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This list of tips for how NOT to deal with parents, is a compiled from the lists developed by students taking Making Connections as a credit course. Their thoughts are too good NOT to share.

DON’T
• Tell a parent what you think they did wrong
• Talk to a parent about their child in front of other children or adults
• Fail to return emails or phone calls from a parent in a timely manner
• Have a school wide activity, including family members, and not have translators present.
• Forget to invite a parent to help out in class, help or volunteer in any way.
• Pressure parents to do more than they can i.e.; donations, fundraising, or volunteering.
• Judge a parent without really knowing the whole story, or let your own biases get in the way.
• Make a curriculum totally divorced from the realities of students’ lives (i.e. don’t teach the literary canon to my students!)
• Forget to explain expectations clearly to parents and students
• Forget to tell everyone about any and all resources available to them.
• Give up on calling/emailing a parent
• Forget to translate communication (in as many languages as you can)
• Cater only to the dominant minority; we have a student whose mother only speaks a little-known Pakistani language, and we can’t just give up because we only have a few language translators in the district. We need to make connections in the community and find someone who can help us! (And we did, by the way).
• Assume that because someone is a minority that it means that they will need help with their English or with communication.
• Make breakfast a “kids only” event; invite families, too! This worked at Atkinson Elementary in Portland; families ate breakfast, met staff and teachers, used a lending library. It worked so well, it created a ‘ripple effect’ of parents attending.
• Allow previous experiences with families to influence your thoughts about how they will be in the future.  First impressions aren’t everything and remember that every single person has bad days and good days.
• Spend all of your time talking about what the student needs to improve, remember to talk about the things they do well too.
• Listen to negative messages from other teachers etc. about kids or families. Make your own judgments
• Focus on all that may seem negative in the child’s character. Instead add to the conversation the things that the child excels at or enjoys doing.

• Be too pushy
• Let the impressions of others color what you see with your own eyes
• Do most of the talking, instead ask questions and try to learn from families, as well as kids.
• Assume! Always take the time to really find out what is going on for a child and their family.

DON’T ASSUME:
• Parents don’t care.
• All children are the same in manner, learning ability, or perception of things.

• Because a family is a minority that they have no culture capital or comprehension.
• All children work (or don’t work) outside the home.
• All parents’ feel comfortable reporting trouble at home.
• All minority parents will react badly to unfavorable reports about their child.
• A family is a minority that it means that they take pride in or live with their culture. They may have adopted the same lives as thousands of other Americans. Or, they could have been born here and never explored or experienced any type of culture from where their family originated from.
• Minority parents or students are willing, able, or even knowledgeable about what we perceive to be their cultural background. In fact erroneous requests can be seen more as insults than embracing of cultural difference. It is a classic case of “judging others by the color of their skin” when we seek to do just the opposite.

DON’T FORGET:
• Children and their families have lives, ideas and values, too
• Each child comes to school with a different story (and often, a different set of responsibilities.)
• To be respectful in every situation … with parents and children.
• To ask for help.
• That your co-workers have great ideas and can offer a lot of help when you are stuck.
• That all parents want the best for their child.
• Parents have busy lives as well.
• To focus on positive things of the child.

Topics: Creating a Positive, Family Involvement, Relationship Strategy |

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