• Published by Salma Safira Sukma from BehaviorPALS Center 

Children spend most of their time on a daily basis with parents and teachers. As the most significant adults in a child’s life, both parents and teachers have great impacts on children’s learning and experiences. Therefore, it is very important for you as a parent to maintain positive interactions, communications, and relationships with your child’s teachers for your child’s education and development.

By working together with your child’s school teacher, it will help you to address problems that your child might have at school. A good relationship between parents and teachers has also been linked to many positive outcomes in children at school and at home, including better well-being, enhanced social and relationship skills, and positive emotional development. Children are also showing improved behavior throughout the school year, higher school attendance and academic performance, positive behavior at home, and have better adjustment skills.

Below are 3 components to build strong and positive relationships with your child’s teacher (Sheridan, 2018):

1. Communication

Communication is key to any relationship, including this one and it is better to build communication with  your child’s teacher as early as possible. You can do this by introducing yourself to them at the beginning of the school year and letting them know that you want to be involved in your child’s education at school. Then, discuss how each of you prefer to be contacted for continuous communication. You can ask the teacher to keep you updated about what is going on with your child at school. It might be helpful as well to let the teacher know important things about your child, including their challenges, strengths, likes and dislikes, and what you hope for them to achieve at school. Most importantly, keep the communication open, clear, constructive, and on-going.

2. Consistency

When you work together with your child’s teacher, you complement each other to give the best of your child’s education. This teamwork should be consistent, meaning that you must provide adequate learning opportunities at home as well, such as establishing homework routines in a quiet and relaxing place, reading with your child, providing learning materials, and encouraging healthy eating habits as well as physical activities. If you and the teacher are “on the same page” on your child’s education plans and expectations, your child can see that you and their teacher are together supporting their learning consistently and cohesively.

3. Collaboration

Once you and your child’s teacher created an open and frequent communication as well as consistency on your child’s learning plans, then collaboration could be easier. Collaboration includes setting specific and positive strategies for your child to reach their best potential. It also includes understanding each other’s goals and expectations, building constructive problem solving to address concerns by focusing on finding the best solution instead of pointing fingers, sharing support and responsibilities at school and home, and having regular catch-ups to discuss progress.

Parent-teacher teamwork plays a significant part in making sure that your child gets the support needed to be successful at school, home, and in the future. Although parent-teacher communication might be less frequent when your child gets older and more independent to communicate to the teacher themselves, you can still let your child know that you value education and care about what happens at school by keeping a supportive learning environment at home and talking about their schoolwork or school events.

References:

Schools, teachers and parents: building strong relationships. (2021, September 10). Raising Children Network Australia. Retrieved September 8, 2022 from https://raisingchildren.net.au/school-age/school-learning/working-with-schools-teachers/relationship-with-school

Sheridan, S. M. (2018, August 28). Establishing healthy parent-teacher relationships for early learning success. Early Learning Network. https://earlylearningnetwork.unl.edu/2018/08/29/parent-teacher-relationships/#:~:text=Why%20are%20healthy%20parent%2Dteacher,in%20school%20and%20at%20home. 

Pirchio, S., Passiatore, Y., Tritrini, C., & Taeschner, T. (2013). The role of the relationship between parents and educators for child behaviour and wellbeing. International Journal about Parents in Education, 7(2), 145-155. https://eslplus.eu/documents/The_role_of_the_Relationship_between_Parents_and_Educators_for_Child_Behaviour_and_Wellbeing.pdf

By: Salma Safira Sukma Ikhsani, S.Psi. from BehaviorPALS Center

teamwork, children, parents, school

Children 4 Years - 6 Years / 4 Tahun - 6 Tahun / Parenting / Pola Asuh / Family / Keluarga / Working Together with Your Child’s School Teacher

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