Academic Resolutions: From a Teacher to a Teacher

by Rebecca Kirk, MAMFT

Now is an excellent time to evaluate your child’s academic progress and set goals for academic accountability.  Unlike at the beginning of a school year,  many of your child’s teachers are familiar with your child’s aptitude and average performance and might recognize important changes that may have occurred.  Depending on the teacher, you may find out critical behavioral and social information since your child spends a significant period of time at school.  Remember that emotional, social, and behavioral encounters with friends and peers can affect academics significantly.  Often times emailing your child’s teacher with specific questions can be the most time efficient method of communication.   Many times an informal e-mail can produce more candid and efficient results than a formal teacher conference where several adults are gathered and communications can be more filtered and hurried.  If you do not desire to communicate with all of his or her teachers, try to choose one or two that your child mentions the most.  Choosing teachers that your child has more positive and negative interactions with could be beneficial.  Send each teacher an individualized e-mail.  From my experience as a high school teacher and therapist, I have found the following list of questions most helpful:

• Does my child seem to be focused while in class?
• When considering my child’s academic aptitude, is he/she below, above, or on average for his/her grade level?
• Is my child performing according to his/her aptitude?
• Does my child participate in classroom activities?
• Does my child do his or her homework thoroughly? (You will know their grades from their electronic and paper reports.)
• How does my child interact socially with peers?  Is social communication too reserved, too vocal, inappropriate, etc.?
• If you have noticed my child’s social interactions, would you say he or she is socializing with positive peers or negative ones?
• Do you have any suggestions of goals to work on with my child?

When communicating with your child’s teacher, remember to choose a few important questions that don’t overload the teacher with more work than he or she already has.  Thank the teacher for his or her time.  Be careful that you do not accuse a teacher, but instead ask questions that communicate that you desire clarity from an adult’s perspective (if there has been a confusing incident).  Lastly, as with all communications, remember to say something positive about your child’s experience in his or her class if applicable.