I believe with my whole heart that every teacher starts his or her year wanting meaningful relationships with students and their families. If you have a tender heart like me, it can crush you to find out that a parent is not pleased with you. I know that I am not the only one. You guys have told me. I don’t claim to be an expert at building parent/teacher relationships, but I firmly believe some of these tips will help you.

Tip 1

Make contact before school starts. This could be a phone call, visit, or handwritten card. This gesture will not go unnoticed, even if they never acknowledge it.

Tip 2

Call parents by their name. I know it can be hard to memorize all of your students names and all the people connected to them. Knowing a parent’s name when you see them at school events or in carpool is a great way to engage in conversation. Recalling someone’s name in a conversation is a sign of respect. I will be the first to admit that I am HORRIBLE at remembering names. However, I try my best to try to remember all the important people connected to my students.

Tip 3

Love their children. I feel kinda silly saying that, because of course you are going to love their children. However, I still feel like it is worth being said. Parents will respect and listen to you more, if they know you love their children. In fact, my rule of thumb is that I never contact a parent over a situation until I know that the parent knows I truly love their child.

Tip 4

Adding to Tip # 3… Find specific things you love about each student and let that parent know.

Tip 5

Send weekly newsletters. Yes, I know it is one more thing on your to-do list. Honestly by the time I get to Friday, I dread typing up a newsletter. However, after polling my parents for research for this post, I found out that getting weekly newsletters helps them to feel informed and involved. Some of my newsletters are short. Some newsletters are longer depending on what happened in our school week. I usually try to get them out between Friday and Monday. If you want to read more about my newsletter, click here.

Tip 6

Use the Remind app to communicate with your parents. Remind allows you to remind your parents, of upcoming events and let them know what is happening in the classroom. My classroom recently started “texter of the day”. The idea came from my friend Kayla Delzer who uses Twitter in her classroom. She has a “tweeter of the day” and her kids tweet what they learn throughout the day. Although I love her idea, I needed something a little more private. Remind allows me to do that. I have one student that uses my old iPhone and texts parents things that we are learning in the day. They can send pictures through Remind. Parents can respond by giving our picture or post a “star”.

Tip 7

When in doubt, CALL. Sometimes an email or a note home just doesn’t cut it. Parents can’t read the tone in an email or note sent home. A sticky situation can be avoided by a phone call home. It may take more time, but it is worth it in the long run.

Tip 8

Speaking of notes home… It needs to follow the peanut butter and jelly sandwich model.

• Open with a greeting.
• Encouraging message about the child.
• Anything sticky.
• Another sweet thought.
• Closing.

Tip 9

Rehearse what you are going to say to a parent before you actually say it. If you are like me, sometimes you find yourself with your foot stuck in your mouth. Avoid that by practicing what you say before you say it. Practice on a coworker (who is not your teaching bestie) before the conference.

Tip 10

Walk a mile in their shoes. Do not assume anything about their life. Spend time listening.

One final note…

When talking to a a disgruntled parent, think L.A.S.T.

L: Listen to what they have to say.

A: Acknowledge the problem.

S: Solve the situation to the best of your ability.

T: Thank them for bringing it to your attention.