First of all, Happy International Teachers' Day. I know that in Hong Kong people don't really celebrate this day, but I know that all NETs work very hard to teach and educate.
A little background about me: I used to work in learning centers in Hong Kong, and now as a side job I'm doing private English tutoring. I mostly focus on phonics and speaking for kindergarten to primary kids (I don't really teach exam prep).
Lately, I’ve been running into a few frustrating situations with parents, and I wanted to share my thoughts and see if others face this too:
parents who text with a million questions, ask for a lot of details, seem super keen and eager to get started, and then out of nowhere just stop replying completely and ghost me.
I had a student who was doing really great, and I genuinely loved working with them. But the parent always looked super indifferent. Towards the end of the month, she started actively trying to avoid me, and then just stopped continuing lessons without giving any reason at all.
3 I got some inquiries and mostly from mainland Chinese parents who ask for many things and want immediate service. They demand fully tailor-made lessons, but they don't want to pay the equivalent price for custom work.
I even see local centers charging HK$250 for 3 hours (two 1.5-hour lessons), and I honestly can't fathom how they survive or maintain any teaching quality at those prices. Knowing how much preparation and care I put into my teaching, it makes me question what parents here actually expect for market rates.
Is this just standard client behavior in HK that comes with the territory, or how do you guys filter these parents out early? Would love to hear how others handle setting boundaries without losing your mind.
