It Takes a Village to Raise a Child
“It takes a village to raise a child.” Everyone believes that parents and teachers should be allies and partners. We shared a common goal of raising, guiding, and teaching our children. But more often than not, parents and teachers feel estranged from and suspicious of each other. This article will analyze the reasons hindering school-family relationships and discover new insights and useful strategies for building a collaborative, empathic, peaceful, and productive parent-teacher relationship.
Every time parents and teachers meet one another in the classroom, their conversations are shaped by their own stories and the broader cultural and historical narratives that inform their identities, values, and sense of place in the world. To parents, their child is the one who arouses their deepest passion and greatest vulnerability. They must quickly learn to release their child and trust that he or she will be well cared for by a perfect stranger who has access to their most intimate territory, their most profound emotional places. Their productive engagement with the teacher is essential for the child’s learning and growth and the parents’ peace of mind.
A breakdown in communication between parents and teachers happens when they are all defined by a lack of empathy, a disrespect for the other’s role and perspective, and an imbalance of knowledge, authority, and power.
First, parents speak from a position of intimacy, advocacy, and protection for their child. Teachers, on the other hand, have a “universalistic” relationship with their students. They work hard to find a balance between responding to the needs and capacity of individual students and supporting the development of a classroom community in which children learn to be responsible and accountable to the group. For example, teachers and parents have different definitions of fairness: For parents, fairness means they want the teacher to consider their child’s unique struggles and strengths and offer a differentiated response. However, for teachers: fairness means being fair to everyone; they mean giving equal amounts of attention, judging everyone by the same objective, and using explicit and public criteria for making judgments. Fairness, for teachers, ensures a more rational and ordered classroom.
Secondly, bad things happen when teachers are made to feel like “the hired help” by powerful and influential parents. Some parents want teachers not only to teach their kids but also to “produce results.” Sometimes they “talk down” to teachers or treat teachers like “helpers.” It seems like school education can buy them the result. Some parents wait to hear extravagant praise and are disappointed when they don’t. Their child is their most valuable possession as well as a reflection of who they are.
Last, most teachers had not been adequately prepared in their professional training programs to build a relationship with families as a central part of their work, nor were they getting support or guidance from their administrators and colleagues. Even when school administrators are responsible and rigorous in supervising and supporting new teachers, their focus tends to be almost exclusively on pedagogy—on developing and delivering the curriculum, on nurturing relationships with students—not on helping teachers navigate the relationship with families.
The good news is teachers, who are experienced and wise in their work with parents, see conflicts as an inevitable dimension of successful communication. So here are some practical strategies to build a collaborative, empathic, peaceful, and productive parent-teacher relationship.
#1 Keep the focus on the child.
First, it encourages a conversation that speaks to the unique temperament and capacities of the child, seeing the “whole child” from a variety of angles. Second, focusing on the children permits parents and teachers to recognize their unique position as witnesses and participants in both his family and his classroom.
#2 The word ‘we’ is the most powerful word to use.
What are we going to do? They engage in problem-solving as they try to find innovative solutions and develop individual plans for the student. Parents and teachers begin to see themselves “lining up on the same side” and “joined in their advocacy” for the child. Here I want to share a personal story of a grade one boy I taught two years ago. He is a very quiet boy who rarely talks to others. However, his behaviors can be very disruptive during class time. After observing and documenting his behaviors for two weeks, colleagues and I decided to reach out to his parents. I called his mom one day after school, and we scheduled a private parent meeting. I still remember her facial expression when she greeted me that afternoon. She looked like she had made some mistakes. She came to school with fear, trembling, and terror in her heart. Since she felt comfortable speaking in Chinese, I started the conversation with a genuine appreciation of her time. She responded in Chinese and nodded to our homeroom teacher. We then shared a lot of happy moments that happened during the last two weeks. I know deep in my heart that when parents hear that the teacher captures every moment of their children, they will feel pleased, which means that the teacher has taken pains to know and understand their children. I also honestly shared some problems I noticed, such as lack of eye contact, violating school rules, and bullying other students during recess. I was wondering if she saw some similar behaviors at home. Thankfully, she shared with us that her little boy was always teased or bullied by his big brother. We agreed to solve behavior problems hand in hand. So here comes the word “we.” We discussed what we could do at school as well as at home and how she could support both of his sons. Luckily, we also had support from the school counselor, who agreed to have weekly sessions with his son. During the whole private parent meeting session, I kept using the magic word “we” to signal that she was not alone. Of course, I also kept updating and checking with her very often. Now, this boy is in grade 3. He is still shy sometimes, but I don’t see any disruptive or violating behaviors. As a result, his name is no longer on the CST (Child Study Team) list.
#3 Ask for help when the situation is out of your control.
Never be ashamed of asking for help. No one is perfect, and we are all learning from each other. At school, colleagues and administrative leaders are great resources to reach out to when you need any help. They probably see the situation from a different point of view and offer further suggestions.
#4 Learn and practice.
Join professional development meetings and workshops as many as you can. Then, put what you learned into practice.
To sum up, teachers should take the initiative to seek parents’ alliance, listen to their perspectives, honor how they see and know their children, and see them as valuable and essential resources for working successfully with their children. Holding a belief that dialoguing with parents will develop out of a growing trust, a mutuality of concern, an appreciation of contrasting perspectives, and a deep empathy.
Author
Wei Rong began her educational career as a teaching assistant; she is now a Chinese teacher at Tsinghua International School. Rong is a well-sought-after presenter at our online Teaching Assistants Conferences.
