Education: Parent-Teacher Conferences

Are the conferences truly useful for both parents and their kids?

You get as much out of a relationship as you put into it — that’s a good rule of thumb that applies to parent teacher relationships and the conferences that are regular parts of these relationships. Like any relationship, the conference can be very useful to parents and their children if everyone is open and honest. Being on your best behavior is great for etiquette’s sake, but it’s important to share information and express concerns about your child and your own expectations of the child, the school, the class and the teacher, and for the teacher to do the same.

Here are some rules to help make conferences more productive:

* Have your conference with both parents whether or not they are divorced. It is important for the parents and the teacher to understand the dynamics that the child is a part of. Just because parents are divorced from each other does not mean that the child is divorced from the parents. The conference should be with both parents and the teacher together whenever possible.

*Be prepared. Make a list of questions, concerns and information you want to share — this goes for parents and teachers.

*Listen. Many times parents and/or teachers bottle up things that they want to say to the other for a fifteen minute conference when there are a line of other parents in the hallway waiting for their turn and the teacher is running late. Obviously this is not a great arena for good communication. Understand you only have 15 or 30 or however many minutes you have and make sure you listen — not just voice your concerns.