Communicate With Your Child’s Teacher
Once you’ve identified some specific challenges and worked with your child to identify some potential solutions, you’re ready to help your child to communicate their needs to their teacher and other key adults at the school. Your goal is to find ways to amplify your child’s voice, either by advocating directly on behalf of your child or by supporting and encouraging your child’s efforts to advocate for themselves, to the extent that this is possible right now.
Here are the key points to keep in mind when you’re advocating with, or on behalf of, your child.
Recognize the benefits of starting a conversation with your child’s teacher—and continuing to build on that conversation over time. You have so much to gain by collaborating. Think about the breadth and depth of knowledge the two of you bring to the table: your child’s teacher is an expert when it comes to education and you’re an expert when it comes to your child.
Know when to make the call. Making contact with your child’s teacher is key, but that contact doesn’t necessarily have to happen on or before the first day of school. If you’re not able to make contact in a timely manner with your child’s teacher (or you’re not satisfied with the responses you receive from that teacher), you might also consider reaching out to the school’s social worker, child-youth worker, guidance counsellor, or to the board’s mental health leader. They can also provide practical support to you and your child.
And if you’re not able to make contact with the school right away—or you choose to take a bit more of a “wait and see” approach—please know that that’s okay, too. You don’t have to have a complete game plan in place by the first day of school. Teachers and school administrators will still be figuring things out at that point, too. What matters most is that we commit to continuing to learn and grow together.
Some parents worry about maintaining their child’s privacy. While this is a valid concern and it is always your choice as a parent what you choose to disclose about your child’s mental health, it’s important to recognize that sharing this type of information can make it easier for key people at your child’s school to provide your child with the support they need. For example, your child’s support team at school might benefit from knowing if your child has experienced changes to symptoms related to their mental health, developed any new symptoms, received a new diagnosis, or experienced any significant impact on their mental wellness as a result of the pandemic.
When you do make contact, aim to have a frank and honest conversation with the teacher about the challenges that everyone will be facing this year. You might want to acknowledge that you’re not expecting this to be your child’s best school year ever and to emphasize what matters most to you in this moment—your child’s health and wellbeing versus academics.
Do what you can to lighten the teacher’s load. Be prepared to bring some fresh ideas to the table. And don’t be afraid to ask for something new or different. A guiding question might be, “How can we make this situation work because we both know that the norm isn’t going to work for my child right now.”
Consider creating a brief one-pager that can serve as a quick way of helping the teacher to get to know your child, including the child’s strengths and how they have managed previous situations that were challenging. Your goal is to highlight the information the teacher really needs to know in order to ease your child’s transition back to school and to lay the groundwork for a positive experience this year.
Expect this to be an ongoing conversation. It’s unrealistic to be able to anticipate and troubleshoot every possible school-related issue ahead of time or during a single back-to-school phone call. What you want to do is to open the lines of communication so that you can continue to collaborate with the teacher over time.
Be prepared to work on the relationship. Assume the best of intentions on the part of the teacher. A little extra kindness will go a long way right now. It will be noticed and appreciated.
Have a plan for getting the relationship back on track if do you happen to hit a rough patch. Misunderstandings can and do happen, but you and the teacher can recover from that. The way to do this is to focus on your shared goal: making school a positive experience for your child.
Keep records of your communications with your child’s teacher. Having a few notes summarizing the key strategies identified during a particular conversation can really help to keep everything moving forward in a way that makes a real difference for your child.
Back to School Questions and Answers
How to help my kid feel safe again after experiencing a couple years of bullying?
Here are some tips from Sofia, a youth and family counsellor at Every Mind.
- Try to encourage your child to acknowledge when they feel triggered, this includes noticing and communicating their feelings and/or body sensations to you or someone they trust (e.g. a friend or a teacher). Connecting body sensations with feelings can be very helpful since body sensations are more concrete experiences. Remind your child that it’s ok to feel this way.
- Invite your child to have a safe object and space (at school and at home). Encourage your child to hold their safe object when feeling a strong feeling, body sensation/discomfort or when they are by themselves. This can help them to build inner resources so they can rely on themselves to feel safe.
- Practice rehearsing with your child situations where they may encounter bullying or similar experiences. Introduce a case scenario and ask your child questions around how they can address these kinds of situations, e.g. what can you say to someone who says or does this — to you? By practicing how to deal with stressful situations/interactions, your child can develop self-confidence and learn to manage triggering situations.
How do I help my autistic preschooler with social, separation and general anxiety transition to nursery school?
Often times this can be difficult for both the parent and the child. You can be proactive and aim to make the transition predictable by:
- Coordinating a routine with your preschool, i.e. maybe there is a time in the morning that is usually a little less rushed, and stimulating where an educator has the flexibility to spend a little more time with your child
- Discuss the routine in advance (i.e. morning of) going off to school. This can be done through brief social stories, a first/then board, a short video model or a chat about what the steps in the sequence can be. For example: Mom/Dad/Caregiver will drive you to school. When we get to the school, we will say ‘bye’ and you will go with your educator to do X/Y/Z (ex. play on the yard, get on your indoor shoes). After school, Mom/Dad/Caregiver will come and get you
- Ask if your educator can provide positive reinforcement for a calm transition
- Stay consistent with the routine for ideally at least two weeks before considering tweaking
Some extra tips: practice smaller transitions using similar strategies and wording away from where you think your son/daughter is more likely to transition more calmly (ex. going over to a family member’s home when you leave the home to do groceries) – Jonathan Pehleman, Clinical Supervisor, Autism Services, Maltby Centre
Watch Jonathan respond to this question
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone.
If you are a parent/caregiver worried about your child, or a young person looking for help yourself – please reach out. Our network of child and youth mental health centres has 4,000 professionals ready to help children, youth and families with free counselling and treatment. We provide care in person, on the phone and virtually. No problem is too big or small.
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