When they come right up close to your face, and spit words at you. And it happens when you least expect it.

That was just one of a number of situations I faced as a teaching principal. An angry parent demanding their aggrievances be heard, just as classes were lining up for morning assembly. And I had a class to teach.

This parent was angry because…I had given her son a reader about giants!

She was not happy because she didn’t like fantasy, didn’t believe in fairy tales, and only wanted factual material sent home with her son. Her livid contorted face told her that her anger ran deep. But it also showed me that she felt impotent in this situation. She had ‘standards’ that had been breached and she felt she – after years if home-schooling her sons – that she was losing control over what they read, and what they were taught. Her anger was directed at me but it was more so directed at the wider situation she found herself in, now that she had agreed to let her sons be educated outside the home.

As principal I was due to lead the morning assembly so I quickly let another teacher know that I would be delayed, because there was no escaping this parent. She wanted my attention – now!

After hearing her out, I agreed that the only readers that would be sent home for her son would be factual in nature – no stories about giants or anything vaguely mythical. It was a simple solution, and she went away mollified. But I was left having to shelve my own responses to her anger because I had children to teach.

I felt her anger was unjustified and disproportionate. But I also felt I had no choice but to ‘wear it’ because, in my role as principal, I had to keep parents happy as well as provide a good learning environment for their children. Nothing would have been gained by me getting angry too. She needed me to hear her and act. Which I did.

I acquiesced to this parent’s demands about what reading material her son took home – and I took pains to ensure he didn’t read anything like that at school during reading groups. But I didn’t take fairy tales and fantasy books out of the classroom – this was at the height of Harry Potter so there was lots of interest in fantasy as well as lots of controversy around it – because I see fantasy and myth as great ways of telling deeper truths.

We don’t get to choose how other people respond to situations nor do we get to choose the time at which they respond. It takes courage to bear the brunt of someone else’s anger, especially when a situation could be handled differently and achieve the same outcome.

And it takes courage to respond rather than react – and that we do get to choose!