:49 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Back to first grade Catholic grammar school in 1957.  Timothy H. had to go to the bathroom during class.  Sister Ann Paula would not let him leave the class room.  Timothy H. then peed in his pants.  Sister AP got mad at him.  Sister AP then put a blanket on the floor in the front of the classroom.

Sister AP then told Timothy H. to take his shoes and socks off and to sit on the blanket.  Sister AP told us if Timothy H. was going to act like a baby she was going to treat him like a baby.

What a horrible way to treat a child.  Did Timothy's parents make him continue in that school?  

I am not Catholic.  I assume since the nun did this she saw nothing wrong with it, so no confession for her on the terrible thing she did?

Timothy did remain in the grammer school. He did not move on to the Catholic high school many of us attended. The distance between our grammer school and high school was about a six minute walk. It was in the burbs. My family lived directly across the street from the church and grammer school.

My dad was the dentist for the grammer and high school nuns. I often got called into my dad's dental office (which was attached to our home) to say hi to my teachers. Oh joy!

[TheOtherMe]

Oh joy is right.  

[teen persuasion]

Three minutes passing time is pretty standard here, and yes the school has three floors and a sprawling layout from multiple additions over more than 110 years. I swear the bathroom capacity issue has gotten worse over time - they've created these single person bathrooms and locked the bigger multi-stall ones in places. Parents notice it when we are in the school for performances, and the only open bathroom in the 4 corners section of the building (cross halls for the auditorium / tech hall / pool / music suite) is a single person one!

DS5 avoids using the bathrooms at school because of the vapers.

[Ryan]

Oct 7, 2022 22:15:54 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Oct 7, 2022 12:49:13 GMT -5 Ryan said:

...

Of course, I say that and then I find myself doing the same thing I used to roll my eyes at.  For instance, my kid spent 30 minutes on math homework, I saw that he did the homework.  His sister said she saw him turn the homework in.  The teacher couldn't find this homework and, when my son protested, she said that he must not have done it so he'd have to redo.  I reached out to the teacher and then, magic, she found the homework.  

...

My guess would be it wasn't magic but extra time and effort spent by the teacher to find the assignment that may or may not have been misplaced by her in the first place. Shit happens. This was an opportunity for your son to learn that. It would have cost him thirty minutes. I think that it would have been appropriate to step in if she had denied him the chance to (re)do it.

Misplacing something isn't a bit deal, but immediately telling the kid to re-do the assignment without at least humoring him by telling him you'll look for it is wrong.  You see this all the time in schools or the workplace with teens.  If it were an adult that was questioning them, they would double check for the paper.  Since it's a kid that's asking, certain teachers won't bother and tell the kid to re-do it.  

I saw this all the time when I was working in HS.  The managers would treat the kids way differently than they would an adult.  Older co-workers could call in and say they were sick.  Younger co-workers were required to call around to find a replacement.  

[Ryan]

Oct 8, 2022 7:09:23 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

Teachers not letting children go to restroom goes way back. Not a new thing. I had a 4th grade teacher who was a bitch about saying no. I remember raising my hand and telling teacher I didn’t feel good and wanted to go to bathroom. NO.  A few minutes later I threw up all over my desk!  And the two more kids threw up seeing me throw up.

Our room wasn’t far from the cafeteria and they were cooking liver. The smell was making me sick. Heck to this day can’t be in any place it is being cooked. But she did loosen up her hardass attitude a bit.  

It was the same for me so on some level I get it, but times have changed.  When I was a kid, teacher's weren't really questioned much.  As a result, you had some really mean teachers in the school that treated certain kids pretty poorly.  I think it wasn't much of an issue because we couldn't drink water in school, now kids are encouraged to carry water bottles around and drink them in class so what do you expect.

I can see it both ways, I would get annoyed if kids were coming/going out of my classroom.  At the same time, if you have to go, you have to go.  If someone is going every single class period, then address that issue directly.  

[billisonboard]

Oct 11, 2022 8:10:27 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Oct 7, 2022 22:15:54 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

My guess would be it wasn't magic but extra time and effort spent by the teacher to find the assignment that may or may not have been misplaced by her in the first place. Shit happens. This was an opportunity for your son to learn that. It would have cost him thirty minutes. I think that it would have been appropriate to step in if she had denied him the chance to (re)do it.

Misplacing something isn't a bit deal, but immediately telling the kid to re-do the assignment without at least humoring him by telling him you'll look for it is wrong.  You see this all the time in schools or the workplace with teens.  If it were an adult that was questioning them, they would double check for the paper.  Since it's a kid that's asking, certain teachers won't bother and tell the kid to re-do it.  

I saw this all the time when I was working in HS.  The managers would treat the kids way differently than they would an adult.  Older co-workers could call in and say they were sick.  Younger co-workers were required to call around to find a replacement.  

It would be great if all people treated and were treated with exceptional dignity. As you point out, they don't and aren't. Life.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Oct 11, 2022 8:17:56 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Oct 8, 2022 7:09:23 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

Teachers not letting children go to restroom goes way back. Not a new thing. I had a 4th grade teacher who was a bitch about saying no. I remember raising my hand and telling teacher I didn’t feel good and wanted to go to bathroom. NO.  A few minutes later I threw up all over my desk!  And the two more kids threw up seeing me throw up.

Our room wasn’t far from the cafeteria and they were cooking liver. The smell was making me sick. Heck to this day can’t be in any place it is being cooked. But she did loosen up her hardass attitude a bit.  

It was the same for me so on some level I get it, but times have changed.  When I was a kid, teacher's weren't really questioned much.  As a result, you had some really mean teachers in the school that treated certain kids pretty poorly.  I think it wasn't much of an issue because we couldn't drink water in school, now kids are encouraged to carry water bottles around and drink them in class so what do you expect.

I can see it both ways, I would get annoyed if kids were coming/going out of my classroom.  At the same time, if you have to go, you have to go.  If someone is going every single class period, then address that issue directly.  

 I know A LOT of girls who leaked during class because the teachers would not allow them to go to the bathroom.  Trying to hold that in and time needing to change to your three minute class transition is almost impossible.  My daughter has already been dinged twice because she was late due to changing her pad in-between classes.  It is degrading and embarssing to have to sit in a pool of blood because the school system thinks it's totally reasonable for you to only need a couple breaks a day.    

Teachers can figure out PDQ who is the abuser and go from there.  Stop with the blanket rules.  Literally no where else in life is your ability to use the bathroom dictated to you.   This is a leftover from when schools were designed to prepare you for life working on an assembly line.  So I suppose it's good prep if you go work for Amazon.    Pretty much anywhere else allows you to go if you need to go.

You can call it entitlement but you can bet your ass if my daughter faces having to stand up and reveal a bloody backside/chair because a teacher refuses to acknowledge a teen girl made need to use the bathroom more than twice a day I am going to be up there complaining.    That's not entitlement that's demanding my child be respected and a basic bodily function be acknowledged.

[raeoflyte]

Oct 11, 2022 8:10:27 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Oct 7, 2022 22:15:54 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

My guess would be it wasn't magic but extra time and effort spent by the teacher to find the assignment that may or may not have been misplaced by her in the first place. Shit happens. This was an opportunity for your son to learn that. It would have cost him thirty minutes. I think that it would have been appropriate to step in if she had denied him the chance to (re)do it.

Misplacing something isn't a bit deal, but immediately telling the kid to re-do the assignment without at least humoring him by telling him you'll look for it is wrong.  You see this all the time in schools or the workplace with teens.  If it were an adult that was questioning them, they would double check for the paper.  Since it's a kid that's asking, certain teachers won't bother and tell the kid to re-do it.  

I saw this all the time when I was working in HS.  The managers would treat the kids way differently than they would an adult.  Older co-workers could call in and say they were sick.  Younger co-workers were required to call around to find a replacement.  

It depends on amount of homework but ds is doing a minimum of 5 hours a week. I'd tell him to take a zero rather than redo another 30 minutes unless it was an incredibly high point assignment.

But ds would still redo it, which is part of the reason he spends so much time on homework. Good enough isn't ever enough.

[Pink Cashmere]

When my daughter was in high school, we learned she had a congenital kidney defect. She had surgery during winter break. 

After her surgery, when she had to go to the bathroom, she had to GO! She couldn’t hold it for longer than a couple of minutes. When she went back to school, I had her urologist write a letter for the school to keep on file documenting that for the rest of that school year and the following school year. I told DD she was NOT to abuse the fact that she could leave class and use the restroom when she needed to.

One of her teachers still tried to keep her from going to the bathroom. DD went anyway. She had never had to use it during that class, so it wasn’t an issue of her constantly asking to be excused. And her teacher got a “friendly” reminder that DD had medical documentation on file with the school regarding her issue. 

I imagine any 15yo would be mortified to pee on themself at school and I didn’t want that to happen to DD.