Tips For Parents: How to Partner With Your Child’s Teacher
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Pancakes with Pop by Jose Kevo from flickr, under a CC BY-SA 2.0
At its best, the relationship between parent and teacher is one of cooperation, trust, and understanding. At its worst, the relationship is filled with anger and the removal of the student from the teacher’s class. In between those two extremes are where most parent-teacher relationships exist.
The easiest way to describe what productive looks like in a parent-teacher relationship is to identify some archetypes of negative parents that teachers deal with regularly, and then address how to avoid becoming that parent.
Mr. and Mrs. Apathy
Traits: These are the invisible parents. The parents who never reach out to a teacher if their child is failing or in trouble or for any other reason. It’s not unknown for students to graduate after four years of high school with one student only to meet his parents for the first time at graduation.
How to avoid: There are so many opportunities to meet teachers. Never miss an open house or conference night. Send an introductory email to your child’s teacher the first week of school. Open up communication lines. Be visible. Care. Apathetic parents are most commonly found in high school. Maybe parents think that by then their work is done and they can just release their children into school and let them fend for themselves. Sometimes, they’re right. Most of the time, they’re not.
Mr. and Mrs. Overwhelming
Traits: These are the parents who email or call numerous times a day. The parents who sit on their computer and wait for a grade to be posted on the online grade book, and who then question the grade the second it gets posted. A co-worker of mine received 534 emails from and 23 meetings with one parent in one school year. The student was a great student whose only real problem wasn’t related to school.
How to avoid: Be proactive with the teacher. Find out what the teacher norms are and expect those (grading policies, timelines for gradebook updates, etc…). Most importantly, do a thorough self examination, and be honest about whether the perceived slight or concern of yours is in fact somewhat trivial. If you find it does, relax a bit. (It’s worth noting that an over-involved parent is infinitely preferable to many teachers than one who is not involved at all).
Summt Chili Cook-off by Jose Kevo from flickr, under a CC BY-SA 2.0
Mr. and Mrs. Gullible
Traits: These are the parents whose child can do no wrong. The parents who believe their child when he says that the cat ate his homework. Here’s the thing: kids don’t want to get into trouble at home. If they mess up at school it is human nature for them to make it someone else’s fault, even their teacher’s. As the parent of a three-year old wondrous little girl, I have a huge blind spot in regards to my daughter. But I know she’s human and I know she will do anything to avoid her time out spot.
How to avoid: Just remember your child’s humanity and work with the teacher, rather than against. There is an old adage that teachers often employ with parents, that goes: “If you only believe half of what you hear about me, I’ll only believe half of what I hear about you.”
The Zealot
Traits: These are the parents who want to protect their child’s innocence. The parents who don’t want their children to read certain books or learn about the possibility of evolution or be taught about sexually-transmitted diseases and how to prevent them. If these parents are to be believed, The Hobbit is a book solely about witchcraft.
How to avoid: As a teacher I respect your right to censor things your child learns and is exposed to. As an English teacher I feel it is almost my duty to push the boundary a little bit. And as a ten year old kid Kurt Vonnegut was my favorite author. I think the main thing is to be proactive. If your beliefs lean a certain way, communicate that with the teacher early in the school year. I’ve had kids opt out of reading certain books in class because of parental concerns and it is easy to create an alternative assignment. But calling the school board and demanding the book’s removal from the class, the library, and the school is extreme .
In a nutshell, parent-teacher communication is the key to any good parent-teacher relationship. Ultimately what you want for your child is the exact same thing the teacher wants and that is for your child to grow, learn, and have a positive experience. The teacher-parent team can have a profound impact on those three things.
Ben Jatos is in his 21st year of teaching secondary English. His opinions are his own and in no way represent the views of his school district. He is passionate about his family, the Portland Trail Blazers, the writing of Raymond Carver, and educating young people. For more of his opinions and reviews of literature for the classroom, check out his blog at www.benjatos.com.
Banner Photo Credit: frankjuarez via Compfight cc (image cropped)
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