Parents often express frustration with their child’s teachers, especially when it comes to flexibility with assignments and grading. From the parents’ perspective, it is their duty to do everything in their power to advocate for their children and give them every chance in life to succeed. Sometimes, it can feel that the teacher is getting in the way and just being plain difficult. It can often seem that the teacher’s resistance to parents’ efforts is misplaced and that the teacher doesn’t care about the individual students, that they are just trying to avoid having to do more work.

From the teacher’s perspective, it can seem like everyone is trying to pull them in a different direction in order to serve their own interests. It can be very difficult to determine when to be flexible on assignments and when that would be giving an unfair advantage to one student or not holding them accountable. It can also be difficult to determine when they are helping a student who is really struggling to succeed, and when they are enabling a student who has developed a set of habits that allows them to get away with doing less than others. The teacher is often put in a position in which she has to make a decision that can seem very harsh, but will help a student’s overall habits of mind in the long run.

All of these factors, including pressure from administrators, criticism in the media, and high levels of competition in school can lead to an adversarial relationship between teachers and parents. Although it is no one individual’s fault, it can be very detrimental to school culture and also to the teacher-student relationship.

If you are a parent reading this blog, here are some basic tips to establish a cooperative parent-teacher relationship in order to best support your child’s education:

Establish a rapport early in the year and present yourself as a parent who will work with the teacher to get the best results from the student. Get copies of the syllabus and ask questions about what skills the student will be developing. As much as possible, familiarize yourself with the content so that you can help with homework.
Give the teacher as much background information on your son or daughter as you are comfortable giving before the school year starts. Teachers who know their students well can optimize lesson planning and will have more information to use in order to make a determination when ambiguous situations arise.
Ask what you can do to contribute to the classroom. Even if it is something small like helping out with one event throughout the year, it creates a sense of teamwork and also takes a little bit of work off the teacher’s shoulders. Visibility in the school community lets people know that you are truly invested in your child’s education.
Hold your student accountable and avoid blaming the teacher. This will give you a lot more credibility with the teacher if something that is unfair arises and needs to be addressed. For example, saying “Joshua is working on improving his time management skills and was unable to finish in the allotted time,” instead of “you didn’t give Joshua enough time for this assignment.” Also, if the student just didn’t do the work, rushed through it, or gave it minimal effort to begin with, he or she may really need to experience the consequence in order to change the behavior in the future.
Give positive feedback regularly. This will give a lot more weight to what are you are saying when your feedback is constructive criticism.
If the teacher does a good job, perhaps write a short email to his or her principal. Administrators often don’t make it into the classroom very often and have very little to go off when it comes down to evaluation time. This simple gesture can go a long way!
Lastly, if you are frustrated with your child’s teacher, be sure to use responsible language in front of your child. If you need to vent, do it with your spouse or your adult friends. Remember that the student needs to maintain a constructive relationship with the teacher even if he/she isn’t the best they’ve ever had, and that they will always encounter people who they have to work with despite their differences. Children look to their parents for how to view the world and will take your words very literally.

Of course, parents all need to use their own judgment in every situation, but hopefully these tips will provide some positive options for you to implement.