How to Effectively Deal with Teacher Embarrassing 16 Year Old Daughter in Class?

Unacceptable. She needs to stand up for herself and discuss it with a counselor if she feels like she can't discuss her feelings with this teacher after class. If not, you can do it for her or at least be there with her. I swear sometimes the bullied kids of yesteryear became teachers to wield the power they never had in high school. Sounds like this teacher needs to grow up.

Yeah, I'd totally would address it. That's totally uncalled for. I'd have told him to point the mirror at himself if that's the case. Good grief. It's insulting, rude, and unprofessional.

I have worked with teachers like this. They try so hard to be cool that they become inappropriate. Let it go. This type person will take it out on her, even unintentionally. It will manifest by ignoring her in order to not unintentionally doing another act that could be viewed negatively.

the first thing i'd do would be to filter it all through a grain of salt. 16 can be a super-sensitive age for a lot of girls, and it's a real possibility that this teacher is gruff or sarcastic but not actually singling your daughter out, and that some of what she perceives as being personal attacks aren't.

drama is endemic in high school, even among quiet studious kids.

it's hard to imagine a teacher saying something that pointedly mean to a kid in class. my money is on him embarrassing her by saying something about the hiccup and making her feel in the spotlight, and the mirror comment is just where her embarrassed brain took it. or at the very most, it was a joke but she didn't take it as such because she was, naturally, embarrassed.

but if indeed she is the victim of a viciously Mean Boy teacher, she needs help.

the fact that she's afraid of going to the counselor because then all the other teachers would be mean to her too is pretty overblown. i hope you don't encourage a budding persecution complex.

the best possible scenario would be for you to help her handle it herself. do some role playing in which she becomes comfortable responding to that sort of nastiness with 'excuse me for hiccuping aloud. it was involuntary, but your response was not. why would you say that to me?' or 'i don't think it's appropriate for you to talk to me that way.'

if she's absolutely mortified at the notion, you can step in, but be aware that at her age she's GOT to start advocating for herself.

you need to go to the teacher. do not escalate it unless and until you get a nasty or negative response. set up a meeting with him, tell him what your daughter reports and ask him if it's true. be open the very real likelihood that it's only partially so at best, not because your daughter is a liar but because she's hyper-sensitive to criticism or being suddenly in a negative spotlight. tell him forthrightly but without drama that his words and actions had a negative impact on her, and ask him how he plans to handle it.

you'll almost certainly get a startled 'i'm so sorry, i had no idea my ribbing would come across so harshly to her. i'll certainly apologize to her and be more careful in the future.' if you do, accept it, and encourage your daughter to accept his apology gracefully.

you can always go to the principal if you feel it's absolutely necessary, but teenagers are a tricky and moody group to work with, and unless this teacher really is the monster you daughter perceives, we're going to strip the schools of all the good ones by harping on them for every overblown slight.

my brother, a high school english and drama teacher, was once reported for 'lewd behavior' for falling asleep during an evening rehearsal (which he was supervising without extra pay) leaning against the wall seated with his legs crossed.

i had a little missy sign up for a homeschool enrichment shakespeare class, and drop out because it was 'too immoral.'

shakespeare.
heh.

ETA julie F FTW!
khairete
S.

The most effective thing you can do is to teach your daughter to empower herself to deal with situations like this. While saying that, I realize that there is a very real power differential here, and that some human beings, teachers included, can get into a snit when their authority is questioned, so she does need to tread carefully, but you can help her strategize and come up with different options while letting her take the lead at school.

Keep in mind, I am NOT defending what the teacher said at all, but there are a few things you should discuss with your daughter. One is that people sometimes say really stupid things. This was one of those times. Any experienced teacher should know that it is very insensitive (at the very least) to say something like this to a teen girl (or anyone, really). He was inappropriate and should not have said this, but he did. Now, how does she want to handle it? Does she want to let him and his stupid comments frighten and immobilize her? Silence her? Or, does she want him to stop?

So next, discuss with her what she hopes to accomplish. To get him to stop saying these things to her? To get administration to intervene? To get moved into another class? She has to be clear and realistic about what she wants.

If this really has happened several times, and it is interfering with her ability to function in this class, and she doesn't feel like she can talk to the teacher directly about it, what are her other options? Her school counselor sounds like the next best choice. Why would she worry that this teacher will say mean things about her to other teachers if she goes to the counselor? That seems unlikely (just as unlikely as this teacher actually 'hating' her), so it would be a good thing for you to teach your daughter to take the drama and emotions out of this and deal with it practically. (Again, I'm not saying her emotions don't count; they do, and they're valid. It's just that her emotions aren't helpful in resolving the issue with the teacher. You can help her process her emotions separately, at home).

The counselor seems like the best option. Who knows? Other students may have had similar issues with this teacher, and there really does need to be some intervention with him, and the only way for administration to know it is if students report it. Or, the counselor may be able to give your daughter further guidance on how to deal with this teacher directly as he/she probably knows the teacher and his style.

In just two years, your daughter will be off to college. There are all kinds of good and bad and crazy professors who act in all sorts of ways, so it is a good idea for her to learn how to stand up for herself now.

Be there for her; help her through this, but let her take action at the school.
Of course, if it continues or gets worse, then you revisit the notion of you getting involved.

I don't think so....I look at your face every day and still have the hiccups.

Wait...woops....that would feel nice though, wouldn't it?!
I work with high school boys (English Language Learners) who were hearing some pretty awful things from their ELL teacher. "Shut up" I don't care" leave me alone" go away"
Our boys were coming home asking us what those things meant! I couldn't believe it. So..I guess I bring that up to say, yes...some teachers are asshats. The question is, how do you deal with them?
I would accompany my daughter to a meeting with the teacher. Let HER be the one to speak up and say something about what he said. Let HER be the one to tell him that she didn't like it. Let HER be the one with the voice. You would just go with her to be her backbone, if she needs it.
She will need to figure this out....because I can tell you...I have been alive 39 years, and I would LOVE to tell you that adults turn into wonderful human beings...but they don't. A lot of them are assholes and she is going to need to learn how to deal with them.

I think you need to have a parent teacher conference.
You've got what your daughter says what happened.
You need to hear what the teacher says what happened.
And then figure out what to do.

That's odd. Maybe he thinks he's being funny? Since she's quiet with good grades, he knows this, and I'm guessing he's trying to engage her and joke with her. Unfortunately, he's not very funny.

Sometimes teachers and students aren't a great match. Is it too late for her to switch classes?

Regardless of whether she changes classes or not, I think it's worth talking to this teacher. He needs to understand that his comments can be hurtful and scary.

That's extremely unprofessional on the part of the teacher. She should most certainly tell the counselor about it and something needs to be done about it. If the teacher retaliates it's on him and further disciplinary actions should happen.
This isn't "being able to take a joke", this is unacceptable behavior of a teacher.

Well, the problem is that she is afraid of him. He reminds me of a junior high teacher who thought himself to be far more clever than he really was. He just appeared to be a jerk instead of clever to the students. I was one of his targets, even though he wasn't my teacher.

I understand her THINKING that he will cause her trouble with other teachers. That's what teenagers think. But it's not true. The other teachers most probably know he's a jerk.

The only way this is going to be made worse is if she doesn't take the bull by the horns and do something about it. Ask the principal for a meeting with principal, teacher and guidance counselor, all three together with you. Go in that meeting and stand up for your daughter. Look that teacher in the eye and tell him that trying to make young girls feel bad about themselves is inappropriate and hurts the process of learning in his classroom. Tell him that being an adult means knowing the difference in being funny and being hurtful, and he is being hurtful.

If his class is the only advanced placement class, she may need to stay in it. But if not, get her moved to a different one.

The reason I say to go ahead and deal with this is because this guy sounds just like the teacher I referenced in my first paragraph. NOTHING I SAID would have made a difference to this guy. However, if I had told my parents and if one of them would have stood up to him, he wouldn't have crapped on me all year long. I'd be standing in the cafeteria line talking to my friends and he'd come over and start.

Interestingly enough, when going back to my hometown, 3 times in the last 10 years he has come up to me and started a conversation. He is respectful now because I am world-travelled and very confident. But I can STILL TELL that he is the same jerk as he was before. As a young girl, I was not able to deal with it. Your daughter has at least told you about this. I never had the courage to tell my parents. Go in there and be strong about it. She will learn to do it when she gets older.

One of my daughters had a math teacher who seemed to have serious mental health issues. Here's the rub. The teachers union protects bad teachers so this woman wasn't required to get help and had my daughter terrified. One day she slammed the door so hard that the glass in the door broke sending shards over 2 rows of kids.

I went in and talked with the principal who spoke with the teacher. Of course her version was that she closed the door and the wind slammed it. Yes the wind in the basement of the school slammed the door. But it put her on notice that I knew what she did. After that she treated my daughter well.If she hadn't I would have talked to the principal again and told him to stop it or I'd be going to his boss.

At this point you can choose to talk with the teacher or the principal but I wouldn't let this slide anymore. He's being a bully and your daughter shouldn't be afraid to a teacher. You won't make it worse but it could get worse if you don't squash it now.

By 16, kids need to learn to advocate for themselves as much as possible.

I would suggest that your daughter muster the courage to go to the teacher and say, "I was bothered by you calling out my hiccuping and trying to make a joke about me being scary looking enough to cure them myself by looking in a mirror." It's a crude joke, and it was rude to single her out. But when a child is 16, parents can't go right into the class at every turn.

If your daughter is afraid of the teacher, that's a problem. But perhaps the teacher was trying to lighten the embarrassment of a hiccup and did so very thoughtlessly and in a poor manner. Your daughter can also go to the guidance counselor or school psychologist and discuss the issue, asking for help in developing a strategy in dealing with it. She could also write the teacher a letter. If she's concerned about retribution, she needs to get some assurance from other staff that this will not happen.

I think it's very unlikely that he will say mean stuff about her to other teachers. Perhaps he is inexperienced and doesn't know what to do in a classroom, but the last thing that sort of teacher will do is go to others.

You also have to allow for the possibility that a shy and insecure teen often feels that "everyone hates me" - it's the age, in many ways. Maybe it didn't happen exactly as she told you - perhaps she was too emotional and added in more pain that she feared but which aren't really reasonable.

You could request a conference, but that's going to be awkward with your daughter there, or not there. You have no way of knowing what the truth is, though, if you don't talk to other staff or this teacher.

It sounds like you dd is very sensitive (my dd is similar). It sounds like the teacher was joking...not really appropriate, but I would work with your kid on letting stuff role off her back or saying something funny in return. Otherwise this will plague her for life.

Good retort: "You didn't seem to think that when you propositioned me to sleep with you after school yesterday, you dirty old man!"

Equally [in]appropriate. Extremely effective when spoken out loud in class, just like his remark. Bet it will shut that problem down fast.

My biggest concern about your story is that the mirror comment is right on the edge of being SEXUAL HARASSMENT. In the year 2016, if the teacher doesn't realize that, he should!! (If the mirror comment was reversed, it would be the teacher saying "let me show you a mirror to show you how hot you are".) Because of this issue, I think this is different than a "normal" students-have-to-handle-mean-teachers situation. You personally, as the parent, should get involved with a meeting right away, and not waste even a minute trying to do stuff like "email the teacher to get his side of the story first".

As Doris Day says, meet with the principal and teacher together about this. Include your daughter, of course, but don't make this her burden to handle alone...and don't let her talk you out of doing something to address this.

I've always told my girls it is their job to make sure their teachers likes them.
I don't think the teacher's joke is funny but I wasn't there and I guess I think your daughter is being a bit sensitive. If she feels good about herself and knows she's not scary looking, then by 16 I think she should be able to shrug it off or should have had a quick comeback.

If this needs to be addressed then your daughter needs to take it up with her teacher first. If that doesn't work she could go to her counselor but then the counselor is obviously going to have to contact the teacher.

I do not think you should involve yourself besides coaching your daughter.

(Both my daughter's had teachers that made jokes like this about them daily. They found it funny)

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She's 16 and intelligent. What she needs now is the ability to stand up for herself. It's not very long until she is in college, perhaps with her own apartment. There will be plenty of situations that she'll encounter that are either embarrassing or cruel or unfair or rude or simply annoying. I'm sorry that the teacher said those things to her.

What you can do best is to help her evaluate the situation. Ask her to pretend she is in a school board meeting or a courtroom (not a daughter and mom situation) and ask her to describe this teacher's demeanor as though he were asking for a promotion or raise. So her answers have got to be business-like. "He's very effective at teaching but he routinely makes inappropriate remarks to students." "He demonstrates favoritism." "He's usually a great teacher but sometimes he has 'off' days." "I've heard him discussing students with other teachers in the halls when students are present." "I have learned a lot from him but I don't like his personality." Help her to do this calmly, without emotion.

Then ask her to think about what she said about him. What conclusions did she reach?

Now, help her decide what to do. If he's consistently inappropriate, rude, and demonstrates behaviors that are unacceptable in a teacher, she should go to the counselor. Go along with her if she wants you there, but she has to be the one who speaks. Have her write down her thoughts beforehand if necessary.

If he's generally an acceptable teacher, but just said this one rude thing, help her develop some coping skills. The right thing would be to not come back with equal rudeness (like "I don't need a mirror - I'm looking at you") but to say something like that "that is not polite behavior in the classroom and I'd appreciate it if you'd just get back to the lesson." If he consistently embarrasses her, find out what those embarrassing words are. Help her assess if they would be embarrassing and belittling to anyone, or if they're something she's sensitive about. Are other students equally offended? Maybe she and some friends can go to the counselor.

In short, the best thing you can do for her is to help her realize that she'll face these situations in life. Learn to evaluate calmly, decide on an action plan (whether it's to bring a complaint to a supervisor or develop inner strength), and follow through.

Unless you were there and witnessed it you are only hearing one side of the story. Call or email the teacher and VERY CALMLY talk to him about your daughter's concerns.
Once you have both sides of the story you can decide whether or not a meeting at school with the VP or counselor is in order.

I'm so sorry she's experiencing this. While some teens can be dramatic and oversensitive, it sounds as if you take her at her word and that's fine; you know her best, we don't. If my daughter (nearly 16) came to me with similar specific examples, I'd probably probe a bit, but I'd believe her.

This situation is exactly why school counselors exist. I understand she's scared that the counselor will rat her out to the teacher and things will get worse, but she and you need to say exactly that to the counselors -- we're worried that when the teacher hears we have complained he will retaliate. But the counseling staff (and possibly the administration) need to know.

Your daughter needs to advocate for herself here,but with the counseling staff, rather than directly with the teacher, since it's clear she's scared of him. It's very early in the school year so she does have a real reason to be worried that he could make the rest of her year hell (and cause her grades to tank) if this blows up, but she also has a right to be treated at least with civility. I'd tell her you'll go to the counselor with her and you are willing either to go in and see the counselor alongside her, or you are also OK with sitting in the lobby while she sees the counselor one on one.

I'd do some work before meeting the counselor, though. She should write down the examples as objectively as possible, with dates if she can, just for herself. That might help her see if it's as frequent as it feels to her. She also should script what she wants to tell the counselor -- and she should prepare so she avoids statements like "He hates me" and instead focuses on specific examples.

She should also think hard about what she wants out of this discussion -- if she wants to change classes, she may need to say that very clearly and up front because the time for changing classes may be very close to over (some schools won't let kids change teachers unless things are really, really dire). Or a class change might alter her entire schedule in ways that would affect her AP and honors load; one bump in a schedule can mean things like "Well, if you leave Jerk Teacher's AP History class, there is not another AP History in that same class period and the only other AP History meets during your AP Chemistry so you would have to give up an AP class..." and so on. That's the reality behind wanting to change classes in the last years of high school. I am not saying she should stay with a jerk teacher but just saying that she and you need to be aware that there are larger issues to consider. It's messy and stressful. Please update us here once she's talked with the counselor. Whatever happens, have her back.

I agree that at 16 you really should encourage her to do some of this herself. She needs to learn how to stand up for herself in these situations, even when it's scary. But...I don't think it would be inappropriate to either go with her so she has your physical support when she speaks to him or help coach her through some things to say, or actually both would be good too!

You could even send an email to the teacher and just ask when a good time to meet is because you and your daughter have a few things you'd like to discuss with him.

Her feeling is that he is making fun of her and being mean, and to her that is really real and should not be diminished, however...have you met this teacher? Do you know others that have had this teacher? Could it be that the teacher is trying to be light hearted and jokey and she is misinterpreting? I know from personal experience that 16 year old girls are very sensitive! I was a hot mess and it was hard for me to know people's intentions sometimes.

Regardless, I do think it needs to be addressed because she is feeling hurt and upset.

Get to the school ASAP and fill out a parental concern form AND a meeting WITH the principal AND THE TEACHER INVOLVED. The meeting should take place within 1-2 days. Put a stop to this IMMEDIATELY.

Two years ago my son came home and began telling me about his day. He mentioned that he had accidentally knocked his teachers paper weight off of his desk, when turning his test into him. The teacher then said, "Sometimes, you are so useless!". The entire class laughed and my son returned to his seat humiliated.

I had a meeting 2 days later with this teacher, my son, and the principal. I made it extremely clear that his words were negative, humiliating, unprofessional and unacceptable.

I never had this issue again and both my son and I received apologies from the teacher and the principal.

It's VERY important for your daughter to witness you advocate for her. It won't make things worse, but better. She's being bullied and placed in an embarrassing position by her teacher. In fact, that could be harassment as well. Get this problem solved immediately.

I would have been at that school in about 5 minutes and demanded that teacher be brought to the principal's office where I would confront him about it and chew his A** OUT! No way that happens to one of my grand kids.

Saying "Do you want to look in the mirror" was completely out of line. It affects her self image, her self worth, self esteem. Plus it makes other students see her as what that teacher labeled her as, UGLY/SCARY.

Unless she wears goth make up and is actually scary looking his mirror comment was completely offensive and to me a good reason for employment termination.

As for the rest of it...teachers say stuff. I wouldn't have found it bothersome or offensive at all. The teacher sounds horrid. He needs to find another line of work BUT some highly intelligent people just don't have people skills and are socially awkward.

I would have gone to him and said "My daughter doesn't like for you to announce to the class if she's done something like hiccupping. That's a biological thing that can't be helped. Other than asking her if she needed to go get a drink I think you should have probably just left it alone and not said anything". Like a teaching moment.

If he got rude and offensive with me then we'd be taking the meeting to the principal's office.

The looking in the mirror was the absolute cross the line offensive part of his comment to me, that I would address with the principal and ask for the teacher to be terminated or her transferred to another class immediately and perhaps a student teacher assigned to him or teacher's aide to make sure his future actions would be noted and passed on to the principal or admin offices.

I like Suz's advice.

For me, if my kid was being embarrassed by a teacher and picked on, I'd probably approach the teacher first - and maybe by email so it's documented. Just light and polite, say for example "Just wondering if you could please refrain from making comments about my daughter's appearance in class - I'm sure you didn't intend harm, but it's embarrassing for her and is a bit unpleasant".

Then, if he responds, and all goes well - that's as far as you need to take it. Otherwise, you have a copy of your request, his response, and then you would copy that all and forward to the principal. And I would just then say "Not sure if this teacher has an issue, but we feel this is inappropriate behavior towards a student."

What your daughter can do is not respond at all - nothing shuts a loud mouth or rude person down quicker than awkward silence after they think they've been funny or smart. Or an "Excuse me?" - so that it's clear she was offended.

I'm guessing she's not comfortable approaching him herself. I was a shy teen and probably wouldn't have been. But I think if she's worried about retaliation on his part (doubtful) going to him with a light email I think would be best way to go.

I don't know how much of it is her perception vs him just teasing students - but if it's a problem, it's worth mentioning. You don't want your daughter to dread that class. I certainly had teachers who poked fun at kids - I remember it was embarrassing.

This is a good life lesson for your daughter that some people can be jerks. Or at the very least, have an awful sense of humor. If strange things keep happening with this teacher, deal with it, otherwise she should move on.

I think homeschooling would be the perfect solution.

I can recall in high school that some teachers were just morons and made comments like that. I'd have her send an email and ask him to apologize. She should handle it. I do agree that you need her to begin to stick up for herself.