A Staff Development Workshop

Jarrod Bingham

Why is talking about healthy parent-teacher relationships

important?

Introduction
Why do levels of parental involvement vary (Abel, 2014)?
Socioeconomic status
Educational background
Residential status
Sex of the parent

The Big Idea

Students benefit when teachers intentionally connect
with parents to both avoid and resolve conflict using
sound teaching practices and conflict resolution
techniques.

How do the students benefit?

Behavioral Correlates
Positive parent-teacher
relationships improve the
opinions of both the
parents and students
towards the school and the
teacher, which leads to
reduced negative student
behavior (Steh & Kalin,
2011).

School Environment
When parents and
teachers cooperate,
schools become family
like and families become
school like. Together,
they provide an
environment that supports
learning (Abel, 2014).

Intrafamily Communication
When parents and teachers cooperate, communication

improves between parents and students, which leads

to higher parental expectations and improved
academic outcomes (Steh & Kalin, 2011).

Other Academic Indicators

Parents are childrens first teachers, and research

shows that parental involvement in childrens

education is positively correlated with academic
success (Abel, 2014)
High levels of parental involvement can balance the
disparate impact of financial and educational
backgrounds (Burke, 2013; Staples & Diliberto, 2010).
Increasing parental involvement improves student
attendance and decreases drop-out rates (Burke,
2013).

Other Academic Indicators

there is a close relationship between the involvement
of parents and pupils learning achievement, their
school marks, and their educational aspirations. This is
also linked to higher learning achievements of pupils,
the time spent on their homework, a more favorable
attitude towards school, and a lower number of pupils
who quit school (dropouts) (Steh & Kalin, 2011, p. 83).

What causes conflict in the parent-teacher relationship?

Teacher-Parent Miscommunication
or Failure to Communicate
Teacher development programs often inadequately

prepare teachers to communicate effectively with

parents (Staples & Diliberto, 2010).

Teacher-Parent Miscommunication
or Failure to Communicate
Many parents, particular

those from lower socio

economic status groups,
feel intimidated by the
teacher conference or I.E.P.
process (Staples &
Diliberto, 2010).
Parents often feel like
teachers completely ignore
all parent-generated advice
(Laluvein, 2010).

Differences of Opinion,
Expectations, or Beliefs
Parents spoke favorably about schools with accessible

teachers who would quickly answer questions and

unfavorably about schools in which they had to go over
teachers heads in order to receive a response (Rodriguez,
Blatz, & Elbaum, 2014).
As schools continue to become more diverse, cultural
disconnect can pose a major challenge to positive parentteacher relationships (Abel, 2014; Cheatham & Ostrosky,
2013).
Steh and Kalin (2011) presented data that suggested that a
significant number of teachers do not believe that parents
know how to be good parents.

Teacher Control of Contact

Cheatham and Ostrosky (2011) studied parent meeting
dynamics.
Teachers often gave parents direct and/or indirect

advice.
Teachers rarely, however, solicited advice from parents.
When parents offered advice, the teachers generally
seemed unreceptive.
The parents often felt frustrated and reluctant to
participate in healthy interaction with teachers.

Teacher Control of Contact

A follow-up study by

Cheatham and Ostrosky

(2013) further established
teachers need to control
contact with parents at the
expense of positive
collaboration.
Teacher-parent roles that
place one party, usually the
teacher, in an expert role and
the other party, most often
the parent, in an inferior role
often lead to parent teacher
conflict (Steh & Kalin, 2011).

Roles That Often Lead to Conflict

(Steh & Kalin, 2011)
The protective model
Conflict should be avoided

Teachers and schools are responsible for education;

parental involvement is a disturbance

This is the most common model

Roles That Often Lead to Conflict

(Steh & Kalin, 2011)
The expert model
The teacher is an expert in all aspects of a childs

development
Parents should accept the teachers advice without
question
Teachers who follow this model are left without the
wealth of knowledge that parents might have provided

Roles That Often Lead to Conflict

(Steh & Kalin, 2011)
The transmission model
Teachers are still the

primary source of
expertise
Parents, however, do play a
major role in enriching
their childrens education
The teacher trusts that
parents will follow
through on specific
measures suggested by the
teacher

Roles That Often Lead to Conflict

(Steh & Kalin, 2011)
The curriculum enrichment model
Parents can contribute and enrich the curriculum,

enhancing the educational goals of the school

Parents and teachers can learn from each other
Many teachers find this approach threatening because it
brings parents into the area of teaching

Roles That Often Lead to Conflict

(Steh & Kalin, 2011)
The consumer model
The teacher should present all relevant information to

the parents
The parents are experts and have control over all
educational decisions
This negates teachers professional responsibilities
Parents in higher socio-economic status groups tend to
push for this model

How can teachers avoid conflict with parents?

Roles That Lead to Cooperation

(Steh & Kalin, 2011)
The partnership model
Parents and teachers are

both experts who share

expertise and control
Teachers and parents
listen to and value each
others opinions
Four elements of a
partnership model

Mutual support
Common decision-making
Two-way communication
Encouraging learning

Effective Communication
(Abel, 2014)
Communication is an integral part of family

engagement (p. 182).

Teachers experience more success in positively
involving parents when they approach parental
involvement with a positive attitude.
Teachers need to view communication as a two-way
processnot unidirectional from the teacher to the
parent.

Effective Communication
Teachers, while generally proficient in effectively

transmitting knowledge, often lack well developed

listening skills (Steh & Kalin, 2011).
Teachers can improve their communication by video
taping conferences or using a peer coach to provide
feedback (Cheatham & Ostrosky, 2011).
Teachers should adopt a more relationship-based
perspective in which they both give advice and value
the advice of parents (Cheatham & Ostrosky, 2011).

Effective Communication
Effective teachers
communicate frequently
using a variety of
communication methods
(Rodriguez, Blatz, &
Elbaum, 2014), contacting
each parent before bad
behavior occurs and at the
first sign of an emerging
problem (Orphal, 2012).

Parental Involvement
Schools can make the

parent-teacher
communication process
less intimidating by
involving parents in a
variety of activities
throughout the school year
(Staples & Diliberto, 2010).
Teachers and parents
develop more trust for
each other as parents
become more involved in
their childs education
(Karaku & Savas, 2012).

Awareness of Cultural Differences

Teachers must become aware of cultural differences in

order to respectfully interact with all parents

(Cheatham & Ostrosky, 2013).
Teacher may use the Funds of Knowledge approach in
which they connect with and understand different
types of families through home visits, interviews, and
discussions (Cheatham & Ostrosky, 2011).
Teachers must remain sensitive to obstacles, including
cultural obstacles, that keep parents from becoming
more involved and make a special effort to reach out to
those parents (Steh & Kalin, 2011).

Teaching Parents to Advocate More

Effectively
Because of the complexity of special education law,

Burke (2013) suggested training special education

advocates to help parents understand how to
effectively work withnot againstthe school system.
Teachers must give some control of interactions to
parents, recognizing the meaningful contributions
that parents bring to their childrens education
(Cheatham and Ostrosky, 2013)

Teaching Parents to Advocate More

Effectively
To help alleviate the us
versus them mentality of
some parents, schools should
empower parents by teaching
them to research their childs
needs and rights in the
school system; teaching
parents be the squeaky
wheel, fighting withnot
againstthe school for the
needs of their child (Foster,
Rude, & Grannan, 2013).

Other Preventative Factors

School-family cooperation was recognized as being the

most effective method through which to achieve trust in

schools (Karakus & Savas, 2012).
When parents believe that their childs teachers are
competent and are providing the services that their child
needs, they tend to have a more positive outlook towards
the teachers and the school (Rodriguez et al., 2014).
When parents of students with disabilities know that
teachers are following the I.E.P. accommodations, they will
generally be less likely to take an adversarial role towards
the teachers (Rodriguez et al., 2014).

Students win when parents and teachers collaborate to solve

problems

Embracing Parents as Collaborators

If teacher really desire to
seek a way forward and
achieve the best outcomes
for their students, they will
seek to actively
collaborate, negotiate, and
problem solve with every
parenteven the difficult
ones (Laluvein, 2010, p.
197).

Effectively Managing ParentTeacher Conferences

Speaking of parent meetings, Orphal (2012) said at their
worst, such meetings (especially when they focus on a
problem are packed with defensiveness, frustration,
guilt, and fear for parents, teachers, and students (p.
35).

Effectively Managing ParentTeacher Conferences

Parent-teacher conferences will be less contentious

when teachers have worked to build relationships with

parents throughout the school year (Orphal, 2012).
Boazman (2014) suggested shifting the focus away
from the parent-teacher conflict by allowing students
to lead scheduled parent-teacher conferences.

Effectively Managing ParentTeacher Conferences

Teachers should be careful when expressing either

praise or disapproval of student actions to parents

because parents can easily be made to feel like they are
being blamed for their childs behavior (Pillet-Shore,
2012).
Meet with multiple teachers out of respect for parents
time out of work and begin each meeting by
accentuating the positive (Orphal, 2012).
Use assessment tools like strength cards to focus on
positive behaviors and academic performance
(Markstrom, 2011).

Effectively Managing ParentTeacher Conferences

Define and develop a map towards realistic and

measureable goals. In other words, understand what a

successful outcome looks like and how to reach that
outcome. (Orphal, 2012).
Each teacher along with the students and parents
should make offers about what they are willing to do to
help the student reach his/her goals (Orphal, 2012).

Conflict Resolution Techniques

(Karakus & Savas, 2012)
The effect of both good and bad conflict depends upon
the style used to manage it.

Conflict Resolution Techniques

(Karakus & Savas, 2012)
Teachers should approach
conflict in a manner that
emphasizes trust in
parents and students and
seeks to strengthen
relationships over winning
arguments.