Preparing For A Parent/Teacher Conference

The school year is now in full swing, and you, mom, might be nearing the dreaded “Parent/teacher conference.” It might be your first, or it might be your millionth. Either way it’s coming and it’s always good to be prepared. As a former teacher, I’m here to offer a few pieces of advice to help ease into your next parent/teacher conference.

• Remember first impressions are important. I’ll never forget the parent that came into a parent/teacher conference with a bag of extra tissues, hand sanitizer, and cookies for us, their child’s teachers. It really set an amazing tone that they were there to help and support us no matter what. 
• Remember the teacher is there to help. It is our job to work with all kinds of children and personalities. We have often seen similar things in other kids and have some ideas on what might work. Let us help.
• Remember the teacher might know more about your child than you think they do. We are with your child many hours a day and for a whole year. We see how they interact with adults and peers. We know who their best friends are. We know who gnaws on their pencil and who dots their eyes with a circle instead of a simple dot. So if we say we notice something out of the ordinary, then trust us. 
• Don’t assume your child is always an angel. We’ve all seen the “my child can do no wrong” kind of parent on the playground. They are a pain to deal with as a parent and as a teacher. Please don’t be that parent.
• On the other hand, don’t assume your kid is the worst. I’ve also seen the flip side where the parent is ridiculously hard on their child, who is in fact an angel. Cut them some slack sometimes. They are still just kids.
• Sometimes it’s beneficial to have your child in the meeting too, but not all the time. Again, prepare a bit for this. Think if there is something you want to talk about in private or if you want your child to be a part of the conversation. Ask the teacher if they think it would help to have your child in the meeting. It can also be nice to have part of the meeting with just the parent/teacher and then part of the meeting with the child in the room as well to address the plan you as adults have come up with.
• Please don’t undermine the authority of the teacher in front of your child. You might not like your child’s teacher one bit. Sometimes that happens. But if you undermine the authority of the teacher in front of your child, you have just given them license to as well when you aren’t around. They will act that way in front of their peers and that could really hinder a classroom environment. We all have had to work with people we don’t necessarily like, but part of growing up is learning how to work with them anyway. 
• Do share if there are certain special circumstances going on at home. Sometimes your child tells us everything, and sometimes they don’t. We don’t always know. We get it. Life happens. More often than not, your teacher will be understanding and allow for makeup work, re-dos, or slightly late work if your child needs extra time. Just send us a quick email, or give us a phone call.
• Please respect our rules and policies. As a teacher I know that sometimes certain school rules may seem stupid or useless, but I still have to enforce them. There can be district rules/policies or school rules/policies that I don’t like either, but again, it’s my job to enforce them so please don’t get mad at me when I do. 
• Advocating for your child doesn’t mean you have to be confrontational. We as parents are often our child’s biggest supporters and helpers, but your child’s teacher wants to help them too. Please don’t come in guns blazing and looking for a fight. Have a dialogue.
• Please respect our time. We only have so many minutes in our day to have a conference with you the parents and often times it is right in the middle of both of our work days. Please be on time, and realize that if we have to end a meeting, it’s usually because we have kids coming to our room in mere minutes. When time is up, then time is up. If you feel like you need more time, then schedule another meeting.
• Remember that sometimes it can take a little while to see results. You can’t expect to go from having a student who is getting C’s to suddenly go to having A+ grades overnight just because we had a conference. It can take a few weeks for new strategies to start working at home and in the classroom. Be patient and know we are all working toward the same goal of helping your child succeed.
• Be open to trying new strategies. If we offer some kind of advice on how to approach a math problem, or how to help your child enjoy reading at home more, then try it out. Our job as teachers is to be up to date on new educational ideas so let us help.
• Remember a teacher is not a _________ (babysitter, counselor, other parent etc.) It is our responsibility to teach content. It is not our job to be your child’s parent. It’s not the school’s responsibility to entertain your child or make them happy all of the time. Yes we often fill many other roles besides just teacher of content, but you can’t expect that we will automatically do all of those things. We have our own families and children to take care of too. 
• Don’t forget that you and the teacher are on the same side. No teacher is out to get a kid. No teacher goes into the profession because we want to make kids cry or be mean to them. We aren’t some stereotypical Miss Trunchbull from the book Matilda. We want to help. We didn’t go into this profession for the salary or “summers off.” We did it because we loved school ourselves and want future generations to enjoy learning just as much as we did/do. We want to help raise good people and productive members of society. We want to see your children succeed. If they succeed, that means we succeeded at our job.