Meticulous Parents

Have I mentioned how meticulous Korean parents are. I gather most of you got a brief sense of this after reading my blog post about writing Ricky’s mom an apology letter for him getting hurt under my watch. Here are a few other complaints we have heard from the Korean parents: A few weeks ago at are weekly meeting we were told the parents are astounded by how messy their children look when they return home. Their thought is we send them to school looking sharp we expect them to return the same way. So now we have to make it a point to zip their jackets, fix their collars, straiten their backpacks and jackets, look to make sure their shoes are on the appropriate foot and fix the girls hair. My thought is really, what kid ever looks good after a day at school. I sure as heck return home looking worst then when I left in the morning. Also, Korean’s are major germ a phoebes yet ironically not. The Korean assistance come in with a comb and hair ties and comb all the kids hair with the same comb so they look sharp when they go home, I’m sorry but isn’t this how lice spreads. Also if the children are sick and throw up, like one girl named Dahey did in Alison’s class, you would think she would go home but no they kept her at school. Just today Chloe another student of Alison’s had a fever and she still came to school. I really just don’t understand the Korean logic behind these sorts of behaviors. And the complaints I get about how the students hurt themselves is ridiculous. I have yet to go a week with out hearing from my Korean assistant that some parent is upset because their child came home with a scratch. I’m sorry but I cannot watch detail for detail what is happening every second of the day. My boys get very wild and rambunctious with each other and as much as I tell them to stop they don’t listen and continue to run and wrestle with each other because that is what boys do. Today I was told by Bonnie, my Korean helper, that Daniel’s grandfather is very upset because he has a scratch by his eye and she asked me how it happened. I simply looked at her and said it didn’t happen under my watch ask Daniel what happen, but could Daniel tell her, no, so it must not be that big of a deal since he wasn’t traumatized by the scratch. This nonsense really drives me nuts and I have no patience for it. It is honestly a good thing I am not the one calling the parents every day because having to listen to their nonsense is just annoying. Well I hope you got a bit more insight into the Korean culture or at least the Korean parents I have to deal with. Parent teacher conferences should be fun!