Addressing conflict and problems directly with teachers or administrators (Part 5)
Sometimes we have to get involved. Proceeding with care and prudence will maximize the chances of getting a productive outcome. It's not hard, but it takes thought and care.
I have spent the last several posts talking about building relationships with teachers and schools in order to preempt and prevent problems (here, here, and here).
A few days ago, I shared a post specifically about some principles and steps to consider when you need to address a problem with a teacher or administrator. You can read that here.
Here are the first three principles:
Principle 1: Relationships and being reasonable unlock doors
Principle 2: You can always escalate, but it’s hard to de-escalate
Principle 3: Keep an open mind. Get out of your feeling brain and into your thinking brain.
This is critical and I feel passionately about it because, in my time, I have seen it done well and seen it done badly. When it goes badly, no one wins, especially the child.
I also feel passionately because a lot of times these situations are where other trends—such as over-parenting—are manifest. Chances are, if we can handle these situations well when our parental emotions are running high, we are avoiding over-parenting and over-identifying with our child. This means we are helping them prepare to be happy and autonomous, competent and independent adults.
I’ve seen these sorts of things as a teacher, a parent, and an administrator. I’ve made some mistakes several times.
And, of course, every school and every teacher is different. What I’m going to share are general principles that I use when I’m responding to a problem with my child and a school or teacher. That doesn’t mean it will always be the right thing in every situation, though.
Principle 4: Beware of bad allies and don’t rally the troops
There’s one thing I would be really, really wary of doing and that is seeking allies and rallying the troops. I’d avoid drawing other parents in altogether if possible. Here’s why.
I know it can feel better to have strength in numbers, but those numbers can also backfire in a major way.
On one occasion three parents got together to come complain about a school policy they disagreed with. There was merit in their complaint, and there was probably a good chance of at least a compromise.
The issue was one that reasonable people could disagree upon—the amount of time the kids got for lunch.
One of the parents appointed themselves as the head of the delegation. They went in to meet with the principal. Very quickly the two silent parents realized they had made a huge mistake.
The spokes-parent was attacking the people involved and making really wild and irrational assumptions and accusations. The teachers only did this because they hated children and didn’t understand them, that sort of thing.
These other parents had chosen a very bad ally. Their cause was now tainted by this person’s bad faith and total irrationality.
Avoid using hearsay as evidence
I once had a parent complain about another teacher. While the complaint had merit, the parent did two things that were very unhelpful to their cause.
First of all, they not only acted on what their child told them as if it was completely accurate and as if the child was sharing the fullest picture. They not only did that, they also acted on what other kids had told their parents and what the parents have told this parent. However, the fact that a lot of people said it gave it more credence in their minds. They didn’t realize that a lot of people saying something at second or third-remove is unlikely to be accurate, no matter how many people repeat it.
We all understand that hearing something a second or third hand hand is just not generally an accurate way to get the truth. We know that in our own lives. We know that what other people say happened, that hearsay can be informative, but is limited.
But this parent acted as if somehow the fact that they had heard it from this greater remove made it all the more likely to be true.
They had generated a lot energy that led to an adversarial situation quickly. Moreover, they felt that these other voices were evidence, but that was not something the school could accept. While they thought they were strengthening their case, they weakened it badly.
Don’t default to social media
In this day and age it can be tempting to take to social media to complain about things we don’t like. That may be necessary sometimes, as a last resort when something is egregious.
But it should not be the first thing to do. It may cause a firestorm that will cause a very swift backlash and negative reaction.
I knew of a case where a parent was in a high-tension situation with a school once. It was complicated situation, but the parent had some excellent points.
However, after every conversation, the parent took to social media to share confidential communications and report conversations without the full context.
To be clear, no decision had been made yet, so this wasn’t an escalation. They were just venting. However, that made a personal problem very public. People took sides and weighed in, even when they did not know what was going on. This caused a lot of acrimony in the larger community—although none of this was ever going to be productive in any way.
That created an atmosphere where it became almost impossible to get a resolution that made anyone happy. It was the worst of all worlds—the parents didn’t get what they wanted, although they probably would have with some more patience, the school had a bad reputation that wasn’t totally fair, a lot of people got worked up about a situation they didn’t fully understand, and the problem never got solved! It was seriously lose-lose-lose.
Again: you can always escalate, but it’s very difficult to de-escalate.
Principle 5: Document everything carefully
I would write down everything while it is fresh. Make sure it is as accurate as your child can be. You want to deal with the most accurate representation of the problem. Also, document any communications and conversations you have.
This is a good idea on its own, but it will be especially important if you need to escalate to a higher authority.
Principle 6: Start with the circle of responsibility.
Before I fire off an email or make a call, I have found that any time my child has a problem of any kind, at school or elsewhere, the best way to start is to look at the circle of responsibility. By that I mean, who is most immediately responsible for the situation and, more importantly, who actually has the most ability or power to change or address the situation?
Very often, our first impulse as parents is to fire off an angry, or or at least an accusatory email or text in which we act as if what our child has told us is completely accurate. We often appeal to authority, but in doing that, we can be directing the complaint the wrong person.
Circle of responsibility is a simple concept. If there is a problem between two kids, then it might be best to help coach your child on responding. Or maybe contact the other parents. Perhaps the teacher should be involved, but don’t make the assumption. Start at the most immediate people responsible.
If it’s a problem with a teacher, don’t contact the principal.
It’s a pretty simple idea, but you always want to start with the person whose choices are a) most responsible for the situation and b) whose actions can most quickly address the situation.
It’s also critical to showing your good faith and that you are acting in a reasonable way.
A lot of times people want an authority figure to just deal with the problem cleanly and, ideally, anonymously.
So, someone complains about a child to a teacher or complains about a teacher to the principal, hoping they will just fix the situation.
But that’s rarely possible.
If your child is in a swamp, even if they are 100% innocent, they are still in a swamp and getting out requires going back through the swamp.
These things cannot be done with messiness. Just own it. We can’t make these things not messy, but we can make it reasonable.
If you complain about a child to a teacher, they are going to have to talk to the child and get their side of things. They can’t just take your word. In doing that, it will almost certainly come out that you were the one who complained, so it’s not like you can keep this secret.
Now you have two problems. You have the original one, and now you have extra tension because the other parents are going to get involved and probably be extra-defensive about everything and you may now be facing a situation that is going to make it harder to get what you hoped for.
Likewise, if you complain about the teacher to the principal and go over the teacher’s head, the principal is going to have to go to the teacher and ask for their side of it. Again, now you have two problems. The original one, plus the teacher will know you went over their head and the situation has become fraught and tense and adversarial.
Also, 9 times out of 10, unless there is a serious problem, the principal will simply say, “Have you talked to the teacher?”
I personally feel that if it’s big enough to complain about, it means the other person should have a chance to either defend themself or apologize directly. Yes, it’s messy, but it’s what most of us would want if the shoe were on the other foot.
Tactically, it is also your best bet. Remember: you can always escalate, but ratcheting down the tensions is very difficult, and the more tense the situation, the less likely you are to get what you want.
A few big warnings
Never, ever, ever reach out to other school personnel to vent. First of all, it’s not fair to this sympathetic soul. This puts them in a very difficult situation—they can’t do anything about it, after all.
It will not help your cause and will likely make things worse for you because it looks (and often is) unreasonable. They will almost certainly have to share an email or other conversations with supervisors and will likely be wary about communications and interactions with you.
Now, if you have a trusted person who works at the school, it may be appropriate to ask for guidance on how to handle something very delicate, but chances are, they will tell you to have a conversation with the person in question.
Also, if you email multiple people about a problem, it may delay getting a response and can make things murky and confusing as they will need to confer before anyone replies since no one can speak for everyone.
If you insist on this, however, realize that the more junior people will need to defer to the most senior. So you have skipped several levels of possible problem-solving and gone straight to the final authority. That is generally unwise.
Focus only on the person who can most immediately address the concern and, perhaps, their direct supervisor.
Now, one of the cardinal rules in this process is this: you don’t want your response to the problem to become larger than the problem. You don’t want to eclipse the problem by being unreasonable.
Principle 7: Reach out to the teacher
If you contacting the teacher is warranted then here’s my recommendation, and it is the way I have always tried to approach these situations.
Hopefully you have a sense of how best they like to communicate. That is a good question to ask on back to school nights, in my opinion. But basically, whatever way they communicate with you is probably a good start, period.
Unless otherwise instructed, I would email the teacher a brief, courteous message. “Dear Ms. Messina, Could you please make some time to talk with me? I am hoping you could help me understand something better. I know you are very busy during the day and want to be respectful of your time. I will be happy to take your call, or come in to see you, any time that is convenient for you, or we could talk over Zoom. My number is 867-5309.”
Give the teacher lots of options to respond. If you simply say, give me a call now, or give me a call at 10 o'clock tomorrow, you ignore the fact that teachers are not the masters of their own schedules. They have classes, and sometimes teach literally all day. They cannot drop what they are doing. Some schools don't even allow them to have their phones out. Their schedules are not their own and they can’t just leave or miss a class.
Principle 8: Make sure your response doesn’t become the issue instead of the problem you want to address
Do not expect them to call you after school hours, and certainly don’t demand it. They're not on call 24-7. First of all. They're not paid to do that.
Secondly, teachers need some downtime. We all need downtime. And just because you are upset with the teacher does not reduce their human need for downtime.
Given the number of students for whom teachers are responsible, they could quite possibly be getting calls well into the evening many times a week with various concerns. It's just not fair to expect that.
Leaving behind sort of the fairness human aspect of it, and focusing only on the tactical side of it, you are not going to get a good answer. You are starting this engagement on the worst possible ground. This breach of protocol and decorum will speak badly of you and make you look unreasonable, especially if this goes to higher levels of authority.
I had a friend once who got a call at home about something pretty trivial. She was an art teacher and the parent called to complain about an assignment.
My friend was a little surprised, honestly. She was normally very quick on her feet, but she was so taken aback that she was stammering and trying to come up with an answer because she was not in school mode anymore.
Her husband came over, picked up the phone and said, “It is inappropriate of you to contact my wife at home.” And then he hung up.
The teacher immediately informed the administration. The next day when the parent went to the the principal to complain about the assignment and the treatment on the phone, the principal told the parent that it had been inappropriate to contact the teacher at home.
The parent had now focused all the attention on their response to the problem, not the problem itself. You never want to do that!
Now, I actually thought that there was some merit in the concern the parent had. And honestly, given some time to think and process, my friend would also have open to addressing that concern on its merits, but the process was so badly handled by the parent that it really caused things to blow up.
So, unless your child is in imminent danger and you are worried that something truly terrible is going to happen if someone can't intervene right this moment, don't try to contact them at home, don't demand an immediate response.
This can be hard because most of us parent during non-working hours and teachers work during working hours.
That means your child may be crying and unloading all kinds of things on you in the evening. It’s the most normal thing in the world to fire off an email and try to get to the bottom of it right then—but it will almost certainly backfire, both for this problem and also in the sense that you may start to be seen as unreasonable—which is the last thing you want. That may or may not be fair, but it is the reality. (Side note: when I first became an administrator I was shocked at the number of unreasonable, minor, and baseless complaints that came to our principal during the day. I was truly shocked, and any rational, unbiased observer would be as well. As I have come to know more administrators, I find that is pretty much par for the course. They have to pretty quick triages sometimes, trying to figure out what is frivolous and what is legitimate. You never want to come across as one of the unreasonable people who is always complaining about something.)
Realize that very little is really an emergency in the sense that it must be dealt with right then. It might feel like it, but that doesn’t make it so. We have survived as a species because of well-honed instincts to protect our young.
But those instincts came when our early ancestors were trying to protect children from saber-toothed tigers and marauding brigands and deadly poisons that grew alongside food sources, from tainted water and the fact that a scratch or cut could quickly lead to deadly illness without antibiotics.
They were not developed to protect children from difficult homework, a bad grade, a cutting remark, or other unpleasant, but non-lethal, things.
When it feels like our child is under attack, we will respond with fight or flight, usually fight. But while laudable that is not generally useful in these situations. It's very rare that a child is physically in danger.
Now, I said rare, I didn't say impossible. I fully acknowledge there are times, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about ordinary problems. Another child who does something mean, a teacher who says something ill-advised, an argument about a grade or enforcement of a policy, that sort of thing.
More to come soon!
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Happy parenting—you’ve got this!
Sincerely,
Braden
Another interesting article. From a parents perspective, when you start to have negative interactions with certain leaders/ heads of schools (unfriendliness, not saying hello on passing, not waving in the hook up line, ignoring at graduation ceremonies, not looking in the eye when you are in school volunteering) what do you suggest? Having had a negative experience reaching out to a leader I made the choice not to reach out to this person when my child experienced really disgusting behavior. Now this person cannot hide their dislike of me and has affected my entire experience at the school. So much so that I am considering moving my children to their siblings school. At what point can a (reasonable and respectful) parent expect that the leader of their child’s school also be respectful, courteous and friendly?