Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive teaching, but actually thrive. Imagine having a school year so
successful that you definitely minimize the Sunday scaras and maybe even look forward to Monday
mornings. Can you imagine yourself just sailing through the struggles of dealing with high
maintenance parents, even if you have a particularly difficult class. Have you ever
wished for a way to navigate difficult parent teacher interactions with ease? Because here's
a thing. When you don't effectively handle these situations, the stakes are high.
It cannot only affect your job or job satisfaction, but also the student's
success, which, let's be honest, can have negative repercussions in the long
run. So say I'm giving you seven strategies, a teacher's toolkit if you
will, that will not only make your interactions with parents smoother, but will
also transform your school year. So the first strategy for dealing with difficult parents
is try to understand where they're coming from. This can be a lot easier
if you are a parent, but if you're not a parent, then maybe
try to think of it as maybe being a pet parent, or maybe you
have a niece or a nephew or a younger cousin or sibling, just basically
you being in a situation where you really care about another child or someone that's
dependent on you. Because honestly, parents are doing the best that they can.
A lot of us, or actually most of us, we just parent
the way that we were parented, and so we're basically going off of what
we've seen our parents do. That some parents and people in general are aware
enough to not pass on any trauma that they had when they were kids.
But a lot of times people don't even really realize how their parents created this
trauma in their lives, and so they just end up parenting the same way
and their kids kind of get the same trauma. So sometimes we have conflicts
with parents because we have expectations of them that really don't align with their reality
and vice versa, and so that's something that we have to take into account,
especially when we're thinking about how we communicate with parents. For example,
you might expect a parent to be there to read all of your emails and
read all the hand notes that you give and to help their child with homework,
but that parent could be working two jobs and the student rarely ever sees
their parent, And we can't judge that parent because at least the providing food
and a roof over their head. And no, they may not be able
to be there to be as involved in their child's education, but again they're
doing the best that they can. I've heard of teachers really criticizing parents for
not being there to help their child or just being around at all, but
really we can't judge them because again, they're doing the best that they can.
Also, some parents parent out of fear, and so they are worried
about things happening to their child that happened to them, and so they're coming
from a fearful place and the interactions that they have with you could also be
stemming from that. So that's not to say that it's an excuse for when
parents are belligerent or when parents are unreasonable in their demands, But trying to
look at the situation from a more objective point of view will really help you
in terms of being able to communicate effectively with them. So that brings me
to my next tip, which is having open communication. And so this involves
letting parents know what is going on in your class. It doesn't mean bombarding
them on a daily basis with emails or newsletters about what the students did that
day, but finding a balance where you do communicate with parents what it is
that is happening so that they know how to best support their student. For
example, you could consider sending out a weekly newsletter via email or in person
so that parents know what to expect in terms of maybe any upcoming tests or
quizzes, or projects or major assignments, and then if they have the time,
they can help their student if needed. As I mentioned in my last
video about open house, you can also let parents know ahead of time what
the homework schedule is. So if you are signing homework every night, or
if you have a major quiz on Friday that you give a study guide for
maybe on a Wednesday, let the parents know that so that they can help
their student or at least remind them to study for that quiz or remind them
to do homework. And then you definitely want to take extra steps for students
that are struggling to get their work done or are struggling even behaviorally, So
this is when you're going to communicate with specific parents even if they're not responding,
even if they're not picking up the phone, you just need to try
and see if you can get a hold of them and see if you can
get the students some support at home. You definitely want to cover your bases
and at least make the effort. Any time I have a lot of students
that are confused about an assignment, or if I have parents that are asking
the same question, I will send out an email to all of my students
and their parents so that I can clear up any confusion. And if there's
something major coming up that I definitely think that the parents need to help their
students study for, or more like help remind them to study for it or
be prepared for, then I will send up communication. I don't send weekly
newsletters because the students that I have are pretty much on top of keeping up
with their assignments and work. But if you do have a population that struggles
a lot, or if you have a certain subset of students that are frequently
behind, then you can send something weekly to those parents so that they can
help you out, and that way the kids are going to support both at
home and at school. So strategy number three is active listening and empathy.
So when we're communicating with parents, let's say that you have a concern about
their student because their student is behind as in any work, is misbehaving.
We want to be in a place where we are empathetic and where we are
trying to come from the parent's point of view. And here's why, even
if a student is legitimately being disruptive, it just like not a good person
in general. We want to be really mindful of our home. We want
to think about the way that we are communicating or talking about that student,
their progress and their behavior in a way that doesn't put the parent on the
defensive because no matter what, a parent doesn't want to think the worst things
about their kids because in the and it also makes them feel like a really
bad parent. So if you're telling them that their kid constantly misbehaves is rude,
or if you just do any kind of name calling, that's going to
put the parent on the defensive and they are probably going to then attack and
things could get really ugly. So you want to think about if you were
receiving that message, that email, phone call, letter, how would you
receive it. So maybe if you receive something similar about your style of teaching,
how would you feel about that? Or if maybe someone had said,
oh wow, your dog is like really misbehaved and ugly, how would you
feel about that? So really think about your tone and your delivery when it
comes to communicating with parents. I have personally read so many emails that other
teachers ran by me and said, hey, what do you think about this?
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, do not
send, And I would help them edit it with the idea of how would
you want to receive that message, Like, how could someone communicate the same
message to you in a way that makes you want to improve, that makes
you want to actually work with the other person. So maybe try running that
email by a colleague, or if you trust your administrators and having them read
it, or if you don't have anyone like that, you can definitely use
AI. There have been a few times that I've used chat chept and said,
please rewrite this email in a way that is positive and that will get
a positive response or at least a helpful response from the other person. And
so you can just basically write down the gist of what you're trying to say.
You can just put it unedited with all the thoughts that you're thinking,
no matter how negative they are, and ask chat chept to just fix it
for you to that the receiver won't get mad, because think about it,
what do you really want? What is the result that you want from that
email? Do you want the parent to get mad? Do you want the
parent to go and beat their child for being disrespectful? Like? What do
you want from the parent? And use that to frame how you deliver your
message. And if you use that and I've been using that frame for many,
many years and only a couple of times, I've probably slipped and had
kind of a not so great tone with expected results. But if you are
framing your message that way to get a more positive, constructive, helpful response
from the parent, then you need to really think about how you write those
emails and messages. So the next tip, in addition to active listening and
being empathetic in your communications, is to set expectations. So hopefully at this
point you let parents know your policies, particularly with grading and homework that's late,
homework that's missing, maybe retake some things like that. So it's a
good time to reiterate the policy for a particular situation. But something that really
goes a long way is flexibility. So if you tell a parent, you
know, I only allow students to retake a test if they have a seat
or below on it. But because I saw that Jonathan, we really struggled
with this particular unit and I didn't have time to give him extra practice,
I will let him retake it if he has shown me that he's studied for
it. So some flexibility in there will really go a long way in terms
of maintaining a good parent teacher relationship there because it really helps if the parent
is on your side and working with you rather than blaming you for their child's
failures. And if you're going to make any kind of accommodations for the student,
let the parent know what your expectations are. So yes, I'm going
to let them turn their work in late, but they have two days,
or I'm going to let them turn in their work a week late, but
it has to be completed or has to be X, Y and z.
So the flexibility is there, which means that you're compromising, but you still
have your expectations so that the parent knows that they're not just going to get
away with whatever. Now, the next strategy which can be a little bit
hard in terms of communicating with parents is to stay positive and professional. Now,
look, I have received my share of nasty emails from parents because they're
just reacting and they just really don't care about how they're coming off via email,
and so trying to respond in a way that isn't equally snarky can be
really difficult. I mean, let's be honest. If we're being attacked the
then actual response is to defend ourselves. But that's not something that we want
to do in terms of being defensive or being nasty right back at them,
because I'll just tell you it's going to escalate, it's going to get worse,
and it's probably going to move higher up the chain, which is going
to be a headache over what a late assignment, over what a student talking
across the room. Do you really want that headache just so that you can
get back at them. I mean, yeah, it would feel good to
get back at them. But you could just write that nasty email and delete
it. I've done that many many times, or I've written it and shown
it to a coworker who knows about the situation and be like, I really
want to say this but I'm not, and you can commiserate with them about
it, and then you write the email that really you should have written.
So let's also make sure that when we are communicating with the parent that we're
not attacking the student as person. We are more discussing the behaviors that the
student is doing, so that we're not saying that the student is a bad
student, that the student is lazy, is rude, disrespectful. We don't
want to say the student is this, but we do want to say,
like, the student behaves this way, the student is being this way.
I know it just seems like I'm splitting hairs or that it's semantics, but
it goes a long way in terms of not making a parent want to fight
back or not making a parent want to go straight to your principle because of
the email or message that you sent. So we want to make it professional
in a way that we would want again empathy in the way that we would
want to perceive it. If we've got an email with some criticism from our
administrator, how would we want that to be worded? How could the administrator
worded in a way that would make us more receptive. So again, professional
and empathetic. These two things will go along way in terms of maintaining parent
teacher relationships with all of the parents that your students have. Now, let's
say that you have a parent teacher meeting. They want to meet with you
and talk to you in person. It can also get kind of hard there
to either not cower and be insecure, or on the opposite end, to
not fight back and get belligerent as well. But you really aren't going to
win if it turns into a yelling match. So if a parent starts to
get too much in your face and starts attacking you, you need to end
the meeting just right then and there. If you do not have the right
to talk to you that way, they are not your boss. If you
think that a parent is going to be coming at you in an angry way,
then I suggest that you either have an administrator there or maybe that student's
counselor or even better, if you have one, I would have a union
rep there with you. That way, there's someone who is not only a
witness, but someone who will hopefully back you up. Unless you don't have
a principle that backs you up, then use one of the other options,
but do not ever let a parent verbally attack you. Do not ever let
a meeting go to a place like that. Just end it and leave,
ask them to leave. Just try to keep your trust me. Now,
I alluded to this in the last tip for the next strategy is to involve
your administration when necessary. Now, I definitely don't think that you should ever
just escalate things to your principle right away. The student is misbehaving, lest
they have like a weapon at school, but anything below that, even if
they're bullying or if they're doing something that really is an inappropriate in class,
you want to deal with it first. You want to deal with the student
first. You want to maintain that relationship with the student. You're going to
view with them the whole year. Then you want to talk to the parent
and see if you can work with them. And if that doesn't work.
After you've taken those steps, then it's good to involve the counselor or the
administration. They need to be there to back you up. I know that
for some of you you don't have administrators that will back you up. However,
you do want to at least let them know of the situation, because
at least you can say that you told them, even if they do nothing
about it, and you want to put it in writing via a message or
something like that, let them know. That way, if it does escalate,
you can say I told you about this. I definitely gave you information
about it, and so here we are. Now what Because your administrator should
definitely back you up as a teacher, and if they don't, you have
to see if there's someone else above them that you can get to support you
in the situation. My last strategy, which is so so important I cannot
stress enough is to document everything everything. So this will start from the beginning,
especially if you start to notice a pattern with a student, you want
to keep a log of strategies that you've used to work with them. Whether
it's a behavior thing or if it's an academic thing, you want to keep
a log because if you've been using certain strategies to try to get them to
behave in class, or if you're doing extra scaffolding or extra measures to get
them to be successful, you want to make sure that you have a log.
That way, if someone comes back to you and says that you didn't
do anything, you have proof. You also want to keep a log of
conversations that you've had with student, with the parents, counselors, and administrators.
Definitely keep a log. And again, if someone tries to hold you
accountable for an incident that happens in class, or for a student not passing
your class or not being successful or not having gains that the parent and the
school had expected, you can show them that you have had these conversations,
you've done X, y and Z for the student, and it still hasn't
worked and you haven't gotten any support. So you want to always have that
log because that can really save your butt. I know that some of these
tips can skew a little bit on the negative, and a lot of the
time, if you have a student that's doing what they're supposed to do,
you're not going to have to worry about them. If you have supportive parents
who are making sure that their student does what they're supposed to do, or
who's already on top of it when their student is struggling, you don't have
to worry about it. You mainly have to worry about the parents who are
going to blame you for everything that's happening, for who is going to attack
you for things that you're doing in your class in terms of how you teach
or what you teach, or parents who want to nitpick about every single thing
and want extra help or extra special attention for their student. Those are the
parents that you have to work with and worry about, and they're the ones
who are going to probably cause the most anxiety for you. But it doesn't
have to be that way. If you are proactive in terms of the way
that you communicate with them. Often you communicate with them, and just keeping
in mind that they are doing the best that they can, you can avoid
so many problems. Not all, there are still some parents out there that
are extra let's just put it that way, but you can really minimize those
negative interactions if you follow these seven strategies. I really wanted to thank you
guys for being here this week. I also really love getting messages from you,
and I'm really grateful for those of you that have reached out and told
me about how you listen to the podcast and how you've been binge listening to
it. And I really also love listener questions because a lot of times it
gives me inspiration for what episodes I need to create for you guys, because
I want this to be relevant. I mean, there's just so many aspects
of teaching that it can be difficult for me to really know what it is
that you need right now. And I also don't necessarily want to just keep
repeating myself. I want to make it so that when you do come here
to this podcast on my lately sporadic schedule because school's been a lot right now.
But I just want to so that when you do come back current episode,
that it's just what you need just in time. So if you do
have any ideas for future episodes, please be sure to send me an email
at Kim at teachers Need teachers dot com and I'll reply to you. Just
so you know, I do reply to my email. Sometimes it takes me
like a week, but I do reply to my emails. But also,
like I said, it could be the topic for my next episode like this
one today. Thanks for hanging out with me today, you guys, and
I will see you next time.