She's crying. Oh my God, I made her cry. I had rehearsed for days. I had taken meticulous notes. I had all my papers in front of me but I had not been prepared for crying. The poor mother that sat in front of me had just been informed of all the behavioral issues we were having with her son and that we could not keep him any longer due to the physical danger he posed to the other children.

I left that conference feeling like garbage. Had I not prepared enough? Could I have said things better? That was a career defining moment for me. I NEVER wanted to experience that again. 

Let's make sure you don't ever have a parent-teacher conference like that either. Below are the 5 most important parts to ensuring a successful parent meeting. Please enjoy this FREE Parent-Teacher Conference Form to make your job easier!

Offer Purposeful, Individualized Information

Parents want specific information about their child. They want to hear all the amazing, wonderful things their child is doing and how their child makes the classroom better.

Do:

• Give specific information about their child.
• Share a few reasons why you enjoy having them in the classroom.
• Offer highlights of the child’s developmental strengths: physical, emotional, social, cognitive & language.
• Make notes in point form so you can easily reference them. This makes parents more comfortable to see that you actually know their child and what you’re talking about.

Don’t:

• Make generalized, generic statements.
• Just talk about their friendships with other children.
• Compare them to other children.
• Tell them their child is difficult to get to know.

Keep it Positive

Keep the conversation & the language you use positive. You can still communicate difficult information while using positive language.

Do:

• Use positive language/phrases
• Use the child’s name
• Describe the behavior you see
• State facts
• Reference your developmental checklist or Ages & Stages Questionnaire
• Show examples of their work (i.e. their name writing progress, etc.)
• Celebrate the individuality of the child
• End the conference by sharing something positive about their child.

Don’t:

• Use inflammatory language or phrases (i.e. normal, average, always/never, bad, problem, troublemaker, etc.).
• Pass the blame (i.e. to your employer, union, etc.).
• Blame the parents for their child’s behaviors or delayed development.
• Offer your opinion; you are not a medical professional or early interventionist.

Communicate Behavioral or Developmental Concerns Respectfully

If you have concerns regarding development or behaviors, there should have been conversations prior to your parent-teacher conference. Never blind-side a parent at parent-teacher conferences with serious concerns.

Do:

• Come prepared with the child’s developmental checklist, Ages & Stages Questionnaire or other developmental/behavioral assessment.
• Prepare a letter summarizing the developmental/behavioral concerns with a copy of the checklist or ASQ for the parent's reference after the meeting.

Don’t:

• Blind-side a parent with issues that you have not addressed before.
• Give parents your diagnosis from what you’re seeing (i.e. “pretty sure they’re on the spectrum.”).
• Tell parents their child is below average, different or special.
• Dump a bunch of information on parents without a letter or handout they can reference later.

Provide Detailed Referrals When Needed

If you are referring a child to a developmental specialist, you must supply the parent with the contact information. This increases the likelihood of them following through and takes some of the stress off of their shoulders.

Children are often referred for:

• hearing. vision or behavioral screening
• cognitive, motor, and language or speech developmental delays 
• emotional and/or social developmental concerns

Parents should be encouraged to share the results of their child's developmental assessment with their health care provider or to seek assessment from a community agency or early years interventionist. This will depend on where you live, the severity of your concerns and the accessibility of your community resources.

Record Parent Questions

Even after the most positive parent-teacher conference, some parents may have questions for you. Sometimes they are for the administrative staff or are regarding areas that are outside of your classroom such as tuition.

It is important to:

• Write down all of their questions
• Answer the ones that you can answer
• Pass along the questions you can’t to the appropriate person
• Follow-up to ensure that all of their questions from the conference were answered as this is imperative to building trust with parents.

Remember that you and parents are a team working together to support their child's learning and development. Parent Teacher conferences are an amazing opportunity to get to know each other better and to make the best possible learning plan for their child.