The ABC's of Parent-Teacher Conferences

Sharon Duke Estroff

From the teacher’s perspective, parent-teacher conferences represent a revolving door of anxious moms and dads. From the parent’s perspective it’s our big chance to find out everything we need to know about our child’s school existence! Here’s how to make the most of your kid’s fifteen minutes in the spotlight.

Arrive on time. There’s no such thing as being fashionably late to a parent-teacher conference. Even a five minute delay on a parent’s part can throw off a teacher’s carefully synchronized schedule for the rest of the evening. If you are late due to unforeseen circumstances, cut your losses by offering to finish up your chat via phone call later.

Open the meeting on a positive note. Your bulletin boards look great. I really enjoyed the writing piece Jake brought home from school today. This will help set an amiable tone for the rest of the conference.

If – or should I say when – the teacher brings up concerns (conferences rarely comprise a teacher soliloquy singing a student’s praises), don’t feel like you’re the only parent in the classroom whose kid has an issue. The truth is that every child has a shtick of some sort. Some kids’ shticks just happen to be more obvious in a school setting.

If the teacher shares an observation regarding your child that differs from your take (i.e. Emily doesn’t seem to understand what she’s reading), ask for specific examples. If you still believe the teacher to be off base, don’t tell her she’s wrong. Say something to the effect of Emily often tells me about the books she’s reading at home. Perhaps she feels a bit more distracted or anxious at school. I know how busy you are, but would you mind doing a short one-on-one assessment of Emily’s reading comprehension whenever you get a chance?

If your child is experiencing a problem at school - academic, social or behavioral – it’s important to form an action plan. What is the teacher going to do on her end? What should you do on yours? Provide a quick recap to ensure everyone’s on the same page. Just so I’m clear Mrs. Smith, I’m going to buy a pack of flashcards today and start working with Daniel on his math facts at home. You are going to include him in small group math reinforcement opportunities at school. If he doesn’t show improvement by winter break, I am going to look into having him tutored. Did I forget anything? If your child’s difficulties are too complex to address in a short conference, don’t hesitate to request a separate meeting with the teacher and other school professionals to discuss the situation in depth.

When the teacher turns the floor over to you to share questions and concerns (which she most certainly will, but if she doesn’t jump in and take it anyway!), don’t waste time talking about issues that the teacher can’t change. (I can’t stand this math book!) Bring up issues that are within the teacher’s realm of control or at least repackage them so they can be. (Sam has a hard time understanding the instructions in the math book. I’d really appreciate it if you could take a moment to go over them when assigning homework pages.) This is also the time to fill in the teacher on anything going on at home that could impact your son or daughter in the classroom.

If you’re concerned your child is not being adequately challenged academically, it’s important to present your case tactfully. First and foremost, never play the “bored” card. (Hannah keeps complaining that school is boring. Obviously the work is too easy for her.) Not only do teachers who work overtime planning exciting learning experiences for their students find such statements offensive; the reality is that kids can find school boring for a million different reasons. They may have attentional difficulties, learning problems or just want to go outside and play. Rather than focusing on the fact that your kid considers this teacher’s class to be snooze-city, say something like I noticed Hannah got all A’s in math this term. If you feel it would be appropriate, we’d love for her to have a few additional challenges in class.

Just prior to wrap-up time, the teacher will probably ask if you have any other questions. While a truthful answer would likely be Why, I do have a few zillion questions. Thanks for asking! A single inquiry is all that is socially appropriate at this point.

Don’t waste your final question on something inconsequential like, “When are the gift wrap orders due?” Make it a doozie with plenty of bang for your buck. My personal favorite: “Could you give me a general idea of where Alex falls academically in the context of the class?” Teachers have a relative understanding of our child, and a perspective of his place in the academic pack, that we parents don’t. It’s important for us to know the answer to this question, not from a competitive standpoint, but to help us understand our child as a learner.

Finally, don’t lose sight of the fact that the parent-teacher conference is a touchpoint - not an annual summit meeting. Our children’s teachers are among the most central and influential figures in our kids’ lives. It’s vital that we communicate with them regularly, effectively and respectfully.

Sharon Duke Estroff is an internationally-syndicated parenting advice columnist and feature writer for hundreds of publications including Parents Magazine, Good Housekeeping,and Coastal Living. She is an award winning educator and author of Can I Have a Cell Phone for Hanukkah? (Broadway Books, 2007). www.sharonestroff.com

Kindergarten Ready or Not?

It's that time of year again. Kindergarten readiness jitters season. Is your child ready for kindergarten or would he benefit from another year of pre-kindergarten? This excerpt from my book CAN I HAVE A CELL PHONE FOR HANUKKAH? (Broadway Books, 2007) will help you answer this increasingly common question.

EXCERPTED FROM CAN I HAVE A CELL PHONE FOR HANUKKAH (Broadway Books, 2007) by Sharon Duke Estroff

To those unfamiliar with the Kindergarten Readiness Shpilkes, you may be wondering why on earth anyone would waste time worrying about whether or not their kid is ready for kindergarten. I mean it’s kindergarten for heaven’s sake! But if you are a parent, you probably know what I’m talking about. The story goes something like this…

Once upon a time there was a whimsical land of make-believe, dress-up and fingerpainting. A magical place where “work” was a four letter word, “elemenopee” was still one letter and you couldn’t spot a math fact for miles. They called it Kindergarten.

One dark day (after the royal superintendent concluded that Kindergarten’s whimsical ways were partially to blame for the kingdom’s lackluster standardized test scores) everything changed. Stuffed animals and dollhouses were replaced with math manipulatives and spelling tests. Wooden blocks and Play-Doh gave way to rigorous core curriculums and palace mandated standards.

Once word got out about Kindergarten’s abrupt metamorphosis, the parents of the kingdom started to worry that it would take more than five candles on a birthday cake to prepare their children to enter this playroom turned pressure cooker. In fact some decided it would take at least six candles!
Now the royal superintendent had a whole new problem on his hands - with so many children entering Kindergarten at age six, he needed to up the difficulty level. So he did. Now the parents were even more worried, especially in the case of boys whose birthdays fell precariously close to the cut-off date. And that’s how the kindergarten readiness shpilkes came to be.

(By the way, if you’re wondering what happened to that once carefree land of dress-up and make-believe, it now has a new name. They call it preschool.)

Having managed to deliver all four of my kids a stone’s throw from the illustrious school cut-off date, I’m a member in good standing of the “Late Birthday” Parents Club. So you know I speak from experience when I tell you that the worrying kicks in the instant the ultrasound technician assigns our baby a due date between Passover and Rosh Hashanah (or Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah depending on your local kindergarten entry cut-off date). Double the worry if the ultrasound technician also reveals our baby to be a boy. We then proceed to fret for the next five years. One minute we are all but certain our kid will be able to handle the demands of the modern kindergarten curriculum (a.k.a. the former first grade curriculum) despite being a “young” five; and the next we are convinced that if we don’t give him the “gift” of an extra year we’ll hopelessly doom his academic career. But even a final verdict can’t free us from our misery, as every academic or social glitch our child experiences over the next twelve years will leave us wondering whether it could have been prevented had we only made a different choice about kindergarten.

The Real Scoop on Retention

So you’re ready for the bottom line, huh? You want to know if it’s better to delay or not to delay kindergarten entry for late birthday children. Unfortunately, as of press time, it still has no answer.
And it’s certainly not for lack of trying. Mounds of research have been collected in hopes of revealing the real scoop on retention, only to conclude that there is no scoop. Dr. Lorrie Shepard, for example, a professor of research methodology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, reviewed sixteen studies on the long-term effects of delaying kindergarten and found there to be no significant difference between kids who had been retained and those who hadn’t.

In fact, just about the only decisive result that’s emerged from the retention research at all, is that roughly15% of children entering kindergarten nationwide have been held back. And that the vast majority of these late starters are Caucasian, male, born in the second half of the year, and come from rather affluent homes (Zill, Spencer-Loomis, & West, 1997, West et al, 2000).

The lack of conclusive evidence, however, hardly implies kids can’t profoundly benefit from an extra year. (Many do.) Or be hindered by one. (Some are.) In fact the ambiguous evidence likely results from a relatively even matching between the pros and cons of delaying kindergarten. Take the example of Ben and Josh, two boys I taught as second graders, who had exactly the same birthday (August 15); had been retained for presumably the same reason (poor fine motor skills); yet saw very different outcomes from their extra year.
By the time Ben arrived in my class at the age of seven (his birthday was the first day of school), he was at the top of his game. That extra year of Pre-K had been just what the doctor ordered. Ben had kicked off kindergarten cutting and coloring with the best of them; hardly struggling writing in his daily journal or doing other seatwork. Ben emerged from kindergarten confident, proud and positive about school and remained on that track for the long haul.

Josh was a different story, as round two of Pre-K scarcely made a dent in his list of fine motor issues. Josh, it turns out, would need far more than 365 extra days to clean up his coloring act – he would need years of occupational therapy (only complicated by his being shut out of a prime early intervention window while his parents and teachers eagerly waited for that extra year to work its “magic”). Making matters worse, Josh had been intellectually ready for kindergarten at age five. He was an introspective child who lapped up learning. Because the repetition of the Pre-K curriculum left Josh bored and frustrated, he started acting out in class – ultimately being labeled as a behavior problem. By the time I met Josh in second grade, he’d already decided he hated school.

What we learn from Ben and Josh is that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer to the kindergarten dilemma. We owe it to our kids to shy away from blanket assumptions about age, gender and readiness. To take the time to make a careful, thoughtful choice based on their individual academic, social and emotional profiles in combination with the pace, expectations and philosophy of the school they will be attending. Don’t try to make this decision alone. Consultation with teachers and pediatricians, as well as private educational testing, can help you determine whether retention is a good choice for your child.
In the end what matters most is that you believe in the direction you’ve chosen for your child and remain strong enough in your resolve not to second guess your decision. Sure you’ll encounter some rough spots along the way, but chances are that your child will be just fine – retention or not - as long as you and the school are there to guide and support him throughout his journey.

Sharon Duke Estroff is a nationally syndicated parenting columnist, award winning educator and author of Can I Have a Cell Phone for Hanukkah (Broadway Books, 2007). Visit her website at www.21st-Century-Kids.com