Two Perspectives, One Child

When you look at your child you can see back in time, to the baby and young child he or she once was.

As a parent, you care for your child as if he or she is the only child in the universe. You focus on teaching your child to be his or her own person, develop self-esteem, build on strengths and overcome weaknesses. Even if you have more than one child, you still want these things for each of your children. Above all, you love your children. You love each child as an individual, as a unique person. You try not to compare them to each other or peers, and you try not to judge them, but to accept them for who they are.

Teachers see your child in another light. They see the young adult he or she will become.

Teachers help your child grow as a participant in the social world. Yes, good teachers strive to see students as individuals, strive to develop their strengths and their confidence. But their focus is external. They determine what is best for your child in light of what is best for the group. They focus on teaching children to take their places in the social world. They teach what it means to be part of a community, to be one of many. They are also required to evaluate your child. Teachers see how your child compares to the other children they teach or have taught. They see how your child’s performance measures up to their instructional objectives or to social standards for behavior.

Now, you might argue that you, too, care about your child’s behavior and social skills. You want them to share and take turns, act with love and kindness, and have healthy relationships in their lives. And you want them to be academically successful, and a contributing member of society.

But you mostly want these things to make your child happy. Teachers mostly want these things to make the world happy.

This key difference explains why you feel a sense of tension when you conference with your child’s teacher, when you find out your child has misbehaved, when you feel your child is somehow overlooked in the classroom.

The school sees a different child than you do, and that is not bad news.

It is the push and pull between these two interests—home and school, individual and social—that helps your child become a successful adult.

If you see yourself as the primary caregiver for your child’s internal self, and teachers as the primary caregivers for his or her external self, together you can help your child be both successful and happy.

But pushing and pulling don’t sound very pleasant, nor very collaborative.

Even though you look at your child with different eyes than teachers do, you can learn to speak their language when you talk about your child.

This blog gives you an insider’s view of the world of school, and gives you tips for dealing with a variety of situations that could get ugly. So the next time you feel like charging down to the school to defend your child’s best interests, don’t go into battle unarmed. With the tools offered on this blog, you can tear down the barriers to communication between home and school. It will help you broaden your perspective, so you can speak to the teachers’ point of view, and better communicate your own.

On When a Teacher Expresses a Concern

I had my five-year-old son's hearing tested by an audiologist yesterday for the third time in the past 2 years, even though I was 99% sure it would come out normal. Again. Do you know why?


When a teacher says something is wrong with your child, she is right. Even if she's wrong.

Let me explain.

Teachers have to get to know 20 to 30 new students every single September. Within a few short weeks, teachers have to get to know each child well enough to describe their strengths and weaknesses so they can actually teach them something. They have also been taught to believe in early intervention: if there's a problem, catch it early, so you can do something about it. Talk about pressure.


So the first thing they do is look for patterns of behavior. With just a few short weeks to get to know a lot of kids, they tend to label a repeated behavior a pattern after they see it just a few times. Now, we parents know that some patterns are short-lived, and others are lifelong. In my son Danny's case, the teacher nailed the pattern: he doesn't respond right away to verbal directions, and sometimes needs prompting to do what he's supposed to do. But she didn't have to be right about the pattern, because my son is also a little nervous in new situations, and could have just felt shy the first few weeks of school. How is a teacher supposed to know the difference so early in the year?

Then teachers interpret your child's patterns of behavior by making comparisons. They compare your child's patterns to the other children in the class. They compare your child's patterns to other children they've taught in previous years. And they compare your child's patterns to what a student at that grade is supposed to know and be able to do. (Reading and math assessments also help with this one.) In Danny's case, the teacher was comparing his behavior to her own daughter's behavior. She said her daughter acted the very same way when she was little.

All these comparisons help teachers draw some inferences about the causes of your child's behavior. The daughter's problem? Hearing loss. Viola! It must be Danny's problem, too.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Why not just ask us, the parents, who have years of knowledge about this child and can get to the bottom of this directions thing? And they might. But you have to admit: we're not always a trustworthy bunch. Don't you send your child to school in September with fingers crossed, hoping that last year's problems won't carry over to this year? I know I did. We might even know a problem is coming, but act surprised when a teacher tells us about it. In my case, we went through the same thing last year, and I got his hearing tested, but it was found to be normal. The teacher concluded that Danny just needs some extra prodding. Did I offer up this information to his new teacher at back to school night? No. I guess I could have, but I was hoping my pokey puppy would be more on the ball this year.

So, to review: teachers identify patterns, make comparisons, and infer causes. Teachers ascribe meaning to patterns that might be long-tem or short-lived, and sometimes their interpretations are accurate, and sometimes they aren't. Then what about my preposterous statement?

When a teacher says something is wrong with your child, she is right. Even if she's wrong.

Two words: self-fulfilling prophecy. A teacher has done all this work to ascribe meaning to what they see your child doing. They have convinced themselves that they see a pattern, and since the pattern is just like some other kid's pattern, and that your child probably has the same problem that the other child had. Oversimplified, sure, but they'll be excited that they noticed so much about any one child, given that they have 20 to 30 to watch every day. Encouraged that they've figured something out about your child, they'll tell you about their concern.

As Danny's teacher did, with the best of all intentions. Now, you may object on the basis that it's not a pattern. I didn't...I confirmed the pattern. Or you may object on her interpretation of the cause for that pattern. I did...I told her his hearing test came out normal. But I could tell she wasn't convinced. She told me those screenings don't always pick up everything and she started talking about her daughter. At this point I could have refused to get him tested again, knowing it was unnecessary. But that would have done two bad things: it would have hurt our rapport, and it would have thrown up a mental block for the teacher.

If you express these objections right now (he doesn't act that way at home, it's just a phase), the teacher will just think you are in denial. (Plus, there is a chance you actually are in denial.) In fact, the teacher will be so sure that she's onto something that if you don't follow up on it, she won't feel responsible if the pattern continues, because you didn't follow up on what she thought the cause is. And then she will unwittingly allow the pattern to continue or even get worse. So even if there wasn't a problem before, there will be soon enough. It's a mental block. The teacher needs to rule out the cause she thinks she has discovered before she'll be able to take up, with full confidence, the commitment to helping your child move past this pattern.

So that's why I got my son's hearing checked. Because I want her to expect him to follow directions. And she can't (and won't) do that if she believes, in her heart of hearts, that my little boy can't hear them.

That Nagging Feeling

Perhaps it’s that bout of nerves you get when you’re about to go in for a teacher’s conference. Or that burst of anger (and not at your child) when the school calls about a behavioral infraction. Then there’s the sense of injustice when your child is passed over for the gifted program. Or the flash of panic when you didn't get the “right” first grade teacher.

Maybe you worry that you haven’t done enough to advocate for your child.
Maybe you worry that you’re doing too much.
Maybe you worry a lot.

Whatever the case, you’ve probably felt it. The tension that comes from working with your child’s school. Sometimes it feels like you’re dealing with a world that doesn’t see your child for the precious gift he or she really is. The truth is, you are.

Your child’s teachers will never see your child the way you do.

Never.

Your child will have great years, years when a particular teacher is influential—even a hero—in your child’s life. You may agree with your child’s teachers most of the time. You may like what your child is learning in school, and do your best to support it and be involved. But you will never think your child’s teachers see who he or she truly is.

The reason for this?

Parents and teachers see the world--and the children--differently. And that's a GOOD thing. That's what this blog is about. I'll write about issues that stress us out as parents and translate them into teacher talk. And then I'll show you how to use this new language to get YOUR point across.

Take the posts as insider tips from a teacher.
Or as tales from the front lines of a fellow parent's struggle.
Or both. Because I have the mind of a teacher. And the heart of a mom.