Preschool teacher here. Oh boy do I deal with some entitled parents. I will say most of the parents are awesome at the center I work at, but there have been a couple of not so awesome ones. This is going to be a long one, btw. This was also like 3 and a half years ago, so I dont have the exact dialogue.

So this was in my first few months of teaching. I was absolutely a newbie. I had no clue how to handle a lot of the difficult situations, and let my coworkers deal with them while I was still learning. Well, on this occasion, the baton was passed on to me for the first time.

My coworker and I were getting ready to take the kids outside after naptime. The kids were getting jackets on on one side of the classroom. Our classroom is technically a gathering hall of a church that they modified a bit and the room is divided by a bunch of 5 foot tall Ikea shelves with fabric bins in the bottom windows to make the two different classrooms. When one of the 2 year olds ran over to the outside door, I had to go grab them and while I was grabbing the kid I heard "Brady(not his real name),No!" I ran back over and see the kiddo, a four year old boy, with another one of the boys pressed up against the cubbies with his hand around the boys neck with his other arm cocked back, about to punch him in the face.

I grabbed his arm, picked him up, and took him over to our time out spot. I explained to him why that wasn't okay and what to do if you get angry etc, and he seemed to process it well. I'm sure you can guess that this was NOT the first time I have had this convo with this child. He was a wonderfully sweet boy when you had him one on one(which I often did as he was one of my last to be picked up kids, different story different time). He was just one of those kids that trouble stuck to. He(confirmed by his aunt in passing, that also had kids at the school) has AD/HD, his parents were very angry people, and he just was a very excited kid, and that often leads to kids with outbursts.

My coworker got the rest of the kids ready while I called our director that had left for the day about the situation, she told me to call his mom and have her pick him up. I called mom, left a message, took all the kids outside and went about my business.

A few minutes later, mom called and I told her what happened. She seemed upset, but agreed to come pick up her kiddo. I thought the problem was solved. I was very wrong.

It seemed odd how long it took for mom to get down to the school. When he had been picked up by mom in the past, it usually took about 20 minutes, but this was closer to 45. I saw mom's car, then dad's and I knew it was going to be a thing.

Now, I had never had an issue with his parents before. Mom was fine, but dad always seemed like one of those people that thought the world was out to get him. He was just so angry and I honestly think he could have been a very abusive person under the right circumstances. I never saw any bruises or anything on "Brady" so I'm going to leave it at that.

So I let the kiddo know his parents were there and headed inside. I gave them a friendly but somber greeting and told Brady to grab his stuff. He knew he was in trouble without me saying anything so he agreed and went to grab his lunch box and jacket. Mom was standing there with lips pursed more than I have ever seen with her arms across her chest and a boot sticking out and dad had his hands on his hips looking for a fight. Mom will be EM and dad will be ED.

Me: Hello! Good to see you guys, I just wish it was under different circumstances.

ED: Well I dont understand why we had to be dragged down here in the first place.

EM: This seems a bit ridiculous for what happened.

Me: Yes, I understand, but if your child is putting other children directly at risk of being injured, we really can't have them stay. Safety is our number one concern and we take that very seriously.

This did nothing to calm the situation.

EM: well, what about the other little boy? Is his mom going to be called down to pick him up?

The other little boy had been bothering Brady, nothing more than 4 year olds bother each other though. He also got time out and I talked to him too.

Me: No, as he wasn't putting anyone else in danger. He also got a time out and I will be talking to his mother when she gets here about the situation.

ED: Well I dont see why we have to pick him up... yadda yadda yadda.

It kept going on and on in circles. I eventually told them that if they had any more questions that they could talk to our director in the morning but I really needed to get back outside because the other teacher needed to go home. They finally huffed off without letting me say goodbye to the kiddo.

The next day after I came in(I worked afternoons) the director told me that I handled the situation well, but Brady wasnt going to be with us after the end of the week. Dad was super rude to us when he picked up for the rest of the week, but I will give mom credit where it is due. The next week she brought him in to say goodbye to us and give final hugs, which I did appreciate.

When you have a child in childcare, please understand that we are doing our best. Your child is not the only one that I have to attend to and think about, even if that is inconvenient for you.

As far as Brady goes, I understand from his Aunt that he went to a bigger center and did pretty well. They had more running space and a Male teacher that he responded well to. He ended up being taken out of kinder after a few weeks and put back in preschool for another year though. He also responded really well to AD/HD meds and from what I understand he is doing well.