Thomas J. West Music

In my years of teaching, it is a comment I've heard come up many times from many different teachers: "Teaching would be great if I could just work with the students and never have to deal with their crazy parents!" For many teachers, calling parents is the "last resort" when dealing with a challenging student. I was one of those teachers until recently.

Dealing With Confrontation

For most people, confronting someone you disagree with or who you know will not like what you have to tell them is not a pleasant experience. I was painfully shy as a child to the point where I was reluctant to even speak up if someone was standing on my foot. When I first started teaching full-time, I found out the hard way that if you don't communicate regularly with parents, they jump to their own conclusions based on their own perspective, and that usually means a lot of misunderstanding.

Dealing with confrontational parents and even confrontational students can be a situation when you need to enlist another teacher or an administrator for help. There are few sensations less appealing than shaking hands, waivering voice, and a pounding heart that can result from a confrontation. Don't do it alone if you know it's going to be unpleasant.

Phone-a-Phobia

Until just a few years ago, I used to be afraid of calling people on the telephone. There was something about the uncertainty of not knowing who was going to answer that made me nervous. I got over my fear by approaching phone calls differently in my mind. Instead of "I don't know what's going to happen," I approach it with "I have information that is going to help this family."

Another way to get better at making phone calls is to make them when the student has done something positive. When a teacher calls home, parents are almost always expecting bad news because most teachers reserve calling home as a last resort. Call a parent and surprise them with good news. You will quickly find out that even when you have bad news to tell them, most parents want to be helpful to both you and their child.

No Teacher Like A Parent

It wan't until I became a parent myself that I truly understood the importance of parents in the education of their children. It hit me all at once. I was travelling home with a car load of students from a band rehearsal in less-than-favorable winter driving conditions. Now that I had my own baby at home to come home to, it struck me that I had three other father's babies in the car with me. Needless to say, I was rather tense that whole car ride until they were safely back home.

If you are a teacher and you've never been a parent, you really are working from a disadvantage. It is impossible to describe the intimacy and connection a parent has with their children, particularly if the parent is the primary care giver. You've known that person their entire life and understand their normal patterns of behavior better than just about anyone. Most parents have also had the experience of having their children act up and misbehave at home but go to school and be angels for everyone else.

Parents have the "inside track" on what motivates, frustrates, and confounds their children. The parents are the ones that taught them to eat with utensils, use the restroom, brush their teeth, and many other life skills we take for granted. Even "neglectful" parents have made it possible for their child to attend the classroom in some fashion. Many teachers complain that their students are overscheduled and actually don't know their busy professional parents well. This may be the case, but unless the child is parenting themselves, there is someone in their life who has that parenting role.

Parents want to know when their children are being unkind in the classroom. Parents want to know if there is bullying or hazing going on. Parents want to reinforce any consequences that happen in the classroom by having similar consequences at home. Parents want to know what's going on in the classroom, and the older a child gets, the less forthcoming they tend to be with details.

When The Parent Is A Barrier

This past school year, I had a situation where the parent treated everyone else in the educational process as an enemy rather than a partner in education. It was a very difficult situation to manage for everyone, including the administration. I have seen parents allow their own perception of what their son/daughter "should be" or "what kind of person they are" create obstacles for both the student and the teacher. I've also seen parents try to reclaim lost personal glory by living vicariously through their child's activities.

As Keanu Reeves's character in the movie Parenthood stated, "You need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car, hell, you even need a license to catch a fish, but they'll let any [explative] be a father." There is no instruction manual for parenthood, and even the books that offer suggestions don't apply to all of the unique combination of elements that makes up a child. Parents start out as protectors and boundary-setters and end up being cheerleaders and support staff as their child grows older. Sometimes striking the correct balance between "knowing what is best for you" and "letting you make your own mistakes" is the most challenging part of being a parent.

Parents are learning and growing by raising their children. My children and my wife have taught me more about myself than anyone else in my life. One of the best ways for parents to become better parents is for them to interact with their child's teachers. Sometimes, when the parent is the barrier to progress in this triangle between parent, student, and teacher, it is hard for them to hear that their attitude is a problem. In situations such as these, all that can be done is tactfully and kindly point out the issue and consistently document examples of the problem. Everyone in the triangle needs to be willing to forfeit their idea of "how it should be."

Make Parents' Job Easier, Not Harder

Having suffered through my son's 2nd grade diorama project last year, here are some suggestions for making parents an important part of your triangle:

• Have a simple web page, email newsletter, or communication section in the students' planner where parents can easily access information about the latest happenings in your classroom without having to hunt for it.
• Make your expectations for parent involvement clear from the beginning. If they are supposed to sign their child's homework every night, make this a written policy somewhere.
• Have the patience to repeat an announcement for the sixth time - parents have a lot on their plate at all times, especially if they have more than one child.
• Keep homework assignments that involve parent participation to a minimum.
• Don't wait until the marking period is almost over to tell a parent that their child has not turned in assignments.
• For instrumental music parents, make sure you teach both the student and the parent what an effective home practicing routine is. It astounds me that music teachers just say "practice thirty minutes a day" and expect parents and students to know how to do that.
• Direct parents to online resources that can help them facilitate students' homework needs.

One last thought: you can't force a parent to be involved in their child's education. There may be many reasons why their child's schoolwork is not a priority, none of which is really a teacher's business to know. If you have a parent that refuses to get involved, you do the best you can with a two-sided triangle.

This article (c) 2010 Thomas J. West. All content on ThomasJWestMusic dot com is licensed under a Creative Contributions Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Please contact the author before publishing on or off-line.