How to Effectively Communicate with your Child’s school

Recent literature suggests that parents become involved with their children’s education for three primary reasons: 1) their personal understanding of the parental role; 2) their personal sense of responsibility for the academic success of their children; and 3) their perception that children and the school provide parents both opportunities and demands for interaction Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler state that for good school-parent relationships to occur certain events need to happen.

The social construction of parental roles, means that parents and the group most pertinent to children’s education, the school, should work together to define parents’ roles…teachers should be enabled…to spend at least a portion of the work week interacting with parents. Some of this time might be well spent creating a feasible, mutually constructed set of expectations for the parent’s role in relation to the child’s schooling: some of it might be similarly well spent in devising specific ways for parents to offer limited but academically useful help to their children…

However, the same authors are careful to point out that, …(w)hile the literature suggests strongly that parental involvement in general has positive effects on children’s educational outcomes, it is important to note that parental involvement may also have no consequences or even negative consequences for some children. For example…if parental involvement is either developmentally inappropriate…or constitutes a poor fit with school expectations for involvement…(then) children, parents, and teachers may experience negative outcomes.

It appears that if parents are to be actively involved in helping schools work with their children they must be encouraged to understand the relevance and importance of their contributions. Most teachers have long recognized the value of the contributions that parents can make. Past experience relates that parents are much more effective helpers if they are viewed as people who can contribute more than in just a mundane fashion, for example, serving only as chaperons or room-mothers, and without regard to the “learning” experience itself. Involvement means much more, but parents often wonder how they can ‘best’ help. Teachers generally welcome parents who want to be a part of their child’s learning, as long as what they do, or request, is congruent with overall classroom decorum or best educational practice. The key that unlocks the door to parent and teacher team teaching is personal communication, with an emphasis on the personal part. The following steps will enhance that communication.

Develop a Good Personal Relationship

The first step is the development of a good personal relationship, what Steven Covecalls building an “emotional bank account.” Most communication problems come about as a result of feeling misunderstood. The best way to effectively communicate is to seek first for understanding rather than to be understood. When we are able to understand why someone thinks the way they do, then we are much more likely to solve a problem. This requires much more listening than talking.

Have you ever watched any of those political talk show programs on television? You know the kind, Cross-fire, Hard Ball, etc. They are frustrating because no one listens. Participants continually interrupt, shout, and are quick to point how wrong others are in their opinions and outlooks. Seldom are solutions explored with civility and good will. These shows are examples of how to divide and alienate, not find solutions to problems. Participants don’t ponder on statements. In fact, the dialogue moves at such a quick pace that one gets the idea that the only people who listen are those in the audience. Participants are so busy formulating their next statement or replying that they seldom hear the reasoning behind another person’s thinking. If you really want to be understood, seek first to understand. Try to understand why others are thinking or acting the way they are.