What are Some Tips for Having Conversations with Parents about Their Children?

Question

Answer

Tips for Conversations with Parents

1. Ongoing, open communication with more positive expressions, as opposed to completely negative ones.
2. Decide when parents need to be involved in a sit-down conference.
3. Involve the right people.
4. Be prepared with documents/observations.
5. Keep the conversation positive.
6. Share action steps and approaches taken.
7. Ask and listen to parents.  Take notes.
8. Be empathetic, compassionate and seek to understand their perspective.
9. Expect denial, tears, anger, and blame.

Now we're going to talk about tips for having these conversations with parents. One of those is that you always want to have open, ongoing communication with more positive expressions as opposed to negative ones. That means that yes, Johnny may be having a challenging day, but we are going to talk about it by means of not that he had a challenging day, but by saying, "He's got a very strong personality." Do you see the difference? He had a bad day and he's very challenging, as opposed to he has a very strong personality. When I say that, what I'm saying is, there are times when we are in small group interactions and he has a very strong personality. He definitely wants that toy when he wants it and for how long he wants it. We're not saying that Johnny had a bad day and that he won't share and he keeps taking toys from children. Remember that parents have come from a nine-hour day at work and are tired.  It goes back to the I-didn't-say-she-stole-the-money. It's not what we're saying, it's how we're saying it. You definitely want to look for ways to not put parents immediately on the defensive. You want to find nicer, positive ways to say the same thing that will keep parents having that open frame of mind. When they hear that their child has had a bad day, they might think that it's the other children or he's strong-willed or maybe it's you. When you instantly go with that negative comment, it clouds people's ability to hear the things that you're trying to say. Again, more open, positive statements than negative ones.

The next thing to remember is you want to talk with your administrative teams, the teachers, and everyone who's involved with the child about when is it a good time to actually have a sit-down meeting. This is not necessarily that communication that happens when they're coming into your classroom each day because that's what I just talked about with number one, that ongoing open communication. You want to decide as a team when it is the best time to have a sit-down meeting. When you have a sit-down, you want to ensure this is not the first time that parents are hearing about any concerns that you may have because you've been having that open, honest communication the whole time. When you do have that sit down, you want to involve the right people. As I said before, as members of the administration this ultimately lands on you to be the facilitator of this conversation. When I say the facilitator of this conversation, it's because you may have been involved or are involved in what's going on in the classroom, including those red flags that your teachers are seeing in the child, You've gone through the developmental milestones and your assessments and the parents have stepped in and talked to you every now and then. What ultimately needs to happen is it needs to be a facilitated conversation between the parents and what the teachers are seeing every day. That's going to involve some coaching with the teachers before this conversation happens. It may be you paraphrasing what the teacher has said to you, but you want to involve the right people. You want the parents, a member of the administration, and you absolutely want to have the teachers who are there spending the most time with Johnny sitting at the table with you.

You want to be prepared with documents and observations. That includes incident reports, child assessment sheets, checklists, and developmental milestones. You want to have all of that with you. That's because there has been open, honest communication the entire time and this isn't the first time we're sitting down and talking about this. This isn't the first time that the parents are seeing the documentation that they may have needed to sign in the past regarding their child's behavior or conversations that you may have had in the past regarding some challenges that you may see that they've had. Remember, by the time you get to a sit-down meeting this shouldn't be anything new to the parents. They will likely have been expecting this.

You want to keep this conversation positive because ultimately, we're trying to get to a positive partnership where we can really do what's best on behalf of the child. Again, if it gets to a point where people are getting defensive and they're pushing back, you definitely want to be empathetic, but you want to keep it positive and keep bringing it back to the child.  You might say, "Let's remember why we're here. We want to help. That's why we're having this sit-down and why we called you into the office. We want to partner with you to make the best environment and get the best help that we possibly can for your child."

You want to share the action steps that you've already done. You might say, "We've tried redirection and we've tried the ready approach. We've even tried timeout. That's not the way that we do things, but you've suggested it so we tried it. We've tried a behavioral chart." We want to make sure that we've tried everything. Ensure that you're sharing with the parents all the action steps that you have taken. They may not have known them all. They may have known of some during this open process of communication, but they may not know all of them. You definitely want to make sure that you have documented all of the action steps that you've taken as a classroom team to try to get Johnny to succeed.

You want to ask the parents, "What do you see at home? Do you see any of this working? Do you see a difference in him?" You want to listen and take notes. Make sure you let the parents know that you're going to take notes though. You could even say, "I want to make sure you know I'm not trying to be rude by not looking at you and taking notes. I'm just taking notes on what you're saying so that when we circle back to this after the meeting and create the action steps of where we're going to go from here that I remember everything that you've said to us. Then my teaching team and I can refer back to it." Also, when you take notes, regardless of whether it's a conversation with a coworker or a conversation with parents, people tend to be a little bit more reserved and don't get as heated. They may think before they talk because you're taking notes and documenting what they're saying.

You want to be empathetic, compassionate, and you want to seek to understand their perspective. However, you should expect denial, tears, anger, and blame. You're going to do everything that you can to keep this conversation positive and to keep bringing it back around to where it ultimately needs to be, and that focus is on the child, the behaviors, and the red flags that we're seeing. Ultimately, we brought everyone here together so that we can make sure that we get the help or we create the action plan together for the child. We need to all be on the same page when it comes to providing the best environment and services that we can provide for the child.

Have tissues and cold bottles of water available. Have that ability to remain professional. Don't take it personally, because this is a personal conversation. You are talking about somebody's child. I know when I said when you talk to coworkers don't make it personal, because it becomes personal. There is no other conversation that you can have with a parent about their child than a personal one. You can expect it to be taken personally, and then to get personally shot back at you. That's the one thing that you have to realize, this is a personal conversation about that family and child, it's not a personal conversation about you. You have to remember to be sensitive to that. Although you are being empathetic, you are also being professional.

This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Communication as a Key to Classroom Success, by Jennifer Romanoff, MA.