On Parents

Q: To what extent is communicating with parents necessary? Whose parents should be communicated with? Should the squeaky wheels get the oil? The quiet wheels? All the wheels? How should difficult parents be dealt with?


Douglas: Like voting, communicating with parents should be done early and often. Last year, within the first two weeks of school, I mailed a letter to parents introducing myself, detailing the expectations I had of their children, and inviting them to tell me with any specifics they had of their child that would help me teach them better. In addition, I kept a blog so it was transparent with both students and parents what was happening in class. I did this trying to put any problems that would later come up within the context of a pre-existing relationship as opposed to the problem becoming the context of the relationship itself. Did it work? Mostly. On several occasions a parent emailed me with a concern that was solved much more easily because we had built some trust between us.

I was once told that 95% of parents are reasonable human beings, anxious that their children succeed. Those parents you can work with by just listening and trying to understand them before working on a solution. 5% of parents are "toxic parents," parents who, once you've pissed off, you will never be able to please. When you face a toxic parent, I pray that you have an administration that supports you and is willing to deal with them for you. That's where your reputation dealing with other parents will take you a long way. If other parents have told administrators of your courtesy dealing with them or your success in finding common solutions, complaints by toxic parents will carry much less weight.


Jack: On back to school night in October I would get email addresses from parents and make a list, adding addresses to my list as I received messages from other parents, ran into them at school, etc. Ultimately, I had a pretty comprehensive list and tried to do two things with it.

First, I tried to be in touch with each parent at least once over the semester. That doesn't sound like a lot, but I feel like it was important just so parents knew that I was their ally, and sometimes doing a little is better than doing nothing. Relatedly, my second reason was to head off problems before they became larger. Being in touch with parents when an issue was nascent was appreciated by parents, but I did it more for myself. Sending an email home about a student who hadn't completed a few homework assignments, or who had failed a second essay, or who had lied to me, always ended up making my life easier than allowing students to hide their activities from their parents and bringing the issue to my door a month later.

The downside to all of this communication was that parents had the opportunity to express their anxiety in a way that involved me (and occasionally blamed me). So, I had to learn how to be diplomatic, calm, and pragmatically detached.

The upside to all of this communication was that parents also had a means of giving me positive feedback, which teachers need and so rarely get. Ultimately, it would only be two or three parents who took the time to write and say that everything was great, but those stayed in my inbox all year long.

A final note: email is so bad at conveying tone, so conducive to ranting, and still not available to all parents. It's great because it's quick, but sometimes, it was better to send an email asking a parent to just come in for a meeting, or to just pick up the phone and call.


Mike: In my first year of teaching, I had a pleasant, mild-mannered advisee named Mike. Mike enjoyed playing video games, math class, and hitting the bong. He and I spoke frequently and had a solid relationship, during which I encouraged him to pursue the games and the math, and not the reefer.

His mother was not as mild mannered. She called me almost nightly to check up on her son and behaved in a way I can only describe as bi-polar. Her calls were not helping Mike at all, and I felt harassed. Eventually, the head of the school made her sign a contract that stipulated if she ever called me again, her son would be expelled.

Clearly, not all communication is good communication.

Parents are one of the variables in teaching, and since they are variable, I don't think I could ever offer general advice. Family dynamics, gender, the age of the students, the goals of the class (and of the school), the student's personality. . . all of these factors will influence the frequency and method of my communication with parents. The teacher should set goals vis-a-vis parents that support the overall educational project.

For another extreme example, consider my current job in a Chinese University. I never speak to my students' parents, and couldn't really do so even if I wanted to (most of them speak dialects of Chinese I cannot understand). My students are emotionally quite similar to middle-schoolers in America. Parental contact might be helpful. But would it make sense? Perhaps it's time for these young adults to learn how to be independent, how to communicate on their own, and how to fight their own battles.


Moses: Communicating with parents is necessary because they're a critical part of the process of helping our students to mature and grow. That works tremendously well when you're on the same page, naturally, but I've also found that at my school there is a a population of parents who expects better-than-great things for their children. As all parents should, certainly, but there's a line between expectations and entitlement that gets a little blurry.

I have dealt with difficult parents by being clear about my goals, my philosophy, and my expectations for the students. That way, when it comes into question, I feel like I can speak clearly and confidently about why I'm making the choices that I'm making. When I first started teaching, this was really hard for me - who was I, a 22 year old kid, to tell them about what their kids needed? - but I've learned to trust myself as I've become more experienced. Hypothetically, I think if that weren't to work, I wouldn't feel bad looking to the administrators for some guidance. Do they support me? Am I out of line with the school's approach and philosophy?

In terms of who to communicate with, I think the squeaky wheel phenomena looms large. In some ways, it makes teaching feel like putting out fires but, like I said before, at its best parent communication allows you to form a wider net to support and help the student. I've found that being honest with parents has worked wonders far more often than its gotten me into trouble (never, I think)...diplomatic, yes, but honest.

On the subject of which parents, I did want to mention that there was a day a few years ago where I called all the parents of the students who were doing well in my classes, just to pass that along. It was, without a doubt, one of the most positive experiences of my life. The parents were surprised to hear from me, proud of their kids, glowing with love...it was beautiful and an important reminder of the need to communicate with everyone. (It also didn't hurt that many of these parents expressed a lot of gratitude towards me for the work I was doing.) It's a little sad to me that I've only found time to do this once in six years, but parent communication takes time and there's just not enough. So it's sad, but I'm glad to know that I did it and that I still have that to play when I'm not feeling so good about students or the work that I'm doing.