Parent Phone Calls – First Time Teacher Tips

The one skill you'll want to master as a first time teacher is the call home to the parents. Used correctly this is your secret weapon for solving most problems you'll experience in the class. Once you know the common ways parents will react to your calls, and you feel comfortable making the calls, you will have learned a valuable lesson that will be available to you for your entire teaching career. Most parents appreciate the opportunity to learn about problems their child is having, and be able to address these concerns with the student, before things get more heated and the principal gets involved.

Introduce the situation. When you're making the call this is the first time the parent has heard of the problem. They may not even know who you are yet, and they have no idea that you're about to call. Identify yourself and where you're calling from right away. Do not dilly dally with small talk after you tell them your a school employee. Get right to the heart of the problem because that's what the parent is wondering about. Do not give their imagination a chance to run away, tell them what's wrong so they can stop guessing. If you talk to a secretary of the parent just give your name if asked and do not hint that you're their child's teacher or that there's a problem.

Explain the main problem. Start off general and then drill down. If you say something general like you noticed their child is distracted lately, and ask them if they've noticed any changes at home, you'd be surprised with what you uncover. Get more specific as you need to until you eventually get to the actual reason for the call. You do not want to start with "Your child threw an eraser at me and hit me in the back of the head." This will only put all of the focus on the one incident, and the parent will probably want to skip right to punishment. You want to find the root cause of the problem first.

Offer solutions. The best way to fix the problem is to discipline the child as a united front. They should not get mixed messages from home and school. If they are spending detention with you and are going out for ice cream at home to soften your punishment, you will not see any change in behavior. Instead, you'll likely see problems escalate. Make sure you've got the parents on board with you, and that you all keep your end of the deal.

Follow up on the situation. Parents need feedback on if what they are doing at home is having any effect on the student's behavior in the classroom. Most teacher's do not do any sort of following up. You need to do it no matter how tedious it seems.