Managing Teacher-Student-Parent Conflict

Teachers, have you ever had that one student who you felt was always disruptive, disrespectful, and never meet you half way to learn the content?

Students, have you ever had that one teacher who you felt was always making an example out of you, always telling you that you are wrong, and setting you up to fail?

Parents, have you ever had fought tooth and nail to support your child against a teacher?

Campus leaders, have you ever been in this conundrum of needing to support your teacher, student, and parent?

This type of situation can seem complicated because it is quickly filled with complex emotions from all parties. The student-teacher relationship is strained, thus any interaction between them tends to be seen from both sides as a negative. The teacher-parent relationship is also strained, where both continue complain about each other and also see each other in a negative light. The teacher may feel like they may have made a bad impression on the campus leader or now have a "black mark" on them because there was a conflict. None of the parties involved want conflict or enjoy it, which is why it makes these types of conflicts so difficult to manage.

The books Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler offers some tips on on to manage these types of conflict, with anyone, but it can be applied to teachers, students, parents, and campus leaders.

A keystone concept to understand, before diving further into techniques, is where do these feelings come from and why do the happen. Feelings and emotions are habitual reactions to the stories and thoughts you have in your mind. These stories and thoughts are habitual reactions to what you observe around you.

(Grenny et al., 2012, pg 110)

You probably will not be able to control everything that you observe around you, but you can control which story you tell yourself. When we control and manage the stories we tell ourselves we are able to better manage the emotions and feelings, thus making more reasonable actions.

There are three basic types of stories that we tell ourselves:

The Victim Story:

You see yourself as innocent and suffering from another's wrong doing. You see the other person as bad or wrong. You see yourself as doing nothing wrong, while making excuses for your shortcomings in the situation.

The Villain Story:

You see the other person as evil with bad intentions. You try to get others to see that the actions you take is to defeat the evil person, which would benefit all. You exaggerate the other person's flaws and how they affect you.

The Helpless Story:

You see yourself as powerless to do anything to help the situation. You do not see any healthy or wise pathways forward out of the situation. You use being stuck as a justification for bad actions you may take.

(Grenny et al., 2012, pg 117-119)

These stories are the basic premise for all the negative stories we tell ourselves, especially during a confrontation. All three of these stories have two things in common. You avoid taking accountability for your part of the situation and the stories are not depicting the truth of the situation. Once you recognize that you are telling a story and can identify which type of story you are telling, then you can work on telling yourself different perspectives of the event. Looking at the different perspectives brings to light more of what actually happened and allows your to reflect on your part of the event. This gives you time to react in a more appropriate, productive, reasonable manner.

When it comes to the teacher-student-parent conflict, each party plays a role and is accountable for the conflict happening. No party is innocent. No matter which party you are, recognizing your role and own your actions is the first step to managing this conflict.

Here are a few steps you can take to move the conversation forward after you have taken accountability for your own actions:

1. Tell the other parties involved what part of the event you are accountable for.

2. Explain to the other parties your intentions and how your actions may have been seen as not aligning with those intentions.

3. Show compassion for learning opportunities for all parties. We are all human.

4. Find a point of agreement with the other parties involved.

5. Build off of the point of agreement with other concepts and actions to take in the future that will be beneficial to all.

6. Allow for the other side to talk through their emotions and recognize their own action in the event. This may take a long time or more than one conversation. Allow and accept it as this is the path they need to take to understand their own actions and take accountability.

7. Create small goals with frequent check-ins for all parties involved to work towards.

8. Be flexible. Being rigid only makes you go back to the stories filled with gaps and fallacies.

9. Be okay and accept that some conflict will help you and the other grow.

10. Be okay with a conversation. Having the conversation earlier, rather than later, helps down the road when there is truly something tough to talk about.

Using these tips will help you move forward. It will help you avoid getting the teacher written up, the parents threatening to pull out their student or suing the school, and the student from being a distraction to everyone else in class.

As an educator, Vice Principal, teacher, coach, and mentor I have guided many teachers, parents, and students out of conflict and towards a path of success. If you are a teacher, parent, student, or campus leader and you need support finding a pathway to success, book a session with me so you can be on the path to success.

Email: msdavies.atlasin@gmail.com

Grenny, J, McMillan, R, Patterson, K, and Switzler, A. (2012). Crucial Conversations. McGraw Hill