PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES:
FIVE FACTORS WORTH ATTENTION
If parents are going to assist teachers to educate their children, if they are
going to utilize school resources once they have tried some of the ideas described
in the previous sections, then effective parent-teacher conferences are essential.
Your job is to see to it that the conferences between teachers and parents in you
school are meaningful, informative, and educative.
Kinds and Locations:
There are two kinds of conferences and two places to hold them. One kind
of conference includes teacher and parent, the other, teacher, parent, and child.
Both kinds should be scheduled periodically. The older the child, the more
valuable will be his or her participation in conferences.
Conferences may be held at school or in the home. While the school
conference is the most popular and is certainly easier for the teacher, it might be of
interest to teachers to try a home conference or two during the school year.
Purpose:
There are four reasons for teacher-parent conferences: first, for the teacher
and the parents to get to know each other; second, for the teacher to share
information about the child’s academic progress and behavior with the parents;
third, for the parents to share information about the child’s out-of-school behavior
and activities with the teacher; and fourth, for both to examine solutions to
problems and to develop ways of maintaining positive behavior and achievement.
Planning:
Teachers are professionals, and, as such, they must plan the conference
carefully and purposefully. If the conference is between the teacher and the
parent, the teacher should make the following preparations:
1. Set the climate for the conference through choice of seating,
refreshments, and the like;
2. Determine the objectives of the conference (decide what to share with
the parents and what to find out from them);
3. Select examples of the student’s work and of positive and negative
behavior (with dates, if possible); and
4. If the child were to be present at the conference, it would be
appropriate, although time-consuming, for the teacher and the student
to plan the conference together.
The focus of the conference should be on the child’s work, behaviors, efforts,
and attitudes. Careful planning will provide this focus and will help avoid
generalizations, misconceptions, and misunderstandings.
Planning should
emphasize positive as well as negative observations.
Communication:
It is vital to the success of a parent/teacher conference that good
communication skills be practiced. Teachers should listen carefully and use
questions to elicit reactions, to examine, to clarify, and to confirm. Teachers
should not hesitate to ask for suggestions, ideas, and reactions to their observations
or to the material presented to the parent.
The teacher should be honest, straightforward, professional, and humane, and
should use understandable language. The teacher should not appear to be "talking
down” to the parent (or the child, if he or she is present).
Sharing information should lead to greater efforts to solve problems, if there
are any, or to reinforce positive student behavior and achievement. This can be
done near the end of the conference, if time permits, or it can be done as a
postconference follow-up, as described below. The follow-up plan, jointly
proposed, should leave both teacher and parent with the feeling that they are
cooperatively engaged in helping the child.
Follow-up and Evaluation:
What the teacher does to follow up the conference is most important and will
contribute to its success.
First, parents and teachers should evaluate the conference. Did you
accomplish your goal?
Second, the teacher should follow up the conference with a telephone call.
The purpose of the call is to review the conference with the parent.
Third, the teacher should provide a written review of the conference,
including his or her own observations and those of the parents.
Teachers can start their practice as educators of parents by conducting wellplanned, effective parent conferences. The suggestions and ideas for educating
parents discussed earlier take on greater meaning when they become part of the
conference and the follow-up plan.
EFFECTIVE PARENT CONFERENCING
HOW TO ENHANCE PARENT COOPERATION:
1.
Establish rapport by creating an “invitational context”.
2.
Share mutual concerns about the child.
3.
Use concrete, specific, behavioral descriptors.
4.
Guide parents in developing their own, meaningful interpretation of the behaviors.
5.
Confront resistance in a gentle, supportive, yet persistent manner.
6.
Work cooperatively to generate possible intervention plans.
7.
Consider the context of the entire communicative system.
HOW TO CREATE DIFFICULT PARENTS:
1.
Set high expectations at the onset (i.e., be too hopeful).
2.
Minimize parental concerns.
3.
Overlook the relevant communicative system.
4.
Give an opinion of the child’s problem that does not incorporate the parents’ position on the
problem.
5.
Blame the parents for the child’s problems. (This can be accomplished even through implicit
questions).
6.
Assume you know more about the child than the parents do.
7.
Tell them how to parent.
8.
Use language that implies resistant, uncooperative, or difficult parents.
Victor E. Loos, Ph.D.
2524 Nottingham  Houston, TX  713-526-4751