Discover more from Overcoming Bias
When parents have a choice between making they or their kids look good, they pick themselves:
The often-dreaded parent-teacher conference … seems to be an evaluation of student performance, [but] is more often than not an evaluation of the parent and the teacher, by each other. …
Instead of defending their children, parents are consistently critical about their children when talking with teachers, often delivering unsolicited, negative information about them. “Parents … [are] showing that they already know about their children’s potential or actual troubles, displaying that they are fair appraisers of their own children, willing and able to detect and articulate their flaws, and reporting on their own efforts to improve or remedy their children’s faults, shortcomings or problems,” …
Teachers regularly work to encourage parents to be first to articulate critical assessments of the student, such as by asking for the parent’s perspective, observations, questions, and/or concerns about the student’s progress. … Teachers … [then provide] face-saving accounts on students’ behalf (e.g. “That’s not atypical of kids”; “For a 12-year-old boy, normal is pretty flaky.”) … “It is the teacher who consistently works to end the parent-teacher conference interaction on a positive note, delivering future-oriented, favorable or optimistic comments about the student.” (more; HT Eric Barker)
Yet another example of parents caring for kids less than they claim.
Parent Vs. Kid Status
You gotta be kidding me. At least where I grew up it was all about authority, teachers over kids and parents over kids. Kids were supposed to shut up and do as they were told. AFAIK this is part of every school to a greater or lesser degree.
And btw, I see this same pattern go on nowadays when I'm an adult. I still see my parents critisizing me in front of others. I think they would rather fit in with the general consensus than stand up for their child.
Exactly. Reading this just made me think: "So, Robin doesn't have kids. Noted."
The analysis is just starting from some really weird assumptions. It's closer to the truth to say that parents view kids as *parts of themselves.* Normal parents are always angling for advantages for their kids, but often they try to get that advantage by creating a false intimacy with the kids' teacher. So you get lines like "Jimmy's really hard sometimes, isn't he?"
This parent isn't throwing Jimmy under the bus. She's trying to *play* the teacher, to establish a friendship that will ultimately be beneficial to Jimmy. This would be obvious to anyone who has been in the situation.