Talking with your child's teacher can be easy!

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Teachers are important people in every parent's life. They probably aren't near as important to your child as you are, but they still spend 5+ hours with you child. They can make or break your child's success in life.

The unfortunate reality is that teachers and parents often do not start communicating with each other until there is a problem. When the problem arises, emotions rise and it can be very difficult to voice concerns (on the parent side and the teacher side).

Fortunately, teachers are adults too :) Most teachers have had high-anxiety parents who come out guns blazing with concerns about their child. Most teachers can also respond calmly to an equally calm parent concern.

Building a relationship with your child's teacher at the beginning of the year is ideal so that you can form an effective team in supporting your child. On the other hand, I can go through dozens of reasons why a parent might not have gotten around to talking with his or her child's teacher. Most of which are legitimate reasons.

But I'll save that for another post.

Here is an easy and effective template for voicing a concern (or compliment) with your child's teacher:

Hi. My name is __________.

I'm ___________'s mother(or father).

I wanted to let you know______________________.

Here's the template in actions:

Hi. My name is Lesley Parente. I'm Lucy's mother. I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated the type of homework Lucy has been getting. She's really improved in non-fiction writing.

Here's another example:

Hi. My name is Lesley Parente. I'm Lucy's mother. I wanted to make sure Lucy gets support in her non-fiction writing. It was definitely a concern last year.

As always, feel free to comment about your experiences in parenting. I'm available for free consulting on starting a dialogue with your child's teacher or otherwise!

-Shawn