Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here .

Dear Care and Feeding,

My daughter “Kayla” started sixth grade this year. She almost immediately complained about her English teacher, whom she said hated her for no reason and was grading her intentionally poorly. She was getting lower grades on her assignments than she was in other classes, but I had thought this was more projection than anything else and didn’t do much except encourage her to work harder on this class if she was behind on it.

Kayla complained, her grades in this subject remained poor, and I eventually arranged a meeting with her teacher to discuss Kayla’s performance. When I sat down with her, she immediately insulted me (“So you’re the mother”), an

See Full Page