Family

fam·i·ly

  [fam-uh-lee, fam-lee] 

noun, plural fam·i·lies.

1.

a.

a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children,considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not:the traditional family.

b.

a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family.

Family.

Family is something that I've always been grateful to have.  I always knew there was someone or something that was watching my back when grades dropped, when I steered the wrong way, and basically every second of my life.  So when I began to learn things about my own students and their family it took a lot to actually even grasp their situations.

I have students who have parents in jail.  I have students who haven't even met one or both of their parents.  I have students who live with their grandparents, cousins, or aunts. I have students who don't go home. I have students whose parents do not even know where they are at times. I have students whose parents are drug addicts. Basically think of the worse case family scenarios and we've probably got it somewhere at this school. 

How does this affect me?  Well it starts to get annoying when you keep calling parents trying to get them to understand that their child isn't turning in homework or that child is being disrespectful over and over again and you get a "I'll talk to him"  or "I'll make sure she never does that again".  You think it's fixed and you come in the next day and look at that!  Nothing has been fixed.  It's annoying. You want to yell at the parent and be like "Hey you! This is YOUR kid.  If you're not going to care then who is?".  Talk about being frustrated.    

In no way am I judging anyone or anything and in no way am I saying ALL our parents are like this, but what I am trying to get at is that there are reasons. There are reasons why these students behave the way they do.  Every single time I have a bad day where I just can't deal with my students I have to keep reminding myself that there's a reason.  There's always a reason.  No child grows up acting this way.  There's always a story and boy do my kids have a story to tell. 

-Ms. P