I wrote a guest blog for the excellent site, Encourage Play by Janine Halloran. Check out my article and while you’re there, explore the many helpful resources for parents on the site! Here’s how the article begins:

The Challenges and Opportunities of Parent-Teacher Communications

“I’ve extended multiple offers to help but it seems to fall on deaf ears.”

“My son has real struggles with his homework every night. I don’t want to bother his teacher. I know she’s busy. But do I wait until parent-teacher conferences to say something about his troubles?”

“My daughter has come home crying that her teacher has been mean to her. I can’t get more information out of her. And I worry that if I bring it up with the teacher, he might take it on my daughter. What do I do?”

I’ve heard these and many more concerns from parents who are genuinely interested in supporting their children’s education. And I’ve had my own. Sometimes schools can feel like a fortress where we send our kids. We hug them “goodbye” and then, those six hours at school can be somewhat of a mystery to us. What happens during the day? Does my child sit next to other students in class who are kind to him? How does her teacher handle discipline problems? And when and how should I be communicating with him? Particularly when our kids offer a “Fine.” to the question, “How was your day?”, how do we know what is really going on each day? Read the full article.