How do I keep track of Parent Communication?
Relationships with families are built over the course of the year. While Newsletters might be the foundation of your communication, focused contact is the heart and where the real relationship building happens. Instead of a blanket of generic information, it is always specific to the student. This might be a friendly phone call, a note home, or even just an impromptu conversation at a school event (or the grocery store). I like to think of this type of communication as deposits in an “Emotional Bank Account”. The idea is that each little positive contact is a deposit in your students' individual emotional bank accounts, and these "transactions" allow room for the tougher negative or needs-based “withdrawal” communications. (We will talk about these hard types of communication next week.)
For now, let’s focus our attention on making those positive deposits to build relationships with the families of your students.
How do I build positive relationships with my students’ families?
Going back to the bank account analogy, you can make deposits in a few different ways, right? Sometimes you take cash to the bank, other times you deposit checks. Sometimes you scan checks on your phones (holla, technology!), and sometimes you have direct deposits. The same goes for positive interactions with your classroom families.
Positive interactions certainly aren't limited to the list below. But, if you need a good place to start, here are some of my favorite ways to build a positive foundation with student caregivers:
A physical note home (cash deposit)
Phone call (check deposit)
Email to parent (check scan)
Event conversation (direct deposit)
What to tell Parents about:
Instead of sending home a pre-made note with a tiger cartoon that says “This student is terrrrrrrrific!”, I find it way more meaningful to the student (and parent) when the message has a specific positive about their student. If sending a note, it doesn’t have to be a paragraph. It could be something as simple as “Steven invited a friend to play at recess that was lonely.” or “Quincy memorized his 4’s multiplication today!” or “Dillan told me a joke today about the Hulk that made me laugh out loud - he is such a funny kiddo!” Any time a student does something I want to remember, I just jot it in my teacher planner to make sure I have a specific praise to tell his or her parents.
How to remember positive interactions:
In my first years teaching, I tended to be really good at these positive contacts at the beginning of the year, or with the students that really stood out (either because I knew I was going to be making a lot of withdrawals or because they were just that awesome). But, somehow, I would always have about 10 students that I hadn’t talked to their parents once between Meet the Teacher Night and Parent Teacher Conferences.
So to help me keep track, and make it more visual, I started using a class roster to log all of my parent communications. I write the date and type of contact beside each student’s name (usually noted by a smiley face or sad face).
This system makes it super easy to see who I haven't talked to in a while or if I need to vary types of communication with a student's parent. Since I'm tracking the withdrawals on the roster (sad faces) I can see when I need to make more happy deposits. This is also a helpful way for me to set goals for myself. Typically, my goal is at least 3 happy contacts per quarter. That usually works out to one happy contact per month for each student which is TOTALLY doable! And, it means you should have a minimum of 12 happy contacts per student by the end of the year! How great is that?!
OK, I know it is just September and it is tempting to feel like this isn’t something you need to worry about but hear me out - Parent Teacher Conferences are just around the corner. Set a goal for yourself and get started this week. With a little intention and tracking you’ll know the status of each of your students’ “bank accounts” to help you know best where to focus your parent communications. You can do it!
Want my complete guide to Parent Communications (including a log to keep track of your “Emotional Bank Account” transactions)? Drop your email below!
Other Posts You Might Like:
