Addressing conflict with schools and teachers: Part 3: Parenting in the parameters and recognizing institutional limitations
Schools have different missions, parameters, and limitations than parents. Understanding these limitations and parameters are critical to addressing concerns in a way that maximizes odds of success.
Note to podcast listeners: I had some minor technical difficulties but should post it soon. Sorry for the delay!
I’m continuing my series today about conflicts with schools. I have previously talked about building relationships in order to preempt problems—or at least to have a working relationship before they emerge—here. I also talked about how seemingly arbitrary policies might not necessarily be bad, even if they are frustrating, and the importance of keeping disagreements in perspective here. Next time I will get into the specifics, the tactics and approaches that I think will give you the best chance of resolving problems—the way I approach things when I have had problems with my children and a teacher or school.
But today, I want to explain some important realities about schools. You will maximize your chances of getting good results if you understand and keep in mind the institutional realities of schools.
Parenting within the parameters of a school: balancing parental expectations and institutional realities
One essential aspect to consider when it comes to schools is that they operate within specific constraints and parameters. We improve our chances of success when we understand these parameters. We significantly reduce them when we fail to take them into account.
Over the years, I've observed conflict arise frequently when a parent's expectations exceed what the school is capable of delivering or go beyond what the school is set up to do.
A Big Mac in Chik-Fil-A?
This situation is a bit like walking into a Chick-fil-A and ordering a Big Mac. No matter how earnest the customers desire is, and no matter how sincerely willing the Chick-fil-A staff is to assist, it's simply not within their capabilities.
A parent’s perspective vs. a school’s parameters
As parents, we rightly see everything through the prism of the impact something has on our child. We are laser-focused on our child’s feelings and immediate experience. That is natural, good, and right.
But we have to remember that schools are set up differently. They do not, and really cannot, make policy based on our preferences. Most of us want the school to be as responsive to our child’s feelings and immediate well-being as we are. But that is not possible. It’s not within the mission of the school, nor do they have the resources to respond immediately to what we, as parents, may earnestly desire.
A classic example of this is a parent who requests a class because they want their child to have a specific teacher (or requests that their child NOT get a specific teacher). Or they want their child to be in a class with friends, and so on.
When looked at from the school’s point of view, it becomes obvious why these requests can’t be acted upon. If you do it for one, you would have to do it for all and that would be untenable. You simply couldn’t run the school like that.
Living in this sort of era of Spotify, Alexa, Netflix, and Hulu, where we can really customize so much of our experience, I think that has quietly seeped into people's consciousness and I think it has changed what we assume defaults to be in many of our interactions. It’s not conscious, but I do think it has changed the way we approach things.
So many parents genuinely feel that the school should be responsive to such requests. I am so sympathetic to this, as I have very often felt the same for my kids.
But there are two problems with this: one is tactical, and one is pragmatic. The second is more significant, touching on our child’s well-being.
The tactical consideration about making complaints
Here is the tactical issue: when parents complain about things that can’t realistically or reasonably be changed, they reduce the impact of their voice. Trying to get changes that go beyond something a school can do (like ordering a Big Mac in Chik-Fil-A) is inherently unreasonable, and it risks making us look unreasonable. That is not a label any of us want to have applied to us in interactions with the schools.
Some of this is very analogous to the old fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. We need to steward and manage our credibility very carefully.
The two things that maximize—or minimize—our credibility
There are two things that give us credibility—one is personal relationships. If we have a trusted relationship with the school, or at least a positive one, that gives us more credibility.
The other thing is a serious, legitimate complaint that is skillfully addressed on our part.
If we have the first, it helps with the second. If we don’t have the first, we need to be super thoughtful and make sure that we have the second one. And the less we have invested in relationships, the more we need to make sure our complaint is legitimate and skillfully handled.
Schools are full of busy people, generally understaffed. They get many, many complaints or requests, most of which run the gamut from simply unrealistic or untenable to unfounded or things that exceed the school’s ability to change. When we call on their attention and energy, we need to make sure we are not unreasonable.
Every interaction with schools either builds or hurts our credibility, so be strategic and careful and build relationships whenever possible.
Here’s something important to remember: when we feel very strongly about something, while it's natural and while we have those very strong feelings, those strong feelings don't necessarily create a way for this to happen.
There are no resources, ways, or means created by the strength or depth of our feelings.
I may strongly want my child in a class or with a group of friends. I may feel it is imperative for my child, but my sincere desire does not create an extra desk or an additional teacher, nor does it overcome various other structural things, for example, that my child is in regular English, but that his friend is in honors, and so on.
A brief, but important, digression
While we are on the topic of parents requesting things for their child based on the child’s friends, let me make a quick digression to make another important point that one should always keep in mind: schools don't have an up-to-date roster of who everyone's friends are. There’s no way for schools to take this sort of thing into account, even if they were focused on it. Friendships change frequently at this age, and trying to keep track of who is friends with whom is simply not possible.
Digression done. Here’s another thing to keep in mind: Over many, many years, I have seen kids or parents come up with an idea that the school should do—some new program, policy, or initiative.
Making your voice count—stewarding your influence
Many years ago, I had to call a parent whose child had made an inappropriate hand gesture in class. It was not a hateful slur, nor was it directed it anyone else. It was a private joke for this child, but in terrible taste, and the student needed to process and understand this.
I called the parent, who was really quite annoyed and edgy. The parent blamed it entirely on the rap music videos the child consumed at home and then insisted that the school do more to help the students learn about inappropriate gestures and what they should and shouldn’t do—couldn’t we have some program or curriculum in place?
Now, this parent was in a stressful situation, and who knows what other stress was in their life at that moment? Perhaps they were in the middle of a big, complicated work project, and my call interrupted them. Also, it can be incredibly embarrassing to get a call like this.
That being said, the parent essentially wanted the school to do something in advance to somehow make sure their child never misbehaved (even though a school cannot control the media a child is exposed to outside of school). In reality, the school was doing something--it was holding him accountable and helping him understand that it was inappropriate to do what he had done.
It is very common for schools to get requests to do things—to have a speaker, or spend more time talking to the kids about x or y, to get behind any number of worthy causes.
Frequently, people will request some big-picture solution to what are fairly specific problems.
Usually, these conversations start out with someone saying, "Hey, have you ever thought about…?" Or, "Has the school ever considered...?"
In almost every case, the answer is, "Yes, the school has considered that or thought about it but is simply not able to do that because of time, personnel, or money."
It is best to not spend time and energy on things like this. My best advice is to save your access and your voice for when something is really important.
Here’s why: one might be passionate about some new program that would be wonderful, but that doesn’t free up time in the day. Will math or reading be trimmed? Who will teach this class? What will happen to their other responsibilities?
A special program or guest speaker is great, but state laws mandate a certain amount of instructional time. Plus, they can be expensive. And to be honest, one speaker or one program, no matter how good, rarely changes behaviors.
A speaker for the parents is a great idea, but schools cannot make attendance compulsory, and often the people who come are already super conscientious about whatever the speaker will be presenting.
Once again, noble ideas and deeply felt, very sincere feelings on both the part of the student and parents do not generate the resources necessary to make these happen.
It is pretty common to want a school to do something, either for one’s own child or for other people’s children.
And there are times when the school can and must take action about something, but even then, they have parameters and processes they must adhere to.
We increase the odds of a positive result when we understand the mission of the school and parent within those parameters. We can try to work within realistic parameters, or we can bang our heads against the wall.
Working within parameters--a case study
A friend of mine had a child who felt that one of their teachers was targeting him in really inappropriate ways—being snippy, sarcastic, and openly hostile.
As the child is in high school, my friend asked the child to go to the administration and request a transfer—that was well within the child’s ability.
The child did, and the assistant principal said that it would need to start by telling the teacher. Given the situation, that seems like too much in my mind, but again, we are dealing with institutions, and sometimes it’s best to go along in order to get what you really want. Sometimes we have to accept procedures we don’t like, but unless the situation is urgent or dire, we don’t want to be fighting on two fronts—trying to get our result and trying to change long-standing processes simultaneously.
A critical key is to remember this: don’t dilute your complaint with things that are minor, irrelevant, or tangential. Don’t dilute the power of your voice by complaining so often and about so much that you train people to tune you out.
My friend was ready to intervene, but the child felt able to do this on their own. So the child told the teacher about the request. The teacher listened and apologized. She acknowledged the problem. There were some things in her past that led her to act that way, but that was not an excuse.
My friend’s child was transferred, and the teacher was now on the radar of the administration. My friend got what they wanted AND his child developed some important life skills along the way.
Of course, if you feel your child is in danger or something like that, then that is different. But leaving aside bullying, which is different, the bumps along the way are actually part of the process.
Earlier, I mentioned that there was a tactical reason to not intervene too much as well as a longer-term, more important one. Now I'd like to discuss that longer-term issue.
The long-term, more important reason for us to use caution in intervening and requesting changes
As parents, it is so hard for us to let our kids struggle. It goes against all our instincts. So we have to use reason and logic to move out of our feeling brains into our thinking brains.
Problems, challenges, and struggles are a feature of life, not a bug. This is the way our kids grow to be resourceful. They learn how to get along in life and make their way. Facing challenges today is how they are able to face larger challenges later.
If you take the challenges away, then they really have no ability later on. It's sort of an emotional deficit we begin to run up: When we help our child too much, we're borrowing against their future well-being.
Our intervention is borrowing against their future competence, strength, and independence—postponing their autonomy and self-actualization.
This debt will come due one day, and the longer that reckoning is delayed, the higher the price will be.
So, while our desires for our child’s immediate well-being are sincere, we must allow them to experience the obstacles that come. I cannot name any happy, successful adult I know who has not struggled at some point in their life to overcome some difficult problem. That means they have had to address those skills.
When should you intervene in a school matter?
Well, the rule of thumb I have tried to use is that I need to intervene a lot less than I probably feel like I do.
That is, I have often been very upset about something, but looking back with time and perspective, I realize that it was probably not as serious or important as I felt it was at the time.
In those cases, I'm now glad that I was more restrained in my parental interventions. The stakes were nearly never as high as I thought, and difficult times gave my kids a chance to learn and grow. Even if they were unpleasant, uncomfortable, or unfair, they generally weren't the sort of thing that ruined their lives in any lasting way.
Parental coaching is always warranted; parental intervention is only something to use as a last resort.
For me, the biggest warning sign is when there is a power imbalance at play, when the problem is serious and truly exceeds the child’s resources, and when the child has truly tried to address it. Obviously, if a child is in danger, it is clearly time to intervene.
Here’s a simple example: one of my children was in a 2nd grade class that tended to roughhouse a lot, boys and girls alike. One day my child came home with gouges in his arm where another student in the class had dug their fingernails into his skin. It was a girl, and I have always been absolute with my sons about not using physical force. So, I took photos and went to the teacher—calmly and politely, but firmly—and intervened.
Here’s another more complex example: a friend of mine taught her child to always be responsible and be accountable for his schoolwork and life in general. He had done badly on an assignment, so she sent him to talk to the teacher.
The teacher was sarcastic and glib about following directions but was not helpful in any way. I should note that this shouldn't happen in a perfect world. In the real world, it will. Teachers are humans, with all that entails.
At that point, my friend felt she had to intervene. She was not worried about the bad grade, but she was worried that she had taught her child to go ask questions of a teacher and authority figure, and that person didn’t respond.
She sent a short, simple email asking to meet at his convenience. She went in having carefully chosen the ground on which she wanted to fight and knowing what she wanted. She calmly laid out the situation and said, "I get that he’s a middle schooler who forgets things and is frustrating, and I am fine with having consequences for lost or missing assignments, but if he makes a mistake and wants to fix it, what is he supposed to do if you won’t help him?"
To his credit, the teacher acknowledged the mistake and apologized. Had he not, she would have escalated it, but that's not where she started. That's an important key.
Next time, we will talk about specific approaches and tactics to use when you feel you must intervene.
Happy parenting—and happy Labor Day—you’ve got this!
Sincerely,
Braden
This is really helpful stuff! Great wisdom.