My wife's sister Susan used to teach elementary school -- mostly first grade, but one year she was moved to fourth grade. The latter is an interesting age. The kids have started to develop some of the general nastiness that they will display more vigorously after puberty, but the parents still tend to see them as small children, which they're really not anymore. This leads to a phenomenon whereby if a kids misbehaves in class, and the teacher brings this to the attention of the parents, the parents are usually in complete denial and angrily reject the possibility that their little "snowflake" could have done anything hurtful.

Maybe these parents always had been and would continue to be in denial; I don't know; but Susan thought the problem was much worse in fourth grade than in first, because the parents weren't staying abreast of their children's expanding capacity for mischief.

I've never had kids, though I think I would have liked to, but hearing things like this does leave me with the impression that a lot of parents are not really very much on the ball.