Parents, teachers' role in nurturing children

A positive parent-teacher relationship contributes to your child’s school success. “Easier said than done,” you may be thinking, after all, there are teachers your child will love and teachers your child may not. There are teachers you’ll like and dislike as well. There are teachers who may adore your child, and those who just don’t understand him. But whatever the case, your child’s teacher is the second most important person in your child’s life (after their parents, of course), and you can help make their relationship a strong and rewarding one. A positive parent-teacher relationship helps your child feel good about school and be successful in school,” advises Diane Levin, a professor of education at Wheelock College. It demonstrates to your child that he can trust his teacher, because you do. This positive relationship makes a child feel like the important people in his life are working together. Communicating well is a key factor for making this relationship work. The parents need information about what and how their child is learning, and the teacher needs important feedback from the parent about the child’s academic and social development. However, communicating effectively with a busy teacher, who may have up to 30-100 kids in a class, can be challenging. When’s the right time to talk — and when is it not? How can you get her attention? What should you bring up with her with and what should be left alone? How do you create a relationship with someone you may only see a few times a year? And how do you do this without coming off as a bother? How to be friends with the teacher a) Approach this relationship with respect; treat the teacher-parent-child relationship the same way you would with any other important person in your life. Create a problem-solving partnership with a teacher, not a confrontational one. Meet with a teacher to brainstorm and collaborate ways to help your child instead of lecturing them. b) Let your child develop his own relationship with the teacher. “This is one of the first relationships with an adult your child may have outside the family unit. If you take a back seat and let the relationship develop without much interference, a special bond may develop. For young children, the teacher-child relationship is a love relationship. In fact, it may be their first love relationship after their parents and it can be pretty powerful and wonderful. c) Try not to brag about how your child is brilliant. Bragging over her many accomplishments may send a message to the teacher that you think he may not be good enough to teach your child. You don’t need to sell your child to the teacher; you have to trust that your teacher will come to know what’s important herself. Telling a teacher that your child loves to read will thrill the teacher. However, challenging your teacher with statements like ‘Kaliza read 70 books over the holiday’ or ‘Matthew is a whiz at math,’ may backfire.” Remember how you liked (or disliked) your teachers. Your experience at school is likely to affect your attitude toward your child’s teacher. It’s important to leave your own baggage at the door, so you can talk about your child with the teacher (and not about you!). The writer is a lecturer at Kigali Institute of Management.

Education

Parents, teachers' role in nurturing children