What Teachers Wish Parents Knew
They see your child for six hours a day in a room with thirty other people. What they notice is different from what you notice — and the gap between the two is where most school problems live.
Written by Sian Trombley · BEd, MACP, CCC
Empty classroom, late light, chairs still out. Somewhere in this room your child spent six hours today doing something you did not see, in a version of themselves you may not recognise.
Teachers and parents are looking at the same child through two windows. Most of what goes wrong between them is not conflict. It is the assumption that there is only one view.
The child you send is not always the child they meet
Some children mask all day and collapse at the gate. Others are calm at home and dysregulated in a crowded corridor. Both are real. When a teacher says "we don't see that here," it is usually a description, not a contradiction — and the useful next question is what the day is costing.
Six things school staff say most often
- 01Tell us early. A quiet word in October prevents a crisis in February.
- 02Be specific. "Struggling" is unactionable; "cries every Tuesday before PE" is a plan.
- 03Homework is not a loyalty test. Write to us if it is destroying your evenings — most of us will reduce it.
- 04Please don't tell us at pickup. We have thirty coats and a bus. Email gets a considered answer.
- 05Back the boundary even when you disagree with it, then challenge us privately.
- 06Tell us about home. We are not judging; we are calibrating.
“A child does not need every adult in the building to understand them. They need one who does, and who they know by name.”
Sian Trombley
How to ask for something and actually get it
- 01Lead with the observation
Two sentences of fact, no diagnosis, no history.
- 02Name the pattern
When it happens, how often, what precedes it.
- 03Ask for one adjustment
One. Specific. Small enough to say yes to this week.
- 04Offer a review date
"Could we try it for three weeks and check in?" makes it a trial, not a commitment.
- 05Say thank you in writing
Staff remember the families who noticed. It buys goodwill you may need in March.
When to escalate
Go beyond the class teacher when attendance is slipping, when your child is frightened to go in, when a safeguarding or bullying concern is not being actioned, or when reasonable adjustments have been agreed and are not happening. Ask for the pastoral lead or SENCo by name, and put it in writing.
Children do not need a perfect parent. They need a predictable one who returns after hard moments.
Sian Trombley, Canadian Certified Counsellor
What you can try this week
Send the three-line email
What you have noticed, when it happens, what you are asking for. Teachers read hundreds of messages; the short specific one gets acted on.
Identify the named adult
Ask your child who they would go to if something went wrong. If the answer is nobody, that is the single most useful thing to fix this term.
Stop interrogating at the gate
The worst possible moment for information gathering. Feed them, let forty minutes pass, then ask one specific question.
- Behaviour that only appears at home is still real, and worth reporting.
- Specific, brief information helps school far more than a long emotional account.
- Homework battles are usually capacity problems, not compliance problems.
- One named adult at school is one of the strongest protective factors available.
- Asking for adjustments with a review date gets a better response than asking for sympathy.
Do I approach school as a partner or as an opponent?
What does my child think I believe about their teachers?
What have I asked for that was vague when it could have been specific?
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This article is educational and is not a substitute for individual clinical advice. Comments are closed so the Journal stays a calm place to read.
