A Word on Parents
It’s parent conference season! The parent-teacher relationship has been on my mind. As a former Director of Bilingual Programs and someone who went from district teacher to higher education professor, I can attest to the fact that teacher preparation programs do not typically address the parent-teacher relationship. Even if it is included on the syllabus of a course, it’s difficult to prepare teachers with hypothetical parent situations; this one is learned on the job hopefully with the support of your grade level team or school staff.
I, like many teachers, learned through trial and error. My second year of teaching was my roughest year with parents who wanted to control and dictate what and how I taught. As I shared in a previous Sunday Story, I almost quit by Thanksgiving because the parent pressure was just too much. I was still a new teacher, and I had no idea how to establish a trusting relationship with parents. I taught in a Modified Bilingual program meaning that half of my students were enrolled in an English-only program and half were enrolled in a Transitional Bilingual program. That year, after the holiday break in December, my grade level reorganized our schedule and I started teaching our English-only students Spanish, while my grade level colleagues taught English Language Development to our Multilingual learners. Every day, all the third grade English-only students came to my classroom to learn Spanish and suddenly the parents, seeing the added benefit of learning Spanish, backed off. I still had one, who learned Spanish in high school, question why I taught the word anaranjado for orange, because of course he still had to show me that he also spoke Spanish, except that he didn’t. Te digo.
Since those early years, I have taught in schools situated in a variety of communities from low income to high income, diverse communities to homogenous communities. Through all the difficult moments I’ve had with parents, the one thing I realized across all communities is that the vast majority of parents care about their child’s education. Their sometimes-problematic approach comes from a place of wanting the best for their child. I learned this from an intense parent.
Around my 10th year teaching, I had a student whose parent was well known for being difficult. This parent was a teacher. As everyone had warned, a couple of weeks into the school year, the parent wanted to meet with me and my partner teacher to discuss our academic plan for their child. I listened to the concerns expressed by the parent as well as the demands to implement a program they recommended. It felt like my second year all over again, except this time I had years of experience and a lot more confidence. At the end of the conference, I had decided that this parent was not going to be my enemy. I agreed to meet with the parent separately to learn about the program they highly recommended without any commitment to use it. During the second conference, we settled on the parent using the program with their child. After a few weeks, she would share her findings with me, and we would revisit using it in my classroom. Weeks later, when I reached out, the parent never scheduled a follow-up meeting. What changed? I believe giving this parent the space to show me this program diffused the situation. A few years later, I became the Dual Immersion Coordinator at that school. One day, this parent came by my office and acknowledged that they were an intense parent. “Do you want to know why I push teachers hard?” she asked and then she said something I never forgot. She said, “Because I’m my child’s biggest advocate.” At that moment, my perspective of this parent shifted. I began to see parents as advocates for their child, as they should be. This parent’s approach could have been nicer, but I realized that by giving them the space to voice their concerns and come to a mutual understanding, we could work together not against each other.
Another defining moment that shifted my perspective as a parent was when I was working full-time while pursuing a doctorate degree. During that time, I became the parent that never looked in my children’s backpack. On a Friday morning, while driving the girls to school, my then 3rd grade daughter announced from the backseat of our car, “Today my biography of a famous American is due.” I was shocked! “What biography of a famous American? When did that information come home?” I was ready to arrive at school and confront the teacher about the lack of information when my daughter replied, “I gave the paper to Papi.” She had given the letter informing parents about the assignment to her father on a day that I was in class and therefore didn’t arrive home until late at night. By morning, my daughter didn’t mention it and I never saw the paper. Their father, who I might add is also an educator, didn’t pass it on to me nor did he make sure she did her assignment either. Here we were, two educator parents, dropping the ball big time. I became that parent; the parent that I criticized for not being on top of notices sent home, the parent that didn’t make sure their child did their homework, the parent that forgot to fill out the fieldtrip permission slip and got a frantic phone call from the teacher the morning of the trip. Why had I become that parent? Because my plate was too full, and I was just doing the best I could. It’s not that I didn’t care about my daughters’ education, it simply meant that I was overwhelmed and couldn’t keep up. Luckily that was short-lived, and my daughters got through elementary school successfully. Years later, when I returned to the classroom to teach Kinder, I entered the learning community with a renewed perspective regarding parents. Parents are my partners. Parents have valuable information about their child that will help me meet their needs. My door is always open, with boundaries. We are all doing the best we can. Sometimes we just need a little grace.
I’ll close this Sunday Story with a few recommendations:
1. Communication is key. Sending positive notes home about students goes a long way especially if you ever have to communicate something negative.
2. Communication is key, but so are boundaries. In this age of easy and immediate access, you have a right to protect your time. I informed parents that I checked emails before school, during lunch and after school until 4 p.m. Any email sent after 4 p.m. would not be answered until the next day. Any email sent after 4 p.m. on a Friday would not be answered until Monday morning. You do not and should not be available 24/7.
3. Email rant. If a parent sends you an angry email the length of a two-page letter, I recommend not answering it immediately. I would usually inform my administrator first, and then ask for advice on how to answer. When a parent is angry, it’s best to ask for support.
4. You do not have to answer any communication immediately. Answering within a 24hour period is a fair amount of time to wait. If in doubt, wait and ask for advice from your administrator or a trusted colleague. Also ask what the policy is at your school for answering parents.
Most parents are there to support you and their child. Every now and then, a parent might push you to your limits. In those moments try to understand where they are coming from, listen to their concerns while keeping the student’s needs at the forefront. Conferences are a great time to talk about your students’ academic progress and to get to know their families and lived experiences which in turn will help you meet your students needs. It’s also an opportunity to find your helpers. Parent helpers in and out of the classroom are invaluable. At the end of the day, parents want the best for their child and we, their teachers, want to give them our best. It’s always best when we can work together
