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This week, with both my kids, I have had cause to talk to their teachers about positive and not so positive things. It’s meant establishing a rapport with them, and trying not to come off as a helicopter parent. This has highlighted a few critical things we all should remember when talking to teachers, and I thought I’d share them with everyone here.

1. When Elephants Fight, It’s the Grass That Gets Trampled. Whatever you do, don’t cause a battle with your child’s teacher, because in the end, the child will lose. Look at it from this perspective- if you have a friend, but your kids don’t get along, or when you get your families together, it’s a disaster, you tend not to see that friend as often or pay as close attention to them; your friendship drifts apart. If your child’s teacher views you as combative and a pain, they will naturally assume your child is the same way, and may be less willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

2. Realize that your child’s version of events is about 1/2 the story, especially if “bad news” is being delivered. I’ve found now with a fourth and seventh grader in the house, most tales of grossly unfair and punitive behavior reported to me are exaggerated or are misunderstandings between child and teacher.

This means when I approach the teacher, I need to do so from a neutral third-party perspective. I need to try to get the whole story, hear what the teacher has to say, and find a way to resolve the conflict. I try to let every teacher know I want to be part of the team, and do whatever we need to do at home to make his/her job simpler.

I let them know I want to know any problems, big or small, and I intended to be proactive, but I need information to head off problems in advance. I try to be my child’s advocate, but I also make it clear that I consider my child’s work their responsibility, not mine. My goal is to support and scaffold my child’s learning until they’re ready to fly on their own, not do it for them. And the teacher needs to know when I call, it’s never about grade grubbing, it’s about problem solving.

3. School is your child’s job, and he needs to be in charge of his work and performance. A child’s school work is his responsibility. No matter how well intentioned we might be, trying to do a child’s work for him, hassle a teacher about grades, or anything else in that vein actually shows the kid you don’t trust him to fight his own battles and advocate on his behalf. I always try to get my child to work things out with a teacher on his own (at least from about 5th grade on up….) before intervening if a problem still exists. Younger kids will need more help n this regard, but they will still need to learn how to talk to their teachers, ask questions, and be their own best advocate. Helicopter parenting for every little thing actually damages a kid’s self esteem, it doesn’t help it.

4. Having a Child with a Learning Disability Makes it Complicated for Everyone. Both of my boys have learning disabilities. not severe ones, but stuff that causes problems from time to time at school.

For example, both my kids are organizational nightmares- one child is known as the “Homework Houdini,” because we can see it go into the folder at home and at school, completed, nice, but somehow, it disappears in the magic backpack. I can make sure a note of piece of homework is in John’s binder here at home, but somehow, after it goes into his backpack, it evaporates and cannot be found for love or money at school. Likewise, papers and assignments go into the binder at school, but vanish in a puff of smoke in the binder- It must be something in the school bus fumes that cause it to disintegrate or transport through the time-space continuum, but the papers magically disappear- even ehen we know the things should be there. They both have horrid handwriting, and this makes the writing process torture for them, and reading their handwriting a headache inducing experience for their teachers. Yet, I want to make sure the constant “Neater, please” and “You can do better” phrases on homework and assignments don’t turn their fine motor issues into moral failings- that somehow, they could do better if they just cared a little more. And it’s particularly hard when you and the teacher know these kids are both really smart, and seem to have days where they are right on, and other days when they are clearly off their game.

LD experts like Rick Lavoie call this “performance inconsistency” and it’s a hallmark of ADHD and other learning disabilities. We can see kids do great work, but other days, they seem so far off from what you know they can do, it’s hard not to think that they aren’t trying. Or why a kid who can be so great in math might be a lousy reader, or vice versa. It’s hard not to believe the myth that talent is equally distributed- yet most of us know tons of people who have pockets of talent, yet are not super talented in all areas. Why isn’t this acceptable for our kids as well?

I don’t blame teachers (or myself) for forgetting that my kids have LD. Thier LD is not an excuse, anyway, for poor performance. The LD just provides a context for the behavior, so we can understand a child’s impulsive moments as less nefarious plot to drive us insane, but more something that is based on their underlying neurology, and they are truly trying their best every day, but their brain doesn’t always cooperate well.

5. In dealing with teachers, educators, and even your children, use the criticism sandwich. This is another masterful technique I picked up from Rick Lavoie. When you have to have a tough conversation, start out positively-

“Luke really seems to be enjoying what he’s doing in your class, and seems to be learning a lot.”

Then get your hands dirty – “He’s come home with a lot of papers lately where you’ve asked him to write more neatly- I was wondering if you knew about his problem with handwriting and how it’s affecting his composition? Is there a way we can help him be successful? He seems to respond much better to encouragement that critique, and while I know this is a tough area for him, and we are working on it at home, I was wondering if you could try to help encourage him a bit more in the classroom?” (This is a nice way of saying- stop picking on the kid, it’s getting both of us no where, could we try something else, like NOW?)

Then close on a positive note as well- “I really enjoyed our talk, and I know we both have Luke’s best interest at heart- I’ll do whatever I can to support things at home, and I really appreciate having good communication between home and school. Thank you.”

You are so much more likely to get things done on your child’s behalf, maintain a good relationship with the staff and teachers, approaching problems in this vein rather than with anger, fear and resentment. And it means controlling a parent’s natural impulse to freak out if they see their child as a victim of a teacher, but instead, not blame but problem solve.

Do you have any tips for constructing good relationships between school and home? Share them here!

by Whitney Hoffman

[tags]kids, children, students, teachers, relationships, communication, trust, adjustments, learning, growing[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by idiolector, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved