When parents excuse their children's behaviour

On parents' day, I had several parents who came to talk to me. Most came with positive comments, lauding me for the work I am doing. On the other hand, I also met Tom's mother, who came to my office to get her pound of flesh.

Tom (not his real name) was a boy who had been bullied in primary school. His mother came in mid-October to alert me about her son, and that we should take extra care of him. Since then, Tom has not shown any traits of being bullied, rather he is showing signs of being the bully now, and egging others to fight and to show disrespect to the teachers.

A case in point is the Physics lesson where the student advised another class mate, who complained that the teacher was bothering him, to throw a chair at the said teacher. This term, I have had frequent complaints about Tom's behaviour and his lack of willingness to cooperate in class; he is talkative, distracted and does not hand in homework. I spoke to him several times but his behaviour has not ameliorated. These traits came up in most of his teachers' comments during Parents' Day. 

Last Wednesday 12th December, our school had its parents' day and after talking to teachers and hearing negative comments, his  very angry mother came to my office. To cut a long story short, she is refusing to admit that her son has problems in attitude. She does not want her son to have a bad reputation. She said that his behaviour at school is due to the past, because he had been bullied.

I tackled her about the homework and she said that he is old enough to do all alone. Moreover, she also stated that she has enough things to do and rhetorically she told me "what do you expect?" She said that she has no time to sit down next to Tom and watch him do his homework.

I told her that to safeguard his reputation, Tom had to pull up his socks and work hard. However, she kept on beating around the bush and uttering the same phrases, until I finally managed to usher her out of the office.

Even though Tom is being followed by the college counsellor, I think that it is going to be an uphill struggle to deal with the boy, come next term!