Over-Protective Parents

Sometimes parents get to be a little overly protective of the children, or really over state some special needs for their children.

In a recent class I had two students, one young boy (we'll call him Charles) and a young girl (we'll call her Amy). When the class card was handed to me, the management of the kids school told me specifically that Charles was not to ride a chair lift alone. Apparently he had some issues with paying attention on the exit for the chair.

Out on the slopes he really did well skiing, and was more advanced than Amy was. I spent more time with Amy trying to get her up to speed with Charles through the morning. She was struggling a little bit on the beginner slope with some of the ideas we were working on, but nothing too bad. Each time we made it to the bottom though, I rode the chair back up with Charles as directed to me. We eventually broke for lunch.

At lunch, I joined my class eating lunch, which means the barely controlled chaos of kids school was everywhere. In keeping some of the chaos slightly contained, the front office people asked me to come out and talk with one of the parents who was wanting to talk with me. Turns out it was Amy's mother, who told me that Amy was feeling left out of the class. Specifically Amy felt that I found Charles more fun because I rode the chair only with him and never her. The front office rep and I spent some time explaining what was going on, and Amy's mom seemed to be very understanding of what was going on. I also went and spoke with the kids school manager regarding the earlier statement that I cannot let Charles ride without me.

The manager and I spoke, and the reason this statement came down was Charles's parents put him in the class with the understanding that Charles would be distracted by the bullwheel on the chair lift. This was somehow translated to him being a danger to himself on the chair through a discussion with the front office staff and the parents.

After skiing with him, it was clear he was neither distracted or a danger to himself on the chair. In fact he was just like every other kid on the lift; eager to stand up and ski some more. With my manager's approval I now moved to Charles riding every other chair ride with another adult. Amy's enjoyment of the class improved in the afternoon as we now addressed her major concern.

In the end, we learned some new questions and behaviors to ask parents. It also became clear to me that, despite the best efforts of the front office and the school practices, some parents do provide misleading information in an attempt to get their child more attention. Please don't do this.