Teachers: How to Develop Positive Rapport with Your Student's Parents

As a teacher, your first priority should be to form positive rapport with the parent's of your students. Throughout the year, you may need to contact the parent for information or help with their child. Creating positive parent/ teacher rapport from the start, will benefit both the teacher, students, and parent. Often times teachers will suggest calling a parent as soon as the child acts up or disobeys a rule. This is not a good way to start a relationship with a parent. You always want to make sure that your first contact is positive. Following are a few suggestions that can help a teacher to develop positive rapport with the parents or guardians of the students in your classroom.

1) Write an introduction letter to send home with the student. in order to ensure the letter gets home, offer a small tangible reward when the letter is brought back to school signed by the parent.

2) The most important thing to remember when creating rapport with a parent is to make the first phone call a positive one. The teacher's first phone call home is often negative. No parent wants to start a relationship with the teacher over a negative comment about their child. Keep it positive the first time.

3) Create a web site to keep parents informed. Many schools now offer a site for teachers to keep in touch with the students. If the school does not offer such a site, the teacher cans create her own site where she can list notes, homework assignments, as well as grades.

4) Send home periodic positive notes and updates. While parent's want to hear information specific to each class, they really want to hear information about their child. This will take time, but it is worth the positive rapport that will result from it.

5) Some schools put together a family night every nine weeks. The purpose of the family night is to increase positive rapport with parents.Encourage parents to come by offering door prizes and free food. Some teachers even provide extra credit points for the student whose parent comes to the parent night event.

Hopefully these suggestions will help you to start a positive relationship with the parents or guardians of your students. Not only will this benefit the students, but the parents will appreciate it as well. They will feel open to call the teacher knowing that the teacher truly cares about their child.