September 19, 2023 • 17 mins
In this episode, I delve into the art of managing difficult parent-teacher relationships to ensure a harmonious and successful school year. I share personal stories and practical advice to help you become a master of handling difficult parents. These techniques not only improve your teaching career but also benefit your students.
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Still figuring out lesson planning? Grab my free Lesson Planning Guide here 👉🏼https://teachersneedteachers.com/lessonplan
I have a new YouTube channel! Join me over there and subscribe!
Got questions, feedback, or want to be on the show? You can email me at kim@teachersneedteachers.com
Connect with me
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive teaching, but actuallythrive. Imagine having a school year so
successful that you definitely minimize the Sundayscaras and maybe even look forward to Monday
mornings. Can you imagine yourself justsailing through the struggles of dealing with high
(00:20):
maintenance parents, even if you havea particularly difficult class. Have you ever
wished for a way to navigate difficultparent teacher interactions with ease? Because here's
a thing. When you don't effectivelyhandle these situations, the stakes are high.
It cannot only affect your job orjob satisfaction, but also the student's
success, which, let's be honest, can have negative repercussions in the long
(00:44):
run. So say I'm giving youseven strategies, a teacher's toolkit if you
will, that will not only makeyour interactions with parents smoother, but will
also transform your school year. Sothe first strategy for dealing with difficult parents
is try to understand where they're comingfrom. This can be a lot easier
if you are a parent, butif you're not a parent, then maybe
try to think of it as maybebeing a pet parent, or maybe you
(01:07):
have a niece or a nephew ora younger cousin or sibling, just basically
you being in a situation where youreally 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 actuallymost of us, we just parent
the way that we were parented,and so we're basically going off of what
(01:30):
we've seen our parents do. Thatsome parents and people in general are aware
enough to not pass on any traumathat they had when they were kids.
But a lot of times people don'teven really realize how their parents created this
trauma in their lives, and sothey just end up parenting the same way
and their kids kind of get thesame trauma. So sometimes we have conflicts
(01:51):
with parents because we have expectations ofthem that really don't align with their reality
and vice versa, and so that'ssomething that we have to take into account,
especially when we're thinking about how wecommunicate with parents. For example,
you might expect a parent to bethere to read all of your emails and
read all the hand notes that yougive and to help their child with homework,
(02:12):
but that parent could be working twojobs and the student rarely ever sees
their parent, And we can't judgethat 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 involvedin 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 childor just being around at all, but
(02:35):
really we can't judge them because again, they're doing the best that they can.
Also, some parents parent out offear, and so they are worried
about things happening to their child thathappened to them, and so they're coming
from a fearful place and the interactionsthat they have with you could also be
stemming from that. So that's notto say that it's an excuse for when
parents are belligerent or when parents areunreasonable in their demands, But trying to
(03:00):
look at the situation from a moreobjective point of view will really help you
in terms of being able to communicateeffectively with them. So that brings me
to my next tip, which ishaving open communication. And so this involves
letting parents know what is going onin your class. It doesn't mean bombarding
them on a daily basis with emailsor newsletters about what the students did that
(03:22):
day, but finding a balance whereyou do communicate with parents what it is
that is happening so that they knowhow to best support their student. For
example, you could consider sending outa weekly newsletter via email or in person
so that parents know what to expectin terms of maybe any upcoming tests or
quizzes, or projects or major assignments, and then if they have the time,
(03:44):
they can help their student if needed. As I mentioned in my last
video about open house, you canalso let parents know ahead of time what
the homework schedule is. So ifyou are signing homework every night, or
if you have a major quiz onFriday that you give a study guide for
maybe on a Wednesday, let theparents know that so that they can help
their student or at least remind themto study for that quiz or remind them
(04:06):
to do homework. And then youdefinitely want to take extra steps for students
that are struggling to get their workdone or are struggling even behaviorally, So
this is when you're going to communicatewith specific parents even if they're not responding,
even if they're not picking up thephone, you just need to try
and see if you can get ahold of them and see if you can
get the students some support at home. You definitely want to cover your bases
(04:30):
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 sendout an email to all of my students
and their parents so that I canclear up any confusion. And if there's
something major coming up that I definitelythink that the parents need to help their
students study for, or more likehelp remind them to study for it or
(04:51):
be prepared for, then I willsend up communication. I don't send weekly
newsletters because the students that I haveare pretty much on top of keeping up
with their assignments and work. Butif you do have a population that struggles
a lot, or if you havea certain subset of students that are frequently
behind, then you can send somethingweekly to those parents so that they can
(05:14):
help you out, and that waythe kids are going to support both at
home and at school. So strategynumber 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 behindas in any work, is misbehaving.
We want to be in a placewhere we are empathetic and where we are
trying to come from the parent's pointof view. And here's why, even
(05:36):
if a student is legitimately being disruptive, it just like not a good person
in general. We want to bereally mindful of our home. We want
to think about the way that weare communicating or talking about that student,
their progress and their behavior in away that doesn't put the parent on the
defensive because no matter what, aparent doesn't want to think the worst things
(05:58):
about their kids because in the andit also makes them feel like a really
bad parent. So if you're tellingthem that their kid constantly misbehaves is rude,
or if you just do any kindof name calling, that's going to
put the parent on the defensive andthey are probably going to then attack and
things could get really ugly. Soyou want to think about if you were
receiving that message, that email,phone call, letter, how would you
(06:21):
receive it. So maybe if youreceive something similar about your style of teaching,
how would you feel about that?Or if maybe someone had said,
oh wow, your dog is likereally misbehaved and ugly, how would you
feel about that? So really thinkabout your tone and your delivery when it
comes to communicating with parents. Ihave personally read so many emails that other
(06:44):
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 themedit 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 thatmakes you want to improve, that makes
you want to actually work with theother person. So maybe try running that
(07:06):
email by a colleague, or ifyou trust your administrators and having them read
it, or if you don't haveanyone like that, you can definitely use
AI. There have been a fewtimes that I've used chat chept and said,
please rewrite this email in a waythat is positive and that will get
a positive response or at least ahelpful response from the other person. And
(07:28):
so you can just basically write downthe gist of what you're trying to say.
You can just put it unedited withall 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'tget mad, because think about it,
what do you really want? Whatis the result that you want from that
email? Do you want the parentto get mad? Do you want the
parent to go and beat their childfor being disrespectful? Like? What do
(07:51):
you want from the parent? Anduse that to frame how you deliver your
message. And if you use thatand I've been using that frame for many,
many years and only a couple oftimes, I've probably slipped and had
kind of a not so great tonewith expected results. But if you are
framing your message that way to geta more positive, constructive, helpful response
(08:15):
from the parent, then you needto really think about how you write those
emails and messages. So the nexttip, in addition to active listening and
being empathetic in your communications, isto 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 somethings like that. So it's a
(08:37):
good time to reiterate the policy fora particular situation. But something that really
goes a long way is flexibility.So if you tell a parent, you
know, I only allow students toretake a test if they have a seat
or below on it. But becauseI saw that Jonathan, we really struggled
with this particular unit and I didn'thave time to give him extra practice,
(09:01):
I will let him retake it ifhe has shown me that he's studied for
it. So some flexibility in therewill really go a long way in terms
of maintaining a good parent teacher relationshipthere because it really helps if the parent
is on your side and working withyou rather than blaming you for their child's
failures. And if you're going tomake any kind of accommodations for the student,
(09:22):
let the parent know what your expectationsare. So yes, I'm going
to let them turn their work inlate, but they have two days,
or I'm going to let them turnin their work a week late, but
it has to be completed or hasto be X, Y and z.
So the flexibility is there, whichmeans that you're compromising, but you still
have your expectations so that the parentknows that they're not just going to get
(09:43):
away with whatever. Now, thenext strategy which can be a little bit
hard in terms of communicating with parentsis to stay positive and professional. Now,
look, I have received my shareof nasty emails from parents because they're
just reacting and they just really don'tcare about how they're coming off via email,
and so trying to respond in away that isn't equally snarky can be
(10:05):
really difficult. I mean, let'sbe 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 defensiveor being nasty right back at them,
because I'll just tell you it's goingto escalate, it's going to get worse,
and it's probably going to move higherup the chain, which is going
to be a headache over what alate assignment, over what a student talking
(10:28):
across the room. Do you reallywant that headache just so that you can
get back at them. I mean, yeah, it would feel good to
get back at them. But youcould just write that nasty email and delete
it. I've done that many manytimes, or I've written it and shown
it to a coworker who knows aboutthe situation and be like, I really
want to say this but I'm not, and you can commiserate with them about
(10:50):
it, and then you write theemail that really you should have written.
So let's also make sure that whenwe 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'renot 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,
(11:13):
like, the student behaves this way, the student is being this way.
I know it just seems like I'msplitting hairs or that it's semantics, but
it goes a long way in termsof not making a parent want to fight
back or not making a parent wantto 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 wantagain empathy in the way that we would
(11:37):
want to perceive it. If we'vegot an email with some criticism from our
administrator, how would we want thatto be worded? How could the administrator
worded in a way that would makeus more receptive. So again, professional
and empathetic. These two things willgo along way in terms of maintaining parent
teacher relationships with all of the parentsthat your students have. Now, let's
(11:58):
say that you have a parent teachermeeting. 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 aswell. But you really aren't going to
win if it turns into a yellingmatch. So if a parent starts to
get too much in your face andstarts attacking you, you need to end
(12:22):
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 tobe coming at you in an angry way,
then I suggest that you either havean administrator there or maybe that student's
counselor or even better, if youhave 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 hopefullyback you up. Unless you don't have
(12:45):
a principle that backs you up,then use one of the other options,
but do not ever let a parentverbally attack you. Do not ever let
a meeting go to a place likethat. Just end it and leave,
ask them to leave. Just tryto keep your trust me. Now,
I alluded to this in the lasttip for the next strategy is to involve
your administration when necessary. Now,I definitely don't think that you should ever
(13:09):
just escalate things to your principle rightaway. 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 somethingthat 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 thatrelationship with the student. You're going to
(13:30):
view with them the whole year.Then you want to talk to the parent
and see if you can work withthem. And if that doesn't work.
After you've taken those steps, thenit's good to involve the counselor or the
administration. They need to be thereto back you up. I know that
for some of you you don't haveadministrators that will back you up. However,
you do want to at least letthem know of the situation, because
(13:52):
at least you can say that youtold them, even if they do nothing
about it, and you want toput 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 aboutthis. I definitely gave you information
about it, and so here weare. Now what Because your administrator should
definitely back you up as a teacher, and if they don't, you have
(14:13):
to see if there's someone else abovethem 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 apattern with a student, you want
to keep a log of strategies thatyou've used to work with them. Whether
(14:35):
it's a behavior thing or if it'san academic thing, you want to keep
a log because if you've been usingcertain strategies to try to get them to
behave in class, or if you'redoing extra scaffolding or extra measures to get
them to be successful, you wantto make sure that you have a log.
That way, if someone comes backto you and says that you didn't
do anything, you have proof.You also want to keep a log of
(14:58):
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 inclass, or for a student not passing
your class or not being successful ornot having gains that the parent and the
school had expected, you can showthem that you have had these conversations,
(15:20):
you've done X, y and Zfor 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 yourbutt. I know that some of these
tips can skew a little bit onthe negative, and a lot of the
time, if you have a studentthat's doing what they're supposed to do,
you're not going to have to worryabout them. If you have supportive parents
(15:43):
who are making sure that their studentdoes what they're supposed to do, or
who's already on top of it whentheir student is struggling, you don't have
to worry about it. You mainlyhave to worry about the parents who are
going to blame you for everything that'shappening, for who is going to attack
you for things that you're doing inyour class in terms of how you teach
or what you teach, or parentswho want to nitpick about every single thing
(16:04):
and want extra help or extra specialattention for their student. Those are the
parents that you have to work withand worry about, and they're the ones
who are going to probably cause themost anxiety for you. But it doesn't
have to be that way. Ifyou are proactive in terms of the way
that you communicate with them. Oftenyou communicate with them, and just keeping
(16:25):
in mind that they are doing thebest 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 thatway, but you can really minimize those
negative interactions if you follow these sevenstrategies. I really wanted to thank you
guys for being here this week.I also really love getting messages from you,
(16:48):
and I'm really grateful for those ofyou that have reached out and told
me about how you listen to thepodcast and how you've been binge listening to
it. And I really also lovelistener questions because a lot of times it
gives me inspiration for what episodes Ineed 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 difficultfor me to really know what it is
(17:12):
that you need right now. AndI also don't necessarily want to just keep
repeating myself. I want to makeit so that when you do come here
to this podcast on my lately sporadicschedule because school's been a lot right now.
But I just want to so thatwhen you do come back current episode,
that it's just what you need justin time. So if you do
(17:33):
have any ideas for future episodes,please be sure to send me an email
at Kim at teachers Need teachers dotcom and I'll reply to you. Just
so you know, I do replyto my email. Sometimes it takes me
like a week, but I doreply to my emails. But also,
like I said, it could bethe topic for my next episode like this
one today. Thanks for hanging outwith me today, you guys, and
(17:55):
I will see you next time.
Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive teaching, but actuallythrive. Imagine having a school year so
successful that you definitely minimize the Sundayscaras and maybe even look forward to Monday
mornings. Can you imagine yourself justsailing through the struggles of dealing with high
(00:20):
maintenance parents, even if you havea particularly difficult class. Have you ever
wished for a way to navigate difficultparent teacher interactions with ease? Because here's
a thing. When you don't effectivelyhandle these situations, the stakes are high.
It cannot only affect your job orjob satisfaction, but also the student's
success, which, let's be honest, can have negative repercussions in the long
(00:44):
run. So say I'm giving youseven strategies, a teacher's toolkit if you
will, that will not only makeyour interactions with parents smoother, but will
also transform your school year. Sothe first strategy for dealing with difficult parents
is try to understand where they're comingfrom. This can be a lot easier
if you are a parent, butif you're not a parent, then maybe
try to think of it as maybebeing a pet parent, or maybe you
(01:07):
have a niece or a nephew ora younger cousin or sibling, just basically
you being in a situation where youreally 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 actuallymost of us, we just parent
the way that we were parented,and so we're basically going off of what
(01:30):
we've seen our parents do. Thatsome parents and people in general are aware
enough to not pass on any traumathat they had when they were kids.
But a lot of times people don'teven really realize how their parents created this
trauma in their lives, and sothey just end up parenting the same way
and their kids kind of get thesame trauma. So sometimes we have conflicts
(01:51):
with parents because we have expectations ofthem that really don't align with their reality
and vice versa, and so that'ssomething that we have to take into account,
especially when we're thinking about how wecommunicate with parents. For example,
you might expect a parent to bethere to read all of your emails and
read all the hand notes that yougive and to help their child with homework,
(02:12):
but that parent could be working twojobs and the student rarely ever sees
their parent, And we can't judgethat 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 involvedin 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 childor just being around at all, but
(02:35):
really we can't judge them because again, they're doing the best that they can.
Also, some parents parent out offear, and so they are worried
about things happening to their child thathappened to them, and so they're coming
from a fearful place and the interactionsthat they have with you could also be
stemming from that. So that's notto say that it's an excuse for when
parents are belligerent or when parents areunreasonable in their demands, But trying to
(03:00):
look at the situation from a moreobjective point of view will really help you
in terms of being able to communicateeffectively with them. So that brings me
to my next tip, which ishaving open communication. And so this involves
letting parents know what is going onin your class. It doesn't mean bombarding
them on a daily basis with emailsor newsletters about what the students did that
(03:22):
day, but finding a balance whereyou do communicate with parents what it is
that is happening so that they knowhow to best support their student. For
example, you could consider sending outa weekly newsletter via email or in person
so that parents know what to expectin terms of maybe any upcoming tests or
quizzes, or projects or major assignments, and then if they have the time,
(03:44):
they can help their student if needed. As I mentioned in my last
video about open house, you canalso let parents know ahead of time what
the homework schedule is. So ifyou are signing homework every night, or
if you have a major quiz onFriday that you give a study guide for
maybe on a Wednesday, let theparents know that so that they can help
their student or at least remind themto study for that quiz or remind them
(04:06):
to do homework. And then youdefinitely want to take extra steps for students
that are struggling to get their workdone or are struggling even behaviorally, So
this is when you're going to communicatewith specific parents even if they're not responding,
even if they're not picking up thephone, you just need to try
and see if you can get ahold of them and see if you can
get the students some support at home. You definitely want to cover your bases
(04:30):
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 sendout an email to all of my students
and their parents so that I canclear up any confusion. And if there's
something major coming up that I definitelythink that the parents need to help their
students study for, or more likehelp remind them to study for it or
(04:51):
be prepared for, then I willsend up communication. I don't send weekly
newsletters because the students that I haveare pretty much on top of keeping up
with their assignments and work. Butif you do have a population that struggles
a lot, or if you havea certain subset of students that are frequently
behind, then you can send somethingweekly to those parents so that they can
(05:14):
help you out, and that waythe kids are going to support both at
home and at school. So strategynumber 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 behindas in any work, is misbehaving.
We want to be in a placewhere we are empathetic and where we are
trying to come from the parent's pointof view. And here's why, even
(05:36):
if a student is legitimately being disruptive, it just like not a good person
in general. We want to bereally mindful of our home. We want
to think about the way that weare communicating or talking about that student,
their progress and their behavior in away that doesn't put the parent on the
defensive because no matter what, aparent doesn't want to think the worst things
(05:58):
about their kids because in the andit also makes them feel like a really
bad parent. So if you're tellingthem that their kid constantly misbehaves is rude,
or if you just do any kindof name calling, that's going to
put the parent on the defensive andthey are probably going to then attack and
things could get really ugly. Soyou want to think about if you were
receiving that message, that email,phone call, letter, how would you
(06:21):
receive it. So maybe if youreceive something similar about your style of teaching,
how would you feel about that?Or if maybe someone had said,
oh wow, your dog is likereally misbehaved and ugly, how would you
feel about that? So really thinkabout your tone and your delivery when it
comes to communicating with parents. Ihave personally read so many emails that other
(06:44):
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 themedit 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 thatmakes you want to improve, that makes
you want to actually work with theother person. So maybe try running that
(07:06):
email by a colleague, or ifyou trust your administrators and having them read
it, or if you don't haveanyone like that, you can definitely use
AI. There have been a fewtimes that I've used chat chept and said,
please rewrite this email in a waythat is positive and that will get
a positive response or at least ahelpful response from the other person. And
(07:28):
so you can just basically write downthe gist of what you're trying to say.
You can just put it unedited withall 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'tget mad, because think about it,
what do you really want? Whatis the result that you want from that
email? Do you want the parentto get mad? Do you want the
parent to go and beat their childfor being disrespectful? Like? What do
(07:51):
you want from the parent? Anduse that to frame how you deliver your
message. And if you use thatand I've been using that frame for many,
many years and only a couple oftimes, I've probably slipped and had
kind of a not so great tonewith expected results. But if you are
framing your message that way to geta more positive, constructive, helpful response
(08:15):
from the parent, then you needto really think about how you write those
emails and messages. So the nexttip, in addition to active listening and
being empathetic in your communications, isto 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 somethings like that. So it's a
(08:37):
good time to reiterate the policy fora particular situation. But something that really
goes a long way is flexibility.So if you tell a parent, you
know, I only allow students toretake a test if they have a seat
or below on it. But becauseI saw that Jonathan, we really struggled
with this particular unit and I didn'thave time to give him extra practice,
(09:01):
I will let him retake it ifhe has shown me that he's studied for
it. So some flexibility in therewill really go a long way in terms
of maintaining a good parent teacher relationshipthere because it really helps if the parent
is on your side and working withyou rather than blaming you for their child's
failures. And if you're going tomake any kind of accommodations for the student,
(09:22):
let the parent know what your expectationsare. So yes, I'm going
to let them turn their work inlate, but they have two days,
or I'm going to let them turnin their work a week late, but
it has to be completed or hasto be X, Y and z.
So the flexibility is there, whichmeans that you're compromising, but you still
have your expectations so that the parentknows that they're not just going to get
(09:43):
away with whatever. Now, thenext strategy which can be a little bit
hard in terms of communicating with parentsis to stay positive and professional. Now,
look, I have received my shareof nasty emails from parents because they're
just reacting and they just really don'tcare about how they're coming off via email,
and so trying to respond in away that isn't equally snarky can be
(10:05):
really difficult. I mean, let'sbe 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 defensiveor being nasty right back at them,
because I'll just tell you it's goingto escalate, it's going to get worse,
and it's probably going to move higherup the chain, which is going
to be a headache over what alate assignment, over what a student talking
(10:28):
across the room. Do you reallywant that headache just so that you can
get back at them. I mean, yeah, it would feel good to
get back at them. But youcould just write that nasty email and delete
it. I've done that many manytimes, or I've written it and shown
it to a coworker who knows aboutthe situation and be like, I really
want to say this but I'm not, and you can commiserate with them about
(10:50):
it, and then you write theemail that really you should have written.
So let's also make sure that whenwe 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'renot 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,
(11:13):
like, the student behaves this way, the student is being this way.
I know it just seems like I'msplitting hairs or that it's semantics, but
it goes a long way in termsof not making a parent want to fight
back or not making a parent wantto 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 wantagain empathy in the way that we would
(11:37):
want to perceive it. If we'vegot an email with some criticism from our
administrator, how would we want thatto be worded? How could the administrator
worded in a way that would makeus more receptive. So again, professional
and empathetic. These two things willgo along way in terms of maintaining parent
teacher relationships with all of the parentsthat your students have. Now, let's
(11:58):
say that you have a parent teachermeeting. 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 aswell. But you really aren't going to
win if it turns into a yellingmatch. So if a parent starts to
get too much in your face andstarts attacking you, you need to end
(12:22):
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 tobe coming at you in an angry way,
then I suggest that you either havean administrator there or maybe that student's
counselor or even better, if youhave 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 hopefullyback you up. Unless you don't have
(12:45):
a principle that backs you up,then use one of the other options,
but do not ever let a parentverbally attack you. Do not ever let
a meeting go to a place likethat. Just end it and leave,
ask them to leave. Just tryto keep your trust me. Now,
I alluded to this in the lasttip for the next strategy is to involve
your administration when necessary. Now,I definitely don't think that you should ever
(13:09):
just escalate things to your principle rightaway. 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 somethingthat 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 thatrelationship with the student. You're going to
(13:30):
view with them the whole year.Then you want to talk to the parent
and see if you can work withthem. And if that doesn't work.
After you've taken those steps, thenit's good to involve the counselor or the
administration. They need to be thereto back you up. I know that
for some of you you don't haveadministrators that will back you up. However,
you do want to at least letthem know of the situation, because
(13:52):
at least you can say that youtold them, even if they do nothing
about it, and you want toput 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 aboutthis. I definitely gave you information
about it, and so here weare. Now what Because your administrator should
definitely back you up as a teacher, and if they don't, you have
(14:13):
to see if there's someone else abovethem 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 apattern with a student, you want
to keep a log of strategies thatyou've used to work with them. Whether
(14:35):
it's a behavior thing or if it'san academic thing, you want to keep
a log because if you've been usingcertain strategies to try to get them to
behave in class, or if you'redoing extra scaffolding or extra measures to get
them to be successful, you wantto make sure that you have a log.
That way, if someone comes backto you and says that you didn't
do anything, you have proof.You also want to keep a log of
(14:58):
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 inclass, or for a student not passing
your class or not being successful ornot having gains that the parent and the
school had expected, you can showthem that you have had these conversations,
(15:20):
you've done X, y and Zfor 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 yourbutt. I know that some of these
tips can skew a little bit onthe negative, and a lot of the
time, if you have a studentthat's doing what they're supposed to do,
you're not going to have to worryabout them. If you have supportive parents
(15:43):
who are making sure that their studentdoes what they're supposed to do, or
who's already on top of it whentheir student is struggling, you don't have
to worry about it. You mainlyhave to worry about the parents who are
going to blame you for everything that'shappening, for who is going to attack
you for things that you're doing inyour class in terms of how you teach
or what you teach, or parentswho want to nitpick about every single thing
(16:04):
and want extra help or extra specialattention for their student. Those are the
parents that you have to work withand worry about, and they're the ones
who are going to probably cause themost anxiety for you. But it doesn't
have to be that way. Ifyou are proactive in terms of the way
that you communicate with them. Oftenyou communicate with them, and just keeping
(16:25):
in mind that they are doing thebest 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 thatway, but you can really minimize those
negative interactions if you follow these sevenstrategies. I really wanted to thank you
guys for being here this week.I also really love getting messages from you,
(16:48):
and I'm really grateful for those ofyou that have reached out and told
me about how you listen to thepodcast and how you've been binge listening to
it. And I really also lovelistener questions because a lot of times it
gives me inspiration for what episodes Ineed 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 difficultfor me to really know what it is
(17:12):
that you need right now. AndI also don't necessarily want to just keep
repeating myself. I want to makeit so that when you do come here
to this podcast on my lately sporadicschedule because school's been a lot right now.
But I just want to so thatwhen you do come back current episode,
that it's just what you need justin time. So if you do
(17:33):
have any ideas for future episodes,please be sure to send me an email
at Kim at teachers Need teachers dotcom and I'll reply to you. Just
so you know, I do replyto my email. Sometimes it takes me
like a week, but I doreply to my emails. But also,
like I said, it could bethe topic for my next episode like this
one today. Thanks for hanging outwith me today, you guys, and
(17:55):
I will see you next time.
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