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Key points
- Parents who gossip about members of the school community are seen as troublemakers who can’t be trusted.
- When parents take concerns about teachers to administrators, it makes teachers feel stressed and resentful.
- Parents who contact the school too frequently with their concerns are a burden for overworked teachers.
- It’s all about the long haul of figuring out how to best get along with one's children’s teachers.
This past June, I met with several teachers and asked them what things they would like to tell parents but never do for various reasons. Before the new school year begins, I thought it might be helpful to share some of what they said:
Don’t gossip about other kids, parents, teachers, or administrators.
Parents who gossip have a reputation among the adults who work at the school, and it isn’t a good one. The school will see you as a troublemaker, even if what you say contains truth. Schools are no different than any other organization or institution: They don’t want problems, and that’s what you are creating for them if you spread what you know about other children, parents, and employees of the school. Whether intentionally or inadvertently, you have made more work for the administrators, who now must deal with the attention you called to an issue they were trying to deal with more quietly.
The more provocative your observation, or the newer the information, the more exciting it will be to others. Your peers will then take what you have said and spread it to get attention for themselves, and when they mention the source of the information, it will be you who ends up being resented. Even if parents perversely enjoy having you stir things up and create excitement in the community, they will also grow wary of you, knowing that you talk a lot and to a lot of people. It should make sense that shocking others at the expense of other members of the school community is not advisable if you are trying to become a trusted and valued part of it.
Additionally, if you have learned anything from social media and how pervasively and quickly it spreads information, you should know nothing good comes from a negative text about others in your community. As with gossip, others will recognize that you could just as easily have distributed a text about them or their child, and they will protect themselves from you, either by pulling away from you or talking negatively about you to others. Be prepared for at least one of the recipients of your group text or email to show it to a teacher or administrator.
If you have a problem with individual teachers, address them directly.
We all know that K-12 teachers feel pressured and undervalued. Teachers are not treated with the same respect they once were. Many teachers, trying to satisfy both administrators and parents, struggle to meet everyone’s demands.
So, when you have questions about something upsetting that your children tell you happened at school, take your questions directly to the teacher involved. If you feel hesitant about how best to approach a teacher about an issue, seek guidance from the school’s counselor or psychologist. They are skilled at having difficult conversations and may have some advice for you. You don’t even need to reveal the name of the person with whom you want to have this difficult conversation.
Even though you may think, “Why not go to the administrators? They have power over the teacher,” that’s exactly why they shouldn’t be your first point of contact unless your concern is about a serious threat of danger. Doing so will only undermine their trust and breed ill will.
This is because speaking with administrators necessitates a different kind of action toward your child’s teacher than speaking privately and confidentially with a guidance counselor. When teachers know their superiors have been contacted about them, it can make them feel defensive, stressed, and resentful. You don’t want them to transfer these feelings onto your child.
Although teachers are amazing and skilled in many ways, there can be aspects of their practice that are less well-developed. Some of these may be habits or the result of less experience. A single conversation with a teacher may not solve your problem entirely, but teachers will be more dedicated to working with you if you bring your concerns to them directly and offer them an opportunity to address them.
Limit your communications with the school.
To avoid being viewed as needy or high-maintenance, don’t communicate concerns with the school more than once a week. Once a month would be even better. Even if you are reaching out to different people at the school, there is a lot of shared internal communication among teachers and administrators.
Given how exhausted school personnel have become, in part as a consequence of COVID, they are worn down by parents who need a lot of their time. When they see your email or phone number on the caller ID for the umpteenth time that week or month, they privately sigh and wonder, “What do they need this time?” It doesn’t matter if you are nice. It still represents time they have to take away from their many other teaching responsibilities to communicate with you, problem-solve your issue, and then follow up with you or anyone else at the school who will want a heads-up about your conversation.
If you must communicate, make it short—a paragraph or less. Don’t expect a reply over a holiday or weekend—or even the same evening. Let the teacher know that you recognize how busy they are during the day and that you understand they may not even have a chance to read your email until the next school day is over. Your appreciation for their responsibilities will go far.
Stick to one issue at a time. Although you may have several reasonable issues to discuss with the school, you need to prioritize the most essential so as not to exhaust any of the personnel by discussing all of them at once. If they are overwhelmed by a list of concerns, they will be less able to address any of them fully. Ask yourself if anything catastrophic will happen if you wait a day or a week to bring it up. If the answer is “Probably not,” then consider waiting.
Keep things in perspective.
These tips are only reminders. You may forget them on occasion, and you may not agree with all of them. They are not fail-proof; they are just pieces of advice that echo faculty-room comments I have heard over the years. They encourage the kind of positive rapport you want teachers to have with you and extend to your child.
Good luck with this new school year.
References
Aslan, D. (2016, March 21). Primary School Teachers’ Perception on Parental Involment: A Quliatative Case Study. International Journal of Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v5n2p131
