Episode 81: New Teacher Anxiety and Misbehaving for Mom

Along with all the shiny new school supplies and stylish new school clothes, every new school year involves a mysterious new teacher, who will either be The Best Thing That Ever Happened for Your Child or The Thing That Dooms Your Child to Academic Failure Forever. So no stress. We chatted about our new-teacher anxiety for this year, remember some wonderful/horrible teachers of the past, and reflect on how good Canadian teachers have it with extra-polite parents.

As much as you hope that your kid gets a teacher that brings out his or her absolute best, we have to confess it's kind of awful when the teacher seems to see a much better version of your child than you ever get to. An article on the parody site Mom News Daily caught our eye this week, and if it had been on Catherine's quiz last week, we don't think we would have guessed that a headline saying "Children Are 800 Percent Worse When Their Mothers Are in the Room" was the fake one. It's funny 'cause it's true, right? We compare notes on our children's annoying-for-mom behaviors and tussle over whether it's okay for teachers to judge parents for such misbehaviors when us moms do a fair amount of teacher-judging ourselves (see: first half of episode).

Finally, we shared our weekly recommendations: Catherine mentioned her new article on "10 Ways to Fix Youth Sports"; Amanda pointed us toward an article titled "Can I Request a Specific Teacher for My Child With Learning and Attention Issues?"; Nicole liked an article on "When to Stand Up for Your Child"; and Terri suggested her series of articles on preparing the school for your child's specific disability.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for editing our episode and Kristin Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.