Three Tips for Talking to Your Child’s Teacher
Talking to your child’s teacher can feel a little intimidating. Especially if you have concerns you need to bring up. As a mom and a teacher, I have sat at both sides of this table and I know the challenges that both roles involve. Working to have positive communication with your child’s teacher is so important though! One of the best ways to help your child be successful at school is to work as a team with their teacher. I don’t know any successful teams that don’t communicate! So let’s see three ways we can set ourselves up for positive teacher and home communication!
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Step #1- Assume Good Intent
You may have heard the idea of assuming good intent before. Basically, it means to give the person you are working and communicating with the benefit of the doubt. With a teacher, this would mean assuming that the teacher cares about your child. The teacher is doing their very best to teach, discipline and direct all of their students, including your child. We have to get away from thinking anyone is out to get our child, or that they are just not liked.
As I have been teaching full time these last few months, I have not seen a single teacher in my school that doesn’t wake up every morning and want to teach their class well. Are there students that take more time and cause more frustration? Sure. But I have seen time and time again, teachers working to find new solutions for students academically and behaviorally.
As a long term substitute I probably work about two hours extra outside of the school hours each day. And I know I walked into this job with the majority of my copies, and whole group materials made. The teachers around me and spending so much of their own time working to make their lessons they best they can be, and their classrooms as positive as possible. Does that mean there is no such thing as a bad teacher? Certainly not! But the vast majority are working as hard as they can to teach and care for your child. When talking with your child’s teacher, starting our communication assuming they are doing they best they can, with the information they have, will help you stay on the same team!
Ask Good Questions
Once you have your mindset of positive intent, it’s time to gather some information by asking good questions! Start with your child. Ask your child about what is happening in their classroom. If you are concerned about a behavior issue or a relationship with classmate, ask your child to explain the situation. Make sure you ask them about their behavior in the situation too. As a teacher, I will often have students tell me about something another child did, and leave out their own poor choices in the situation until I ask them directly what they did or said. Make sure you give your child the chance to tell you what they said or did in the situation so you have a complete picture.
I want to also, remind you that this information is coming from the perspective of a child. While their perspective is really important to solving this issue, that doesn’t mean it is always a complete picture of the situation. Sometimes their are other factors a teacher sees, and sometimes our child can just misunderstand a situation. For example, just yesterday, my 7 year old was eating something and said he didn’t want it. I asked him to bring it “over here”. He took his plate and threw it in the trash. He insisted that I told him to throw it in the trash. In his head he interpreted the “over here” as the trash and now can’t even remember anything other than I must have actually said the trash. Communication is tricky. So again, remember our positive intent after talking to your child!
Start with the Teacher
Now it’s time to talk with the teacher. When your child has a problem or concern in their classroom, always start by talking with your child’s teacher. Everyone has had that person at work who immediately goes to the boss when their is an issue instead of going to you. No one likes that. Teachers are no exception. You don’t need to CC the principal or talk to last year’s teacher. Start with the teacher first and believe you can solve the issue together!
When you talk to a teacher, just like with you child, start with questions! Questions may sound like, my child told me _____________ happened at school. I know they may not have the whole picture of the situation. Can you help me understand this situation more? Are their details I am missing?
Or if it is an academic issue, My child is really struggling with their math homework. We are spending two hours every night on their assignments. Should their homework take this long? Are we misunderstanding the assignments? Any help you could give would be great!
Try your best to have an open mind. You may not agree with every decision your child’s teacher makes, just like you may not agree with every parenting decision your spouse makes! But you are a team. You both want good for your child. If it is just a simple difference in opinion, do your best to support the teacher in whatever ways you can Rarely, there may be bigger issues that you would need to escalate to a principal. This should be a last resort though, after much communication with the teacher, knowing that it will likely negatively impact your relationship with the teacher.
You’ve got this! You can have a great relationship with your child’s teachers by assuming good intent, asking lots of questions to both your child and the teacher and dealing directly with the teacher as much as possible! Let me know how it goes!!
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