Each Monday throughout the month of October, will deal with the topic - "Never let them see you sweat." We have already dealt with industry conferences and job interviews. Today, we will talk about handling a parent/teacher conference.
photo credit: c.a.muller via photopin
As the mother of four school aged children, I have had to attend more than one parent/teacher conference. I have had conferences to praise my children and to complain about them. Of course, I liked the ones where everyone wanted to talk about how wonderful my children are. But, the truth is I have had some of the other kind of conferences. No matter what kind of conference it is, I never sweat.
The key to never letting them see you sweat at a parent/teacher conference, like with most meetings, is preparation. At the start of each school year, give your child's teacher a short note about your child detailing your child's strengths and weaknesses, learning preferences and any special facts that will make reaching your child more effective. By doing this at the beginning of the year, the teacher gets to know a little about your child and is put on notice that you are a concerned parent who pays attention to what goes on with your child. Email your child's teacher on a regular basis, before any problems occur. This way the lines of communication are open between you and the teacher, which will make it easier for the teacher to talk to you about problems that may arise.
Most importantly, you must remember that teachers are people. Do not treat the teacher with disrespect. If you make the teacher hate you, there are many ways the teacher can make your child suffer. After all your child is alone with the teacher for six or more hours each day and is tasked with getting your child ready for the next year. Make the teacher angry and she has no incentive to do anything extra for your child. Think about it, how kind and helpful are you to rude, annoying disrespectful customers. Also remember that you and your child's teacher are teammates in the education and betterment of your child, not adversaries.
Pay attention to your child's homework assignments, projects and test scores. Keep up to date with what is going on in the classroom so you are prepared to discuss it at conferences. When you are preparing for the conference be prepared with a list of questions you want answered as well as any information you want to share with the teacher. If you get nervous at these kinds of events, have your questions and key points written down on a piece of paper you can refer to during the conference.
The next time you have a parent/teacher conference, prepare and be ready to handle the conference sweat free. So the question for you this Magnificent Monday is how do you prepare for sweat free parent/teacher conferences?
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