Teachers have one of the toughest jobs in the world.  Caring professions, like teaching, bring with them the hazard of “care as worry,” a chronic affliction that is hard to shake without vigilance and great intentionality.

“Care as Worry”

Teachers pour their heart and soul into their work every single day without fail.  Faced with an enormous (and sometimes unreasonable) load, constantly changing schedules, a demand to be flexible, an expectation to be engaging and excellent, and putting their own needs aside to meet the needs not only of their students, but also of their parents, helps to explain the phenomenon of “care as worry.”  The care teachers have for their students and their work quickly turns into chronic worry.

This past week, I conducted a 2 hour workshop for teachers, Responding to Unpleasant Parent Emails, based on the book of the same name, and I shared with the participants an experience I had during my first year of teaching.

I will never forget the experience of my first open house because it is seared into my memory and I can recall it as though it was yesterday.

A Rookie Mistake

I had assigned the first project a couple of weeks after school started.  My intent was that it would be a creative and fun way to explore the topic.  A number of students did not follow directions and their grade reflected their work.

The grades on the first assignment were okay, but they weren’t great.  I had put the grades into the gradebook a couple of days before open house.

A brand new teacher and a low first grade in the gradebook—I might as well have pasted a target on my chest.  I had made a rookie mistake.

Open house was structured to give the parents of each of the six classes I taught, 8 minutes to rotate through their child’s schedule with 2 minutes in between to get to the next class.  At the end of the first “8-minute rotation,” a parent approached me at the front of the room, and ripped me up one side and down the next about her child’s grade in the class and my incompetence as a teacher.  Needless to say, she wasn’t happy and in that moment it was all my fault.

Caught off guard, I froze to the spot.  I cannot remember the exact words, but I clearly remember the tone, the facial expressions, and the smell of alcohol exuding from the parent publicly berating me.

The most important thing I can remember is the words of my savior in the moment.  A polite but firm interruption came in the form of “Can we get started please?”  It snapped me out of what I understand now as the “freeze mode” of the biological stress response.  I will be forever grateful to the parent who stepped in to stop the verbal attack.

I recovered as best as I could in the face of a room full of parents who had just witnessed firsthand what had happened.  I finished the rest of the presentations, promptly got to my car, and burst into tears.

That situation significantly shaped my perspective of parent communication.  I had been blindsided.  My anxiety about parent communication hit an all-time high over the next several years.  I had never considered the possibility that parents could or would act that way.

I’ve Learned a Thing or Two

I’ve learned a lot since then and have grown in my understanding about why parents sometimes act the way they do.  I’d like to say this is an extreme example, but the last 17 years has shown me the level of emotion driving parent communication is as high as ever, and is unnerving when you are on the receiving end of it.

The most important lesson I’ve learned and I want to share with you is that 99% of the time it’s not about you.

The Driving Force Behind the Unpleasant Parent Communication

When parents bring their children to school, they bring with them a whole set of unspoken needs for their child, for their child’s teacher, and for themselves as a parent.  Parents won’t verbalize these “needs” but you need to understand that these are unspoken expectations.

They “need” their child to be safe, to learn, to be successful, and to have friends.  They “need” their child’s teacher to be responsive and communicative.  They want their child to like the teacher and the teacher to like their child.  They “need” to feel like they are doing a good job as a parent and they “need” to be heard and understood.  These are just a few of the many “needs” they bring with them.

These “needs” and the emotions that accompany these needs, such as fear, vulnerability, anxiety, and disappointment, are what most often drive the unpleasant communication teachers receive.

For example, an unpleasant email about why a child received the grade she did on an assignment, with wording that appears to call into question your competence as a teacher, is indeed about the grade, but it may also be about the fears that a parent has about the success of their child or a deep sense of their child being treated unfairly.

A Caveat

Here is one caveat.  If there is anything you are doing that is unprofessional, such as not following sound grading practices, keeping up to date with lesson plans, providing clear directions for assignments, etc. then you need to own it and fix it.  But when you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, know that 99% of the time it’s not about you.

About that parent at open house, when I reflect on that situation with much more knowledge and experience under my belt, I can’t help but have compassion for her.  A parent who shows up intoxicated at her child’s open house and feels the need to publicly attack a teacher must have a lot going on in her life.

As do all of the parents and students that you deal with on a daily basis—have a lot going on in their lives.  The best we can do is to seek to understand.

I would never want to be on the receiving end of that again.  But now that I understand what is driving the communication, it is so much easier to diffuse.  I don’t like it, but I don’t take it personally.  I have a process for responding to this kind of communication that puts me in the driver’s seat and gets a positive response from parents.

Lean In

If you can take a deep breath and try to understand what is driving the communication, you will be able to respond out of compassion rather than an emotional reaction.  What we most want to do is fight back or pull back, when what will make the situation better is to lean in and position ourselves to understand what the communication is really about and to help resolve the problem at hand.  After all, the parent is contacting you.  They have confidence in your ability to help resolve the problem.

Unpleasant parent communication is not going away, but when you understand what is driving it, you can focus on the issue at hand without it triggering overwhelming negative emotions in you.  Remember—99% of the time it’s not about you!