Teachers deal with hundreds of students in their careers, and over that time they learn to spot the warning signs that a kid might be bad news, or maybe that a kid is dealing with some rough circumstances outside of school. It's important to be able to spot these and do what they can to help out.
Below, teachers share the biggest red flags they've ever seen from a student, as told on AskReddit. Check them out.
Content has been edited for clarity.
Red Alert
“I once had a parent find out that I’m gay, and that I have some music industry contacts. They immediately offered me ‘unlimited, unsupervised access’ to their 16-year-old son in exchange for helping him break into the music business. I was 35.
I reported them immediately.”
All The Warning Signs In The World And No Action
“I’m a 7th grade English teacher. Last year I had a student who I’ll call Mark. I knew Mark had a lot of issues before I even met him by just looking at his record.
When the year started he was pretty docile and eager to please. However, as the year went on he became more aggressive and inappropriate. I’m a young woman and he would frequently stay after class to ask for hugs. I would politely redirect him, but sometimes he would ignore me and I’d have to physically push his hands away. That made me uncomfortable for personal and professional reasons.
Toward the middle of the year, he started ‘dating’ a girl, Sue, and they had me for the same class period, but they broke up after a few weeks. After Sue broke up with him, Mark became obsessed with her, following her to all of her classes, harassing her on social media and in school… it got to the point where Sue did not feel comfortable coming to my class unless she was literally sitting right next to me at the front of the room. Sue also came late to my class and would wait until after the tardy bell for the next period rang before she’d leave my class to avoid him. This girl was so scared she broke down crying when I told her she had to go to her next class because she was so afraid she’d run into him in the hallways.
I emailed our deans and guidance counselors about Marks harassment and reached out to both Sue’s and Marks parents to let them know what was happening. The school established a no-contact contract between them (sort of like a middle school version of a restraining order) and things got a little better for Sue, but Mark’s inappropriate behavior did not end.
A couple weeks later I was out for a doctor appointment when I get an email from the deans at my school saying Mark has been suspended out of school for 10 days. A student only gets 10 days if they’re about to be expelled, and I was freaking out thinking that he had done something to Sue.
Sue was fine, but Mark, as a ‘prank’, had pulled down the pants and underwear of a kid, Ryan, in front of the entire class. From what my students told me the next day Mark was laughing and making vulgar, crude comments about Ryan’s private parts, making Ryan run crying from the room. Ryan’s parents came in that afternoon, saying Mark needed to be charged with harassment.
At this point I’d had enough. I went to the principal directly to write a formal statement detailing Marks escalating pattern of aggressive and inappropriate behavior to ensure his expulsion would go through. (The expulsion process is kind of like a trial and you need lots of documentation to get a kid kicked out school) I told her and the expulsion committee that I didn’t think having Mark at our school was safe for the other students. It was a matter of time before Mark seriously hurt someone. On top of that, I believe he needed professional help, and I thought being expelled would get him that help because he’d have to attend a much stricter charter school
Long story short, the committee decided not to expel him. They said it wasn’t in Marks best interest. He came back to school after serving his suspension.
Flash forward about a month. One day Mark is absent, which is weird because he’s never absent. Later I get an email saying he’s transferred to another school in our county. I’m wondering what happened to him, so I reach out to his other teachers to see if they know anything.
What happened was, Mark had yet another altercation with a student, this time in art class. Mark was ‘playing around’ with a kid and pushed him into a metal filing cabinet. The back of this kids head went into the corner of the filing cabinet, right at the base of his skull. We later found out this injury resulted in irreversible brain damage for this kid. He spent the rest of the year being homeschooled and is still in rehabilitation therapy. It’s not positive he’ll ever attend public school again. After this incident Marks, mom immediately transferred him to another school to avoid his expulsion. To my knowledge, he’s never faced repercussions for what he did.
I was furious. I had said to my principal and argued to the expulsion committee that something like this would happen because Mark had no sense of boundaries and zero regard for other people’s feelings. This poor kids life has been changed forever and I blame their negligence as much as I blame Mark. The writing was on the wall and the people who had the power to stop Mark ignored it.
The Truth Within The Lies
“A few years ago I volunteered to mentor kids in this program for low-income ‘at risk’ kids. Twice a week we took them to The Boys & Girls club, fed them dinner, and did activities with them in small groups. We didn’t have enough adults for one-on-one attention, but it was 2-3 kids per adult. We ate dinner with the kids and just paid attention to them.
I got assigned to the youngest girls in the group. Katie, a 4-year-old still in preschool, looked like a living cabbage patch doll with chubby cheeks and dimples. Katie was very sweet, but I quickly found out that she was a chronic liar.
Every time I saw Katie she’d have a new wildly impossible story. She told stories about surviving fires, about going on trips, and about finding magical places. It all sounded like things she’d seen on TV. Sometimes her stories didn’t even make sense. One day she’d talk about her mommy being sick in the hospital, and the next she’d be talking about her mommy taking her to a theme park. One time she told me she was an only child. A few weeks later, she had brothers and sisters. It was all a bit confusing and unbelievable, but kids that age lie a lot, so I didn’t worry about it much.
Then one night, right before Christmas, Katie didn’t greet me with her usual dimpled smile. She had obviously been crying, so I asked her what was wrong.
‘My mommy died,’ she said.
I immediately assumed she was lying. It was the weirdest lie she’d told so far, but not too far off from the other things like her house burning down. But then Katie showed me the piece of paper she was clutching. It was the program from a woman’s funeral.
A bit panicked, I found the program director and asked him what was going on with this kid.
‘Oh yeah, her mom died last week. The funeral was on Sunday,’ the director said like it was no big deal.
So I went back to Katie and just tried to figure out how to help this 4-year old navigate the death of her mother. I figured she needed some normalcy in her life, so we ate dinner together and tried to go through the usual routine. When it was time to play games, Katie refused. She asked me to read the funeral program over and over again, so I did.
Later I found out that only about half of the things Katie had told me were lies. She did like to make up stories, but she was doing it to cope with a seriously messed up life. Her mom had been dying of cancer for the last year, and no one in the program bothered to fill me in on that even though the director knew that was why she was with us. The reason her family situation was so confusing was that she was in foster care and she was calling both her mom and her foster mom ‘Mommy’. She told me she was an only child one week and then talked about brothers and sisters the next week because she had gone to a foster home with other children.
I felt bad for not believing her. I’m still mad at the program director for not mentioning that the kid’s mom was dying.”
Hopefully Things Turned Around
“I work at a gymnastics place, mostly with a group of second-grade girls. At the beginning of the year, it was fine, she was really happy, cheerful, got along with everyone. Then one day, she didn’t come. I didn’t think too much of it, kids are absent a lot. I hardly ever have a full class. But one day turned to two. Then three. Eventually, a week went by when she finally showed up, at least physically. She looked emotionally drained. Like she couldn’t walk five feet without giving up. She didn’t wanna be there, so I told her she should call her folks at home to see if they can come get her.
That was a big mistake. She went off, saying how I didn’t want her there. Then she went to the bathroom. I couldn’t go in there so the female teacher went in to bring her out. We went into a back room and asked her if she was okay, to which she started crying.
She told me that at the beginning of the year, she was living with her grandparents, hence why she was happy all the time. Then they suddenly died in a car crash while she was in gymnastics. I was horrified. But that’s not the end. She said the reason she was living with them was that her parents would abuse her and force her to do things she didn’t want to.
Now, I’ve seen things that should make me cry. My grandmother and grandfather have both passed. One of my close friends died from cancer when I was in middle school. It was tough. But the story she told me, it ranks right up there with it. I was about to cry myself. No child should have to endure this type of thing. So the grandfather took her away and brought her out of that life until they left. It was sickening. After about 45 minutes of talking about it, I convinced her we would call the police. She was sent to counseling.
I never heard from her again. I never heard of what happened to her or the parents granted this happened 2 months ago. I’m hoping one day she’ll walk in and I’ll see her, happy as she was when I first met her.”
Always Go With The Gut
“I had a student ask me if I had any old glasses frames she could have because she broke hers. I knew she was in the foster care system, so I asked her why her foster parent couldn’t get her some new ones. She told me that her foster mom said she could only get new frames every four years, which made her sad because her real daughter had just gotten a second set of frames that year.
I had noticed several other things (the student asked me if I had any extra female hygiene supplies so she could have some at night, so I sent her to the nurse to get extras) that seemed like they should have been covered by the state.
I reported this, and it turned out that the foster mom was clearly not providing basic necessities for either of her foster kids. I was really glad I went with my gut.”
The Quietest One
“I once taught a class of 30 ‘at risk’ 4th graders. They were getting supplementary math lessons, as they were failing their regular math class, it was rough. It was one of those schools where they have metal detectors at every entrance. On multiple occasions, I broke up rather impressive fights. Without conventional weapons, they were really ingenious. One kid once ripped out the three-ring part of the three-ring binders and attacked another student’s forearm with it. Really creative, but obviously not great behavior. I was an untrained and unqualified teacher. I actually completely missed the ‘red flag.’
One kid, I’ll call him Darron, was really well behaved. I never had to say anything to get him to sit down, stop hitting other students, stop throwing things, or any of a number of disruptive activities going on in the classroom. In fact, he never did much at all. He spent most of the time dozing off or barely listening, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands. I didn’t think anything of it, as the rest of the class was so disruptive and destructive, I was spending most of my time and energy just keeping them under control.
Well, Darron was quiet and sleepy during class because his house burned down at the start of the school year. The fire killed his grandma (who raised him) and his dog. He was sent to live with his cousins, 12 people who lived in a very small house with nowhere close to enough bedrooms to be legally occupied the way it was. Darron had been depressed and was having problems sleeping (sharing a room with his cousins) for the entire year by the time I found out what happened. I learned about what happened on the last day of school.”
Clear Case Of Child Neglect
“I had a kid I taught in preschool who would get unreasonably angry, violent, and loud for no obvious reason. Everything would be fine and then he would totally snap. All we could do when he did was to usher other kids away and wait for him to calm down.
His mom seemed nice enough when I met her, and his dad didn’t appear to be in the picture. One day, mom didn’t show to pick him up. I was the only teacher left, since he was the last kid, and he just sat at the window, sobbing.
She didn’t show up until 7 pm that night, and our building closed at 5:30 pm. By that time, he was completely inconsolable. All I could to do was run down to the kitchen with him, make him a sandwich with the director’s permission, and let him watch movies on my phone.
Over the course of the next few weeks, this started to happen more, and no matter how many times the director talked to his mom, she would continue to come late. Then his lunches started to deteriorate and he would come to school hungry, having not been fed breakfast.
He was only with us for the three months between preschool and kindergarten, and I have no idea what happened to him, but the director was paying close attention and we never saw any physical abuse. I always brought him breakfast and made sure I had an extra sandwich and juice for him when I came to work.
That kid didn’t go hungry on my watch. Poor kid was just being forgotten.”
A Set Course For Destruction
“I had a kid my first or second year (so this was 1995-96) who was pretty scary. I teach English. He was just an awful person; had an excuse for everything, tried to bully other kids, when we had discussions about literature he wanted to derail the conversation into weird territory… hard to explain, but the kid was just off.
At parent conference time, mom came in, and I was careful to say some positive things. Him derailing conversations because ‘creativity,’ for example. Mom cried and told me no one had ever said anything positive about her kid, before me. She even wrote me a thank you note. I also covered the aspects of his behavior that concerned me, of course.
Anyway, after high school, he got arrested for theft and assault and spent some time in jail. He died before he was 30.”
A Life Turned Around
“I’m a technology teacher. I had an 11-year-old student who was terrible at using scissors and couldn’t thread a needle. She had very high grades academically but something didn’t seem quite right.
I recommended she receive special assistance and a referral, and it turns out after testing that she had very little spatial awareness and almost no hand-eye coordination. After calling the parents in we found that her mother was paralyzed and in a wheelchair and her father was very busy working to support them both, so no one had ever played any physical games or activities with her. She hadn’t developed in this area and was intelligent enough to hide these shortcomings in previous school activities.
Not a difficult fix but something that could have really held her back in the future.”
Don’t Encourage It!
“I worked at an elementary school for a few years and there was this kid I swore was a sociopath. He was very smart and manipulative, but he also gave me the creeps. He would often find ways to hurt kids by getting other children to do his dirty work. He was so good at spinning this manipulative web of lies, that the children would blame each other, leaving him completely out of it.
Even when he was caught red-handed (which wasn’t often), he would deny it. For whatever reason the principal had a soft spot for him, so he never got in trouble for anything that he did and the principal saw him as the victim.”
You Were The Chosen One
“I used to run a camp at a zoo. We had some ‘scholarship’ kids and their home life seemed pretty rough (I also drove the van to go get them sometimes). I had this one kid, in particular, Jay, who was really tough to deal with. He was bigger than the other kids by a fair margin and had lots of anger issues
The first story was that I witnessed him haul off and smack this other kid that he knew. I took him aside to have a chat with him and asked him: ‘Jay, what’s a better way you could have dealt with that?’ I was thinking, ‘walk away, go tell an adult’. He literally couldn’t think of a single thing other than to just hit her. It made me realize that’s probably just how things are resolved in his home. It still makes me sad.
The second story was that I worked with him the first day of camp and struggled with him in my group. I found myself being pretty controlling with him because I just couldn’t handle him otherwise. So, I decided to try him in another group with a male leader and figured maybe that would go better. So the second day, he was with our male leader, and that didn’t go well either. The third day of camp, I tried him with our remaining leader and I don’t think he even lasted the day.
So, I took him aside and asked him to pick who he wanted to spend the rest of the week with. I figured he wouldn’t pick me because I had been so ‘hard’ on him earlier in the week but I wanted to give this kid at least one decision he got to make himself. Lo and behold, he picked me. The rest of camp wasn’t a cake walk but we managed. I’ve never forgotten him.”
No Help In Sight
“I worked in an elementary school for a while and spent a good couple months of that working as a one-on-one aide for a new kid who was very defiant with undiagnosed anger problems. He’d bully the kids who go out of their way to befriend him, the rest of the class resented his interruptions to the classroom. We tried several variations of positive reinforcement strategies, but nothing stuck. We couldn’t figure him out. He wasn’t very well liked at school, didn’t seem to get a ton of attention at home, but his siblings at another school were normal. My job as an aid was to basically keep him on track and be with him at all time, which he understandably resented. He’d try to get to me through physical threats and comments like: ‘I hate you’ and ‘you’ll never be a teacher.’ We all wondered what could have happened in his short life to make him this way.
One day I corrected him on the playground at recess and he went into his pocket and removed a four inch long, pointy, lock pick, held it up a bit and glared at me. The glares were typical but the event was especially chilling because it showed an escalation in behavior – premeditation (taking it to school when he knew such objects were not allowed) and intent (flashing it at me in a moment of anger). I reacted firmly and he ran up the playground equipment, and I calmly talked him down, eventually convincing him to show me what he had. Honestly, I was relieved he did this because it was finally some solid evidence to the administration that I was in over my head. I was emotionally spent. Some days were so bad that I was hoping he’d stab me so I’d have grounds for not working with him anymore, or at the very least, maybe go home early.
I told the teacher immediately after recess, she was confused, didn’t tell any superiors, and simply confiscated the lockpick. A few days later I was moved for unrelated reasons. He got a new aide who was instructed to give him more space and he seemed to be doing a little better. No longer with the school, I hope he got the intervention he needs. If he doesn’t, he’s going to be one scary adult. If I ever run into him, I hope he doesn’t remember me.”