Helping Parents Communicate Better With Schools

Good communication between parents and teachers has many benefits. When parents and teachers share information, children learn more and parents and teachers feel more supported. Good communication can help create positive feelings between teachers and parents.

Schools and teachers know that good communication with parents is an important part of their job. Teachers need to know about the children's families, language, and culture in order to help children learn. Parents benefit because they learn more about what goes on in school and can encourage learning at home. Most importantly, children benefit by improved communication because contact between home and school helps children learn and succeed.

But parent-teacher communication can also be hard, especially when parents feel uncomfortable in school, don't speak English well, or come from different cultural backgrounds than teachers. Fortunately, both parents and teachers have developed ways to make communication easier. In addition to parent-teacher conferences or other meetings in the schools, parents and family members in the School Transition Study discovered creative ways to gather and share information with teachers and to feel more comfortable doing so.

Communicate and Be Comfortable in the School

In our research, we found that communication is hard when parents do not feel comfortable in the school or talking to teachers. Some parents might have had a bad experience in school when they were children. Other parents have not felt welcomed by the school or teacher. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help overcome these barriers. Here are examples of how some parents have become more comfortable and confident. But, remember, parents and teachers should check with each other first to make sure they both feel comfortable with these arrangements:

• Chat with the teacher. One father just stops by and chats with his daughter's teacher when he picks his daughter up from school. Through these talks they have come to know each other and that can make it easier when it is time to have a parent-teacher conference.

• Join in an activity or program for parents at the school. Some parents help a science class by doing gardening and helping children see how plants grow. Some parents attend a parent group at school to learn how to help their children learn at home. When parents do these kinds of things, it is a way of telling the teacher and the child that the parent cares a lot about the child's education and the school.

• Talk to other people who spend time in the school. One parent knows the school nurse and is able to talk comfortably to her. This parent is able to learn more about the school by talking with other parents or neighbors who know the school and can provide information.

• Spend time watching your child in the school. One mother regularly sits in her son's classroom at the beginning of the day for a few minutes when she drops him off. She gets the feel of the classroom and sees how he acts with his friends and his teacher.

Communicate From Outside the School
Our research also found that it can be hard for a parent to communicate with a teacher when the parent cannot get to the school. Sometimes parents do not have a car or someone to watch their other children while they visit the school. Other times, parents work during the day or evening and cannot get to a meeting. But communication can happen even without a visit to the school.