Parents – Acquaintances with a Common Goal

Parents play an integral yet complicated role in education. Without parents of course there wouldn’t be any children enrolled in schools. And given their own situations individually as well as their children’s individual characteristics makes for a perfect storm of teachers being more than just an educator.

One of my first encounters with the parent was when I was in the public school system. On day one certain parent was quite endearing and amiable, we exchanged lighthearted banter smiling laughing joking and the like. It was pleasant to see that side of her and a positive example for my first parent/teacher exchange.

Then the school year kicked into gear. His parents child had some trouble, nothing too out of line, but it was something that I felt like the parent needed to know. When I contacted the parent at first again jovial exchanging banter. Then when I transition to discuss the situation with her child, it was like a light switch. She went from cinderella to Cruella. She felt as if I was attacking her child and she did not want to hear nor did she believe anything I was saying. it shocked me, and luckily we were on the phone so she couldn’t see how wide my eyes had opened literally and from that point forward figuratively.

So this switch in her demeanor told me that she only valued the relationship as long as I considered her child to be the angel that she simply knew the child was.

In hindsight, considering it was my first encounter with the parent, I have no doubt that there was probably some way I could’ve approached it differently or better. But my intention was never to be rude nor disrespectful, so I don’t feel guilty about calling this parent about the situation. My intention was to keep the parent in the loop and that’s what I did. So later on after I was able to process and after the shock dwindled, I realized that parents are hyper may be an HYPERSENSITIVE about their children. And what their children do is many times what parents feel the reflection of them selves.  From there I had to learn how to manage this dynamic of parent teachers, because it’s always important for teachers and parents to have discussions even beyond report cards. But again as teachers we have to make sure we draw a proper line in the sand. Just like I tell my students I am not their friend but I love them, when I am teaching a student, I am not their parents friend either. Not saying that the parents and I can never become friends after the child no longer has me as their teacher, but School is a business, even though a very personal one. And just like when I worked in the corporate and didn’t cross the line, I also shouldn’t cross the line in education. Now of course the lines in a business vs a school certainly can be different, the point I’m making is to understand boundaries.

I knew this from a theoretical point of view of learning about it in school, but this experience gave me first hand knowledge.

From that experience onward, I started to develop my philosophy of what my personal boundaries would be in terms of my relationships with parents. Of course yours may be different and that is OK. You have to determine your own comfort level. But the point I’m making is that it is important to know The depth of how much parents loves their children and see them perhaps differently than you will. We have them for a year ( or a few years if we loop with them), but they have them for life.

If you are a parent, you understand the depth. For those who are not parents yet are choosing to become educators, I recommend finding a few close friends with children who are happy to give their point of view on how it feels to send their children to school. They are trusting their most precious gift in our hands. And the most important thing for them is their child safety -physically and emotionally. So if a teacher calls with something negative about their child, that can feel like an attack. Think a lion or lioness protecting her cub.

However, we do have to have relationships with parents and they are important so how do we help minimizing the Cinderella Cruella light switch.

One thing that I have found effective is to connect with parents at the beginning of the year and to show that you care about their child’s best interest. Many schools have this formally in place, by way of a back to school night or some type of intake conference where parents tell you about their children.. However, sometimes I take it a step further by reaching out individually to parents early in the school year within the first few weeks. Sometimes it’s to share a story or to simply say you or checking in to see how their child is feeling about school. These types of interactions help plant seeds of positives. Of course as educators we love our students, but extending ourselves to the parents in positive ways throughout the year is one way to show them that we care. and once they know that you care, having difficult conversations is a bit easier.

Of course this is hard to do given that we’re trying to teach curriculum, and especially for a new teacher the learning curve is so sharp already no doubt this is difficult. But find a mentor teacher at your school that you trust and ask them suggestions to help you navigate your time and how you can implement or plug this in along the way.