Tackling teacher troubles

Your child might come home from school and say some troubling things about their teacher. “My teacher hates me. I can’t do anything right!” “I’m so messy, and she tells me that I just can’t get my space cleaned up.”

If you’re hearing things like this, it’s usually a sign that there’s some challenge between your child and their teacher.

Related resources

• 9 steps to take if the teacher hurts your child’s feelings 

• My child’s teacher is mean to her. What can I do? 

• 8 steps to advocating for your child at school 

Timestamps

(0:44) Figuring out your child’s perceptions 

(1:51) Validating your child’s feelings

(5:29) Validating the teacher’s experience 

(7:03) How to find solutions

(9:13) How challenges can help kids grow and thrive 

(10:42) What to do if the situation is really bad

Episode transcript

Andy: You ever hear your kids say things like, "My teacher hates me. I can't do anything right. I'm so messy, and she tells me that I just can't get my space cleaned up." This is usually a sign that there's some challenge with your teacher and your child. Difficult thing to navigate, but we're going to talk that through today. 

This is "Parenting Behavior" with me, your host, Dr. Andy Kahn. I'm a parent and licensed psychologist with over 20 years experience working with families and kids, navigating things like challenging behavior. On this episode, we're going to talk about navigating issues between your child and their teacher. Can be a little bit tricky, but stick around. 

(0:44) Figuring out your child's perceptions 

Today we're going to focus on managing those difficulties between your child and teacher. The best way to start this, and I've said this before, is bringing out your scientist hat. We're going to start answering those questions. Who is there when these challenges are occurring? What is the activity your child is doing at the time? When or what time of day are we going to see these things happening? It's really important also to ask your child about what are they experiencing, what's happening for them? 

So much of navigating this stuff in school is thinking about your child's perceptions. Now again, psychobabble word, a perception is the idea of how does it feel for that individual? Perceptions are important because for your child, that's the reality. If they're upset about something they feel, we're not going to argue this. We're going to figure out why they feel that way. 

One of the things that's really important, too, is not forgetting to ask your child "What's going on? What is it that you're thinking and seeing and feeling in these moments?" Don't be discouraged. You're going to probably hear a lot of I don't knows, but that's pretty standard for parenting. But asking the question is a great first step. 

(1:51) Validating your child's feelings

Let's bring out some psychobabble right at the start here. We're going to talk about validating your child's feelings. What is validation? Validation is giving your child permission to feel whatever it is that they're feeling. If your child comes to you and says, "I'm so frustrated, this is such a pain. I hate this," saying to your child in return something like, "You know what, I can see that's really frustrating. I see how upsetting that is to you. Let's figure this out together." 

A parent trap here is when we talk about your child says it's frustrating and you say, "Well, you know, you should be working harder. We worked on that last night. Why is it so frustrating?" See the difference? In that situation, your child feels like crap because you're not giving them the support they need. Just acknowledging what they're feeling allows them to feel like you're there to help them. 

One of the important things to do here is to look at the phrases your child is saying. As a scientist, if your child is saying, "You know my teacher saying that I'm messy," or "My teacher is saying that I'm disorganized or that I'm rushing through my work," these are little pieces of evidence about what could be going wrong. A disorganized child might be struggling with things like executive function, organizing, planning, executing their activities. 

Being messy might mean that they don't have the attention to what's going on around them, and things are just getting placed all over the place. So, think about this. The details are going to help drive what we do to understand what's happening with your child. Finally, the idea around looking for clues. Clues are what they say, what they describe about what they do, and eventually, we'll talk about how to get some information from their teacher. 

Speaking of teachers, getting the teacher's take here is really important. We're going to do something when we talk to the teacher, that is a phrase that I love to use, which is called reality testing: getting the opinion of another adult who's in the room about what's happening. Now remember, we're getting perceptions here. The teacher is seeing through the teacher lens what's going on, your child is seeing through their lens, and then you, as a parent, as a scientist, are going to try to take this information and decode it to turn it into something useful. 

Talking to teachers can be hard sometimes, because keep in mind here, you have to open communication early and take into account what does this do for the teacher? Teachers are busy. They got 20 plus kids. They're trying to navigate all kinds of demands in their environment. So, an email or a call from you might be just one extra thing that's hard for them. 

If you acknowledge to the teacher right out of the gates, first communication, "Hey, I know that you've got a lot going on. I'd like to ask a really quick question. Do you have time for this?" Those kind of acknowledgments that their job is hard can bring down teachers tension levels. If they see a parent email come in and they don't know you yet, that's going to raise their anxiety a little bit. Because they're humans. They're they're wanting to do their jobs. 

And honestly, a teacher who's doing well really wants to do it well, be a little bit left alone, and have things go well. But when they're getting a lot of comments and questions, it can make things slow down and make it harder for them. So, just be aware of how that comes across. 

When I talk to my families in therapy about navigating teacher communications, it's always about balancing a negative point and a positive point together. So, when you ask the teacher a question, make it open-ended. "Do you mind telling me things that are going well for my child in your classroom? How about a couple of things that might be challenging?" And always ending up with "And you know what? How else can I help you make my child more successful? What can I tell you or do for you to help?" 

Those situations can make it a collaborative process, which brings down lots of teacher anxiety. It's tough to do because when our child is feeling upset or feeling mistreated, we're going to get all of our parent anxiety up and it makes it really hard for us as parents. But keep in mind, bringing those really concrete responses, acknowledge what the teacher is going through, and look to be a collaborator. That'll start off the communication really well. 

(5:29) Validating the teacher's experience 

So, let's go back to the point of validation again. I know it's serious psychobabble, but the idea of being successful communicating with a teacher requires that we validate them as well. How do we validate a teacher? What can we do? Well, we can acknowledge first and foremost, "You know, I can imagine how hard it is when my child needs to be redirected 6 or 7 times, and my child is one of 25. That makes me exhausted when I have maybe one or 2 or 3 kids at home." 

Acknowledging that right out of the gate brings anxiety down a lot in those interactions. The other thing to keep in mind is that you want to keep the communications open and moving. Asking the teacher via email or via phone, "Hey, do you mind if I check in with you every few weeks? I promise to keep them short and keep my questions really specific so that we can have a communication that makes sense. But I can always be available to you to help navigate something that's difficult." 

There's one other wild card factor here that I'd like for you to think about. If your educational experience was traumatic, it was really challenging, when you hear about things that are not going well for your child, that's going to push buttons for you. You may experience all over again what you went through as a student. A lot has changed since most of us were in school, and thinking about how teachers today are doing their best, and trying to let go of your own prior experiences when you communicate with your child's teacher can be really important. 

But if that's been really hard for you in the past, acknowledge it, give it some time, and then send an email when you're calm. Don't let that emotion drive how you respond to the teacher because that teacher wasn't yours, and it's so hard not to think of that stuff the same way. 

(7:03) How to find solutions

Let's talk about finding solutions to problems in school. One of the most important things is to start with simple stuff. Some of the things that are going on in school can feel really complicated. And as parents, we're not going to solve a specific learning challenge or break down how to decode things your child is reading or doing an advanced math skill. It's much more about finding the little important things to attack. 

Things like transition times are a great example. Getting a bunch of kids ready to go out for recess or to leave to go to P.E. or some other activity can require a teacher to do things like zipping 6 or 7 coats or helping kids find their materials. 

If your child, for example, has an issue with things like fine motor skills and can't zip their coat up, consider sending your child with a pullover on that day. Sending a note to the teacher to say, "You know, I know this is hard for my child. I hope sending a pullover would make it a little bit easier because I know you have so much on your plate." Simple little solutions like that can go a long way. 

Another thing on addressing big challenges. Sometimes teachers will hold kids back from recess or activities because they don't complete work. This is a little pet peeve of mine because we have to make sure that if we're going to provide a consequence to a child, that it makes sense. 

If your child needs to run around and missing recess or activity is something that's really important to them, raise that issue to the teacher and say, "Hey, I'm a little concerned that what my child needs in terms of movement might be more important than getting some of that work done. How can we solve this problem together?" 

"Is my child not understanding the concept, or are they not completing 5 or 6 problems and only doing two? Well, do those two problems actually show that they have comprehension of the lesson? If that actually is something that you see, then we can maybe make a compromise, maybe not tell the child they only have to do two, but if they show you what they know and what they know is accurate, send them to recess. Let them go." 

Teachers sometimes have to be reminded that we can accommodate kids. We can shift around some of how much of what they have to do, as long as they get the big concept. These kind of alternative problem solving sort of strategies are things that are really important for parents and teachers to talk about regularly, and they may not be things that come to you right off the bat, which is why we're having this conversation today. 

(9:13) How challenges can help kids grow and thrive 

Something that's really important to remember is that conflicts are common and that they're temporary. So, letting your child know that figuring this out is important. Dealing with people who they don't get along with, or that they don't love right off the bat, is an important life lesson, and we all do it. 

Sharing a situation where you've had a difficult boss or hard co-worker is something that your child can eventually learn to understand. Very young kids, probably not so much. But as your kids get older, they will really appreciate that life experience from you. 

Learning to navigate day-to-day challenges will allow your child to do more complicated things, to do things that are bigger achievements in life. And this is really what we want for our kids, to take away the barriers from them doing things that would prevent them from becoming all that they want to be. Kids who thrive learn to do challenging things, they learn to do it when it's difficult, and they learn how to manage it even when they don't love it. 

Thinking about as your kids get older, remind them "This stuff isn't going to go on forever. This teacher might only be with you for a few months or for this academic year, and that they'll be new people, and then that teacher will be there to torture someone else next year." I kid, lots of teachers are really having a hard time because their jobs are too difficult. But for some families, getting away from a teacher that they don't love is completely acceptable. And knowing that that year is going to end is okay and it's reassuring. 

So, teach your child again, this is temporary and conflicts like these are really common.

(10:42) What to do if the situation is really bad

OK, what if the situation is bad and it's truly happening as your child is experiencing it, that the teacher isn't being kind to your child, or that the situation isn't manageable? This is something that doesn't happen that often but happens on occasion. For you as a parent, you want to make sure that you spend adequate energy communicating kindly to the teacher, trying to problem solve, validating your child and the teacher as much as humanly possible before you decide to do something big, like going to talk to the school administrator. 

Going to talk to an administrator is something that you can't really undo. It's like jumping over someone to go to their boss. And if a teacher feels really defensive and concerned because you're talking to their boss without solving a problem with them first, it's going to make it more challenging for your child. So, keep that in mind. We call that the nuclear option. Not going to something that's extreme, before you try all the simple solutions first. 

If you have to go to the administrator, it's important, again, make yourself a list of concerns. Stay factual, stay objective. Bring a scientist, so to speak, to the meeting, if you know what I mean. Bring that calm person who talks about facts and very specific examples of what's happening. You bring big emotions, that's going to make the administrator look at you as less credible, meaning less likely to be telling the truth about what's happening. 

They want to know exactly what's going on and try to solve that problem. They don't want to talk to families for hours on end about challenging relationships. They want to know problems, solutions, and efforts. And in those situations that will go a long way. 

Also, keep in mind that the option of moving your child out of their classroom to another classroom is a really big deal and can upend a lot of their educational process. So, there may be times where the best case scenario is just to navigate this together, to manage it and survive it as a team. But knowing that you can talk to the administrator if you get stuck is really important. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of "Parenting Behavior with Dr. Andy Kahn." We'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts on the show. You can email us at ParentingBehavior@understood.org. I'll put that email in the show notes too, where you can also find more resources and links to anything we mentioned. 

"Parenting Behavior with Dr. Andy Kahn" is brought to you by Understood.org. It's produced and edited by Cody Nelson. Editorial guidance by Rae Jacobson. Music and mixing by Justin D. Wright. Ilana Millner is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. 

For Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to support us as we go through with our important mission, please consider donating. Go to Understood.org/give.