Speaker 1: 0:00

Parent-teacher conferences can be a big co-parenting win or can be a co-parenting failure, and so today we're going to talk about how to make parent-teacher conferences a co-parenting win, if at all possible. We're going to break it down into a few different pieces. First, we're going to talk about how to prepare for parent-teacher conferences. Then we're going to talk about what to do while you're at the parent-teacher conference and what to do afterwards. We're going to address this both for parents who were able to co-parent hopefully that's you but also parents who are too high conflict to co-parent, who at least one of the parents is not doing what they're supposed to do. Hopefully that's not you. Let's assume that you're able to co-parent somewhat effectively. What do you do beforehand? Well, one of the first things you need to do is be paying attention throughout the school year already. Typically, the parent-teacher conferences will come up at the end of September, beginning of October, sometime there, and your kids will have been in school for a few weeks, and this gives you an opportunity to have seen over several weeks how your child's doing, to have seen their grades, to have listened to anything they might have concerns about. Now it doesn't do well to interrogate your children directly about how school is going. But it does serve you well to keep your ears open, to have some conversations with them, to listen to them in the car, to see how they're doing and give them a chance to tell you. It's not a good idea to just sort of force them at the very last second before the parent-teacher conference to give you the low down and how everything is going. That's not going to help you at all. So instead what you want to do is to be engaged for the several weeks from the time they're in school until the parent-teacher conference. Hopefully you went to the back to school night so you've had some contact with the teacher before you know what's expected. You've been watching the grades as they come in or reports. You've been looking out for emails from the teacher. Hopefully you're just not completely blindsided by any sort of information that you're going to get at the parent-teacher conference. That's the goal. So first thing is to be paying attention all the way through up until the parent teacher conference. Second, talk before you get to the conference with your co-parent about what your concerns might be. Having paid attention like you should for this month or so before the parent teacher conference, you should have some idea about what you think your child is doing well, maybe what they're not doing well, and so being on the same page with your co-parent about what your concerns are is a really good way to make most effective use of your time while you're at the conference. It's important to be able to present a united front, to be on the same page during that limited opportunity with the child's teacher, and so talking beforehand is a really important way to do that. Make sure that you're prepared to ask the same questions you know. Vet those questions with each other, see if there's anything that you're not thinking of. Be prepared with the information that the teacher might need. Those are important steps to make the most of the parent teacher conference. Also arrange child care.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Unlike the back-to-school night, the parent-teacher conference really isn't for kids. It's a private meeting with the teacher and the parents to discuss the children, and having your child at the parent-teacher conference isn't really helpful. You don't want to be talking about them in front of them, especially if there's going to be some negative things going on. If you take your child to the parent-teacher conference, the teacher is probably going to put them to the side and give them something to do anyway. It's not really a face-to-face between the child and the teacher. It's really, once you get to the parent-teacher conference, present that united front. Do your best to make the most of the time, not be arguing between yourselves. It's a time for you to be receiving information from the teacher and asking information of the teacher as a pair, as a united front of parents who are there together for their child. No bickering at the parent-teacher conference. If you have disagreements about things, try to go through those disagreements beforehand. The parent-teacher conference itself is not the place for it. The teacher has too much to do. Don't get paid enough to deal with this co-parenting nonsense. So please take care of that beforehand.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Listen way more than you talk. It's important to bring a notebook and take some notes so that you're getting down the information that you need. If you're like me and if sometimes you get emotionally dysregulated, writing things down can help you process. It helps you focus on the words that are being said. It helps minimize the chance that you aren't hearing what the person is saying. So have something to write on. Be taking notes. Be listening way more than you're speaking. Have something to write on. Be taking notes, be listening way more than you're speaking Because hopefully you've been paying attention and you have talked to your co-parent about some questions that you can ask.

Speaker 1: 4:40

You're ready with some questions. You're not going to be surprised by what the teacher is saying. So ask questions of the teacher and these questions should be focused on how you can help your child, what are some of the things that they need help with, and maybe you can talk with the teacher about some things that you can do in both homes to have consistency to help your child overcome maybe some of these difficulties that they're having. This is that opportunity, while you're both there with the teacher same place, same time to see if you can quickly come up with a plan that can be implemented in both households to meet your child's needs. Remember, consistency is extremely important.

Speaker 1: 5:20

After the conference, meet to discuss your thoughts. It doesn't have to be in person, it can be by telephone, it can be in writing or email, but make sure that you both heard the same thing and see if you can come up with an action plan based on what you both heard about your child's strengths and weaknesses and develop a plan that's consistent between both homes. I'm sure hopefully there were some good things that you got out of the parent-teacher conference that your child is doing well. What a great opportunity to come together and to praise your child together as United Front for things that they're doing well. If you guys are able to do it, can you imagine how nice it would be to go have a dessert or something and just say to your child oh my goodness, we talked to your teacher and how amazing you're doing in this or that or whatever it is. It's the same thing that you'd be doing if you were still a couple and in your child's mind you're still your child's parents. You know to some degree you're always connected. So if you can do that for your child, how amazing that is to celebrate their victories together as a united front. That would just blow your kid's mind and they would absolutely love it.

Speaker 1: 6:19

For the things where your child needs some additional support, talk together with your child about how you're both going to mutually support your child. Now. This may mean that you do things like read a chapter a night with them from a book. It may be that you're working on their homework with them. You know it may be the circumstance, as with most couples, that one of you is better at math and one of you is better at science, one of you is better at reading history, whatever it is. Talk with your child, say, hey, your mom is so good at math, she's going to be helping with your math. I love history. I want to help you with your history. But we're going to do it in the same way. We're going to have a plan in place where we're working on these things together in the same way at both homes, even if maybe we're dividing and conquering in some of the topics.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Now that's if you guys can get along. If you can't get along, if you're too high conflict, then obviously some of this is not going to work. Still, you're going to be paying attention through the school year, no matter how high conflict you think your co-parent is, even if you think that they're the entire problem. That doesn't stop you from being able to pay attention through the semester before the parent-teacher conference, to be checking on grades yourself, to be checking in with the teacher, to be looking out for those emails, to be having conversations with your child and even just to be listening to your child as they're talking about their school experience. That same stuff that gets you ready for the parent-teacher conference if you're co-parenting effectively is still stuff you're going to do if you're high conflict.

Speaker 1: 7:43

Now what will be a little bit different is how you talk together before the meeting. It may be more complicated. It may not be possible to have a conversation beforehand Unfortunate, but it's true. Sometimes that's the case. If you can have a meeting beforehand, it's going to be not as nice of a meeting and maybe you just do it over a parenting app. You put in some issues that you are concerned about, some questions you'd like to ask. You put it in the parenting app and let the other parent respond, if they do. If they respond with some unhelpful packaging, ignore it. I'm assuming you're the person who's not the most high conflict or you wouldn't even be interested in this material. So I'm assuming that you are the person who's still trying to mend fences and work the best you can. So if the other parent won't reciprocate, if they're going to beat a turd and send you back some crappy email that just is trying to disparage you and not really addressing the point, ignore it. You did what you could, you tried and you documented from the court later on, if necessary that you're the one who's trying, who's doing the right things and the court can trust. So do it.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Schedule separate meetings with the teacher. If you're so high conflict that you can't have a business-like parent-teacher conference, don't subject the teacher to that. So what happens if you are super high conflict and you go to a parent-teacher conference together? One you annoy the poor teacher. I mean, how many people are they meeting that night and they have to put up with your crap? Don't subject the teacher to that. Two you're probably just going to distract each other from the real focus, which is your child. If you're so busy picking at each other, or if your presence so distracts the other parent because they're a child and they can't control themselves, well then you're not doing your kid any favor by being at the parent teacher conference together. Anyway, you're going to be better off hearing from the teacher by yourself and actually they will too and your child will be better because of it. Still, while you're there, you're still taking notes, you're still listening more than you are talking, you're still asking the questions that you came up with prior to the meeting and you're still trying to establish some level of consistency in terms of a plan to help your child. Even high conflict co-parents who can't stand each other can still sometimes come up with some measure of consistency between the households in terms of a plan to help your child with some of their educational difficulties. It's worth a shot.

Speaker 1: 10:01

So why is attending a parent conference important in the first place? Well, it's an opportunity for you to meet the person and have a real one-on-one conversation with a person who may be a lifelong influence for your child. I don't know about you, but I remember some of my teachers from when I was very young. Some of them were great lifelong influences. Some of them weren't, some of them I hated, but some of them really helped me out when I needed it and I remember them fondly. This is an important person in your child's life. Why wouldn't you want to try to meet them and have some conversation?

Speaker 1: 10:35

You may have a chance to learn something new about your child. I mean this other person, maybe with your child. Depending on how the school is structured and what grade they're in, they may see them more every day than you do and they're seeing their child in a very different environment than you have at home. Kids are always different in different places and more is expected of them typically at school than maybe at home, and when more is expected of children in a structured way, they tend to rise to that challenge. So you may learn some things about your child's capabilities of dealing with structure and rules that you didn't quite understand based on your perspective at home. So you could learn some really neat things about your kid. Part of this may be learning some really amazing things that your kid's doing well that you had no idea about. Some of it may be learning about some difficulties that you can help with, but you're still learning something new about your child, which is an amazing opportunity you shouldn't pass up. It also gives the teacher a chance to learn more about the child in an environment that they're not seeing. You know they see their child at school, but your home is very different and if you're split up, two homes are very different. It can really help the teacher understand what they're getting, especially if you have like a week on, week off scheduled or something very structured where sometimes it's pretty clear to the teacher Okay, this kid's been with mom this week, been with dad that week. This gives your teacher an opportunity to provide more support to your child than they would have otherwise.

Speaker 1: 11:59

Attending the parent-teacher conference gives you and your co-parent the opportunity to connect with each other, to build this new common tapestry of life that you're trying to build as co-parents around something truly important, which is your child's education and well-being. Sometimes it can be difficult to connect with a co-parent because our lives become very different. You know, we may have been very different people in the first place and now, after you separate, you become even more divergent in how you live your lives and how you think about things. But you still have your child in common. You both presumably still want the best for your child, and so having this parent-teacher conference where you can both attend, you can both be on the same page, you can both be discussing your child with a professional, is an opportunity to connect, to form some additional bonds, maybe build some additional trust with your co-parent, if that's possible, giving your co-parenting dynamic. That's an opportunity you shouldn't pass up.

Speaker 1: 12:53

If things are going really poorly and you're in a high conflict situation and me talking about building bridges with your co-parent just seems like complete bull, well then, have a mercenary reason you want to be the co-parent that's showing up. The court needs to know who it can trust. If you're super high conflict, you're going to be having lots of court interactions. So it may be with the parenting coordinator. There may be a guardian ad litem involved. The court's going to see these records, may hear about how parent-teacher conferences went. I mean, I know that as a guardian ad litem I talk with teachers constantly and guidance counselors and principals. I'm constantly going to them because they are the people on the front lines with your child every day. Seeing them at a developmental stage with other children of the same stage in the same environment gives you a lot of data. I love that data as a guardian in the light of my crave that data.

Speaker 1: 13:49

So if you have a high conflict case with some court professionals involved, you got to know that those professionals are going to be interacting with the teachers and asking how's it going. You know, how are your interactions with the co-parent? I know, for example, that if I have a really high conflict situation and one parent is telling me well, it's the other parent's fault, they're the problem, they can't communicate. Sometimes I go and I talk to the teacher and I find out pretty quickly who is the problem, because that parent can't communicate with the teacher either. So now I'm looking at a situation where there's an odd person out and that person's the asshole, that's the person who's causing, typically, some of the co-parenting issues.

Speaker 1: 14:34

So working together with the school in a good-natured way, being engaged and interested in your child, is a really important thing to show.

Speaker 1: 14:38

If you're high conflict, if you're going to be going back to court over and over again, you'd be surprised or maybe you wouldn't how often people who will declare from the mountainside that all they want is their child and all they want is to spend time with them and all they care about is their well-being, and they've never met the teacher, they've never gone to a parent-teacher conference, they've had no interaction with the school, they have no idea about the grades. So this is an opportunity if you're high conflict and you'll be going back to court, to show the court yes, I am engaged, I am involved, I am easy to work with, I am capable of getting information and implementing it to help my child. You can trust me. Capable of getting information and implementing it to help my child, you can trust me, okay, well, thank you very much if you are still here, for listening this long to me talk about parent-teacher conferences. It is something that is coming up this year and it's a really good opportunity. So I want you to have as much information as possible about how to make the most of it, even in a co-parenting relationship. If you found this information helpful, then I ask that you please share it, like it let somebody else have the opportunity to hear the information as well.

Speaker 1: 15:44

If you're a little curious about where I am, I am at the Philbrook in Tulsa beautiful grounds. It's on a beautiful day. I'm probably gonna get a sunburn here in a second, so I will close off. Thanks a lot. Hope you have a great week.