How a teacher sees a parent

Parents have the hardest job in the world, or so it has been said. Sadly many are not up for the challenge. Is that too harsh? Probably.
You can tell a tremendous amount about a parent without even meeting them if you teach their children. You may say, "hey, that's not fair- you can't hold parents responsible for the way their kids act at school," and you would be wrong. If a kid is walking into my classroom wearing over $150.00 in clothing while having an F in my class, I can tell we have our priorities out of line. It blows my mind that some of the best dressed kids in school have the lowest grades. How can a kid fail classes, get detentions, and still have $100 dollar shoes?
I know that this is a very simple blog. There are no deep nuggets of truth to be discovered, but sometimes you just have to get things off your chest.
It seems so simple to me. If your kid does not care about school, find out what they do care about and take it away from them. They may say that you are being unfair and you may not like making life so hard on them, but they did it to themselves. They chose not to care about their grade.
Seriously, when a kid is highly capable of passing and does not pass, in my mind, that's all on the parents. Cut out everything in their life but bread and water and some lame clothes and you will get their attention.
I have had a parent say, after we have talked about their child's poor performance, that they would motivate their child by giving them money for good grades...
Dang, parents can be dumb. I am not knocking you if you give your child some money for an A, but I always remember what one of my friend's dad said to him when he asked if he could get a sun roof put in his car if he made all A's. The dad said "no, but if you make all A's you can keep the car." How great is that? Expect your child to do well in school without having to hold a carrot out in front of them, and don't trick them into passing
Parents just want to be friends too often and a good friend doesn't do anything to upset their buddy.
A quick note on discipline. Kids tell their parents that the teachers at school just don't like me. That's why I always get in trouble. It's really not me, they just do not like me. Now, would I ever have said this to my parents? Did I even get a chance to talk when I was in trouble at school? No. But today's parents seem to be taking their kid's side more and more. Let me tell you why. Many of the kids with discipline problems seem to have young parents. (Before I go any farther I have nothing but my limited experience as a teacher to back up this hypothesis, so take it with a grain of salt.) Many of these parents, from my observations, did not have the best of experiences while in school. So, now that their kids are also having less then great experiences, they can relate to them. I believe their mindset when they are informed that their child is in trouble at school is less often, "I am going to straighten this kid out," and more often, "teachers had it out for me and now they have it out for my kid."
I may be wrong, but that won't keep me from bloggin about it.
In the end, I am just like the parents I complain about. I just want to pass the buck. No one wants to be to blamed for our own shortcomings, and since we never hold kids responsible, we have to put the blame somewhere.