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Key points
- When giving positive feedback, be specific about what a teacher did that positively impacted your child.
- Don’t assume your child’s teacher knows how you appreciate their efforts with your child.
- Thanking teachers in writing and copying administrators can get you and your child goodwill.
A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post about generosity. This month, I'd like to focus on the important quality that acknowledges generosity: gratitude. Gratitude demonstrates appreciation and offers thanks for others' gifts, help, or kindness. Both generosity and gratitude are qualities that draw others to us, and both can be cultivated and nurtured in even very young children. To do that, though, we may want to start with ourselves.
While most of my posts have explored ways parents can positively affect their children's well-being in school, I am going to take a more indirect approach in this post by encouraging parents to show gratitude toward their children's teachers. Shifting focus from your children to those who teach them gives you an opportunity to boost the morale of teachers you appreciate and, if your kids are older, to model showing your appreciation. It can also have long-term benefits for your children and to your reputation among their teachers, and it can even positively affect the children those teachers teach in the future.
You may be surprised to learn how rarely parents or students thank teachers for the time and effort they take to guide and instruct their students. The reality is that teachers are leaving their classroom careers at higher rates than ever. They are increasingly burdened by enormous workloads and demanding administrators and often feel underappreciated by parents and students. COVID exacerbated this situation, and it was the last straw for many exhausted and underpaid teachers.
The end of the school year is a perfect time to let the teachers for whom you have been grateful know about the differences they made in your children's lives. If your children's teachers encouraged them, inspired them to believe in themselves, gently pushed them to be their best selves, or even saved them from themselves at times, letting those teachers know that you are aware of and appreciative of the special care they gave your kids will make them feel seen and valued.
Parents of especially challenging children—perhaps those with a learning or behavioral issue—may feel grateful that a teacher kept them from being marginalized in the classroom, building bridges that helped the other kids work with theirs. Parents of high-achieving children may feel fortunate that a teacher went out of their way to suggest extra reading or enrichment opportunities to encourage their kids' enthusiasm for a subject. If you know that your children are easily triggered, but they have a teacher who thinks they are fabulous, acknowledge the teacher's skill at anticipating triggers and avoiding the kinds of tricky outcomes you have seen in past years. These kinds of teachers are exceptional and need to hear it.
Expressing your gratitude in writing is best because it can be looked at for years. I know teachers who have a folder in their desks called their "rainy day file" containing messages that remind them on challenging school days why they get up every morning to do what they do. If you send an email, consider cc-ing the teacher's supervisor. School administrators rarely get to watch their faculty in action, so giving them glimpses into talented teachers' classrooms will make them feel proud, too. Administrators may even share your words about the teacher with the rest of the faculty as an example of the kind of teaching valued in their school. It also keeps special teachers in mind for teaching awards and other opportunities to showcase what they do well.
Many parents send their kids to school with token gifts for teachers on the last day of the year. The kind of note I am talking about is more personal and specifically directed at expressing how teachers made a difference in your kids' lives. The more specific you are in describing what you have appreciated, the more likely these teachers will be inspired to continue teaching with the attentiveness and passion they brought to your children's classrooms. It is incredibly energizing for teachers to realize that what they have strived to accomplish has hit the mark. Although your primary purpose is not getting teachers to say nice things about you, it will likely be a side benefit of your expression of gratitude. We tend to like people who value us; when the words are genuine and specific, they carry more weight.
If your children are older, you can tell them you are writing a thank-you letter to their teacher, teaching them to do the same. While there's certainly an expectation that all teachers provide support to their students, the degree of that support and the willingness and effort they take to provide it are all qualities your older child should be aware of. There's no teacher who won't appreciate being appreciated.
