How to Respond to a Parent

What part do parents pay in their children’s education? How can you enlist their help?

How would you handle making a difficult phone call to a parent?

Parents play a huge role in their child’s education. Many times the way students’ behave at school has to deal with what is going on at home with their parents. For example, maybe the student is not getting any attention from their parents, so they act out in class so they can get some attention from their teacher. I believe that parents can either have a positive effect or negative effect on their child's education. Case in point, if a student has parents that are supportive and involved in their life. I think the student will tend to do better and have more of a positive attitude in school. On the other hand, if a student were to have parents could careless of what their child does, the student will most likely not care about school. I would enlist their help by getting parents' emails, and trying to keep in touch with them throughout the year. I think teachers should keep in contact with parents when the student is doing really well and when the student is misbehaving.

I would handle a difficult phone, by first talking to other teachers and getting some advice from them on how to handle parents. Then I would really need to prepare and think about what kinds of questions the parents may ask me. I would try and think like a parent so I can come up with some response to the questions they may ask me. Then when I make the call, I must be firm and stick to what I believe and not be so defensive. I must understand that a parents’ first instinct is to defend their child.