Posts by Laura Morris80

silentraven6 said:I’m circling back to this thread because I really want to hear how you all handle communicating with teachers. Specifically, how do you balance your own internal anxieties and fears while trying to guide your kid through navigating the school system?

Up until now, I’ve been pretty proactive—showing up to parent-teacher conferences, stepping up to support my child’s teacher whenever it felt right, and speaking up when I felt competent enough to set boundaries regarding where her responsibilities end and mine begin. But lately, a few things have happened that have left me feeling really unsettled, and our communication has become... awkward.

It feels like the dialogue from the teacher is strictly one-way. It’s just a constant stream of reports about my child’s current struggles with socializing, but there’s zero guidance offered on how we can actually work together to improve things.

We’ve had two one-on-one meetings to discuss my child, and I made sure to be incredibly cooperative. However, I also made it very clear that I can’t step in and do her job for her—like disciplining him for fidgeting or forcing him to sit still. I can talk to him about those issues at home, but I can't manage his behavior in her classroom.

Do any of you feel like someone is constantly tossing the ball into your court and then washing their hands of any actual work with your kid? Like, they just stick to "frontline" corrections—verbal warnings and reprimands without any actual conversation—and then leave it at that? Also, how do you deal with that sinking feeling that instead of fostering socialization, the goal is just to force a herd of obedient sheep?

The issues being brought up aren't even that extreme; they don't warrant seeing a psychologist. My child isn't neglected, and we don't have more family drama than any other typical American family dealing with the frantic pace of modern life. We've even owned up to our own mistakes and are working on them—we've been transparent about everything in our talks with the teacher—but I get the sense she isn't even listening to any of it.

I’m just so dissatisfied. The way she communicates feels almost inflammatory, like she’s building a case against my child. I've had this knot in my stomach since I dropped him off at school this morning. I'm wondering: how do you handle situations where you desperately need the teacher to partner with you on your child's social development, but she refuses to engage?

My child doesn't have a relationship with the teacher. There's really nothing else to say about that. It's just the truth.

It’s easiest to talk when everything is going fine. In those cases, parents and teachers are usually great with each other.
I’ve gotten the impression that teachers prefer if you don't make waves. Like, don't push too hard regarding certain student rights. They might appreciate being pointed toward a problem just so they're aware, but they don't like it when you dwell on it. If you do, you just become a problem for them.

Generally, they don't like it when school specialists get involved, especially if it's "just a high-energy kid." Once psychologists, counselors, or principals step in, their work is suddenly under a microscope, and they can't just work independently or relax anymore.

It’s human, I suppose, and I get it. But it's still about children. I'm not generalizing, though—this is just what I've experienced and heard from friends with kids.

In the end, it seems like there are only two ways to communicate: by being a suck-up or by being difficult.
A third way—a normal way, which should be the standard—seems to be reserved only for families who don't have any issues at all.

Our teacher went from having a wonderful relationship with us to basically hating us and our child. She couldn't solve the issues on her own, and she couldn't solve them with help from the administration either. Eventually, we started irritating her because we kept insisting on finding solutions. You could tell she just couldn't stand us.

That was human of her too, I guess, even if it hurt us. She actually used to be a teacher I would have recommended.

We met with a different lawyer this past Friday—one of those old-school types who really sticks by "his own" (which is what we need right now). He told us the fight is going to be long and exhausting, but he thinks it’ll work.

He brought his whole legal team in, and they’re seriously combing through every possible angle. They’ve already started taking steps. It means a lot to me that they're optimistic and ready to fight. Honestly, the two of us feel a little more relaxed now. They mentioned that getting damages from the sellers/forgers will probably be the last thing we see, mostly because they seem like total charity cases—we found out they've been represented by court-appointed pro bono lawyers in all their previous lawsuits.

Of course, we're still stressed, and I wish we could just settle everything right this second, but that's not happening anytime soon.

When I think back to when we were actually planning on selling it... 😢

To me, it feels like a setup, like they conspired to take our apartment. The timing of it all is just too perfect to be a coincidence. These people got a judgment saying the place was theirs in December '93, we bought it in May '94, then the Mexicans sued them in August '94, and they didn't admit to the forgery until 2003. No one ever tipped us off, almost as if everyone wanted to make sure we couldn't interfere in those disputes. Now, just as the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution has run out for everyone involved, we suddenly get a letter telling us we have to vacate.

I wonder, does it make sense to report them to the police? Maybe suggest they formed a conspiracy to steal our home and have been working at it this whole time. I mean, since we're still living in the apartment, maybe the crime is technically ongoing? Like, our eviction is the final step needed to complete their scheme. If so, maybe the statute of limitations hasn't kicked in yet. 🤷

Thanks for the comments and the support...

Thanks for the support.

Honestly, we need an attorney who’s going to fight for us like a pit bull, but we aren't really sure who to turn to. Our current lawyer isn't necessarily bad, I guess, but I get the feeling he isn't truly in our corner. He hasn't explored all the options. He hasn't even said we'll do everything possible to keep the apartment; instead, he acts like it's already lost and just wants to sue people who probably don't have anything to give anyway. So, I'm asking for a recommendation for someone really strong in cases like this.

I was thinking about adverse possession, since we've owned the property for 17 years now. We weren't aware of what was happening during all that time, and we acquired the property legally—it was perfectly legal when we bought it. We paid the taxes, we pay all the utilities and insurance, and we've been maintaining and investing in the place. I feel like we should have a case here, but the lawyer says no, because apparently the legal chain of ownership from our ancestors was broken along the way under the Property Law.

I don't even have to tell you how much dark circles my husband and I have under our eyes from lack of sleep...

I think this situation deserves its own thread...

So, back in 1994, my husband's parents bought him a lovely little apartment, maybe fifty square meters or so, in Washington, D.C. Since most buildings in the city weren't properly recorded in the land registries back then, our building wasn't either. Because of that, the proof of ownership for the seller was just a valid court ruling stating they owned the unit outright. So, the parents buy the son his place.
Since my husband is the third owner, it hasn't been easy tracking down the original purchase agreement between the developer and the first buyers. We only figured out how to track down the housing cooperative and those documents earlier this year, in 2011. I called a woman to help prep the paperwork so we could finally finish registering the ownership—basically getting it into the Democratic Party records, though the building isn't officially subdivided yet. She tells me some lawyer already called her and took all the original documents. I call this lawyer to ask what he wants from us and who he actually represents, and he says his clients—the very first owners—were planning to notify us soon that we’re being evicted. Apparently, that court ruling I mentioned earlier was overturned because the people who sold the place to my husband admitted they forged signatures on the sales contract.😲
Through some pretty strange channels, we managed to get our hands on those rulings. It was difficult because that lawyer wouldn't show us anything, mostly because his clients don't want any good relations with us.🤷

Reading through all this documentation, here is what I see:
The original owners were Mexicans who fled the US in '91. Version one: they left the apartment with a female colleague for safekeeping. Or version two: they sold it to that colleague.

That colleague—the one who sold the apartment to my husband—claims they gave her about 90% of the agreed price in '91, with an agreement to pay the rest in a month or two once the signatures were finalized. But after they took that 90%, they vanished. They couldn't be tracked down to finish the sale. Panicked, she forged the signature on the sales contract, went to court to settle the matter, and the court ruled in her favor. That ruling became final in '93, and they sold the apartment to my husband in '94.

Now, those gentlemen—the Mexicans, the original owners—in the ruling that overturns the first one, claim they only left the place with the colleague for safekeeping while they were away so they wouldn't have to deal with tenants. They claim they never sold it to her and never even discussed it. And this time, the court believed them and overturned their own FINAL ruling from '93.🙂

Get this: in all seventeen years, NO ONE, and I mean absolutely NO ONE, ever asked us anything or notified us about anything. All this time, legal battles involving our apartment were happening in court, and we had no idea. We only got our first real hint today that there might be trouble, and that was a letter from their lawyer telling us to vacate within 14 days.

We have a lawyer now, but he’s pretty pessimistic. He says our only real move is to sue for damages, but that we’ll likely have to hand the property back to the Mexicans sooner or later.
It seems pretty obvious, though, that these thieves—knowing they forged those signatures—made sure they don't own anything in their own names in the meantime, so there's nothing left to seize from them.
What would you all do if you were in our shoes? I mean, if there's any shred of justice left in this world, it shouldn't allow these clear criminals to profit off our hard work while we're left with nothing, especially since we aren't in the wrong.

Please, help us out—whether it's advice, a recommendation, or an example of something similar...