The importance of a healthy parent-teacher relationship

It’s the same story every year: You worry if the new teachers will understand your son. Will the teacher adjust to your child’s individual learning speed? Will you be able to recognize your child’s special skills and talents? You don’t want to be the bossy, nosy parent, but you still want to know these things.

You certainly can’t hold your child’s teacher responsible for every nuance in the classroom. After all, teachers are qualified educators, and we have to trust their judgment to some degree without question. So what is the solution? How do you keep track of how your child is doing with their teacher? The answer is: build a good relationship between parents and teachers.

Parent-teacher relationships are like many other relationships: once they are established, they can overlook some social mistakes. And like all other relationships, building a healthy parent-teacher bond involves a certain process of breaking the ice, gaining mutual trust, and keeping in touch.

His goal here is obviously not to build a rowdy friendship, although that often happens. The main purpose of building such a relationship is to have informal access to your child’s progress in school, and that cannot happen simply by attending local PTA meetings.

Is that relationship building really necessary? After all, you are busy and have many other things to do. In addition, you as a parent obviously have the right to consult with the teacher about your child’s academic performance. However, that’s not all you need to know about how your child is doing in school.

o You need to know how your child is doing emotionally
o You may need to be able to make requests for special attention from the teacher
o May require the teacher to offer instinctive assessments
o You may need to communicate your own views about your child’s mindset and ask that they be taken into account in the teaching process.
o You may need to advise the teacher on your own parenting style and ask them to support you in class, too

One of the main reasons most parents don’t put in the effort to build a healthy parent-teacher relationship is fear of vulnerability. These parents worry that revealing too much about themselves will expose them as inefficient and ineffective parents, which exposes them to professional criticism from a teacher. The fact is that parents are just as human as we are and often are the parents themselves. They may have their own insecurities in that role and are therefore perfectly capable of understanding yours. On the other hand, you will never know or benefit from this human side if you don’t take advantage of it.

The only way to break the barrier of formality is to start and maintain a healthy parent-teacher relationship. If you’re not the social type who’s comfortable breaking the ice in person, you can get help from parent-interactive websites designed to help parents interact with their child’s teachers.

Many parents find it very convenient to keep in touch with their child’s teachers in this way. While you sign up for such a parenting website, make sure that it also helps you connect with other parents and keeps you up to date on extracurricular activities.