Strong connections between families and educators are the lifeblood of parent and family engagement in education. Two-way communication that is respectful and positive goes hand-in-hand with building the foundation for family engagement, which is relational trust. When these two elements are developed and in place, caregivers and teachers are able to share openly and to enhance student learning and achievement. In this article, you will learn how to build stronger connections with students’ parents, based on planned and purposeful two-way communication between families and educators. These efforts will allow you to see the benefits of parent engagement in schools.
Boosting Parent and Family Engagement With a Strong Connection
A strong connection occurs when people feel seen, heard, and valued by each other. Take a moment to think about your closest relationships, your partner at home, a sibling or parent, or your best friend. The core elements of these relationships include trust, honesty, and respect. These are core components of any healthy and productive relationship, and most certainly apply to healthy relationships between educators and the families of the students they serve when they enter into a partnership to support student learning.
The Benefits of Parent and Family Engagement in Schools cannot be Overstated
Family engagement is a strategy that needs to be owned and initiated by schools, their leaders, and their teachers. Connecting can be the easy part, assuming that time to understand and prepare has been spent. Keep in mind that only recently have the institutions that certify teachers and school leaders provided any training in family engagement. Be sure to give yourself and your educators a solid understanding of family engagement before you begin.
Challenge Your Assumptions About Families
Before you begin entering into a partnership with families, it’s important to challenge your thoughts about your families. Don’t let negative beliefs and assumptions cloud your view of families and limit your ability to do this important work. It’s not a family's circumstances that will determine their engagement, but rather how you choose to respond to those circumstances that will make the difference.
Overcome Barriers to Parent and Family Engagement
Barriers to engagement can be varied, but anticipating them and working to overcome the challenges they present will help you begin the year with a clean slate for communicating with families.
Language
School registration information may give you cues for knowing that a family’s first or only language is not English. Your school may have tools available to help you navigate other languages. Know what those tools are and use them to your advantage. If written translation or verbal interpretation is not supported at your school, look for an app that can help you. It may not be perfect, but it will show the family that you care about communicating with them.
Culture
Other countries’ cultures and attitudes toward parent engagement in a child’s education may be very different from those of the United States, and of your school specifically. Work to understand what other attitudes may exist, and let families know that you and your school value what they know and can bring to supporting their child’s learning. This can include sharing information about school policies, expectations, and curriculum, and of course sharing about their child’s progress and how they can support learning at home.
Schedules
Families may not have availability to easily visit the school, or even to have conversations during the times that teachers are usually available. Asking families early in the year when they may be available can help. Also, letting them know that you only need a short amount of time may allow them to talk during a break at work.
Let parents know far in advance of regular conference dates during the year, and allow them to schedule appointments ahead of time so they can arrange for time off from work. We’ve all come to know the value of a virtual meeting. Use these video chats as an option, too, as face-to-face will always be better than just audio.
Transportation
If your families are not within walking distance and public transportation is not available, it may be difficult to plan individual in-person meetings or parent events for a class, grade, or school. Is there any funding for bussing? Can families carpool? Can your events have a link for virtual participation? Be creative!
Technology
The number of adults in the U.S. who have cell phones and/or access to a computer is very high. Roughly 98% of adults have a cell phone, with 90% having a smartphone. That said, not all of your students’ families may be aware of the tools for accessing information and communicating with a school or the teacher. Furthermore, they may not understand how to access these resources and how to use them. Make this information readily available and make sure that individuals can obtain help with technology use and answers to their questions.
Building a Partnership with Families
Teaching is hard work. Learning is hard work, too. Adding another team member to the mix can make that work easier and more successful. While teachers are experts on curriculum and pedagogy, parents are experts on their children. Add the fact that students spend only 12% of all the hours in a year in school, and you can see that the need for assistance in maximizing student potential is real.
Begin the year by welcoming families into the process. Teachers often have a practice of introducing themselves to their new students and/or their parents as the school year begins. Broadening that introduction to allow families to introduce themselves to you can be an initial building block in your partnership. Letting them know that you value their input can help them feel comfortable in sharing. Acknowledge that they have a longer-term lens on their child and can help you get to know their child better to give you a head start on serving them well this year. Ask questions that focus on their observations and knowledge, and that can provide you with insight into the family and your student. Let families know that you appreciate their help and welcome their questions and feedback during the year. Provide them with information on how to contact you.
Active Listening is Key to Family Engagement
Listening is a key skill to use and refine in two-way conversations with families. Parents have information to share that you may not have, and they have important questions to ask. Honor the important part that families play in two-way communication.
- Listening carefully means that you value what a parent has to say.
- Listen carefully to understand, and don’t be afraid to summarize and/or ask questions. It can confirm your desire to truly understand and build trust.
- Ask open-ended questions that can encourage families to elaborate and share more.
- Use the power of wait time. That beat of silence allows the family member to add more if they are inclined.
Your student’s parents will feel heard and valued, boosting their confidence and empowering them to be strong partners. Two-way communication enables collaboration and builds the partnership.
Are Your Family Engagement Efforts Linked to Learning?
Building the foundation of relational trust for family engagement is a necessary first step. At the same time, weaving family engagement into any opportunity is critical, yet easy to do. Your safety check is asking yourself if what you are doing or want to do with students’ parents is linked to learning.
- Is your Open House or Back-to-School Night for parents filled only with administration and teacher introductions and delivery of rules and requirements, or will you also take advantage of your “captive audience” and provide them with tips or tools to support their child’s learning?
- Will you ask parents to introduce themselves and to share information about their child that will help you provide better instruction for their child?
- Do your regular email updates to parents include information on what is being taught in the time period before your next update?
- Do they provide specific ways to support this learning, including key vocabulary and strategies that are used in the classroom?
Refocus existing events so that they are linked to learning, and build new events that will help increase parent and family engagement in a collaborative effort to support learning and raise achievement.
Provide the Resources for Families
Providing families with turnkey ways to support learning will help their efforts be more targeted to what needs practice.
- Offer the vocabulary and strategies or techniques that are used in the classroom so that children will connect immediately with what is being practiced at home
- Offer resources for use at home. Teachers may use resources that are also used in the classroom. Some curriculum providers include components for students’ families to use at home. TCM provides a broad selection of resources that can be sent home to families to support learning.
- Offer parents examples of ways to support mastery of skills by anchoring them in the everyday things that families need to do. Cooking and baking with kids can provide practice with measuring and fractions and with discussing the science that is involved in a ball of dough becoming a cookie. A trip to the grocery store can include identifying foods on labels, reading labels for content identification and the volume needed for purchase. Family game night can include critical thinking and strategy, or simple things like counting and color identification.
- Offer resources beyond academics and be sure to include practice for social-emotional and executive function learning as well.
Making these resources "grab and go" for families will allow them to use them regularly and successfully.
How to Talk About Learning and Achievement
Talking about learning and achievement is important. That’s why we have parent-teacher conferences. Make sure that these conversations become a part of any day. All too often the routine is to talk to parents only when student performance is not what it should be. Support two-way communication and the trusting relationships with good news as well. Families will be more eager to engage when they know feedback from school is always given with a desire to support achievement.
How you frame those conversations that may include bad news is key. Nobody likes to deliver bad news, but if you can frame a setback or failure as an opportunity to learn, you’ve given it a positive angle. Providing students and their families with an understanding of Growth Mindset can help everyone remember that learning takes time and practice. Knowing that a setback is accompanied by an opportunity to try a different approach is not only liberating, but inspiring. We want families to help their children understand how to recover from a setback or failure. Trying again is the pathway to learning, and hard work is a key to success.
Be sure to go beyond the grade that has been given for an assignment, a test, or on a report card when talking with your students’ parents. Help families understand the specific skills that are involved. Provide families with what part of the skill has been mastered and with what other skill needs practice for further growth and achievement.
TCM Offers Resources That Foster Connections
Efforts that are carefully planned within the framework of family engagement will foster trust, collaboration, and a shared commitment to student success. Everyone in a school, through their words and their actions, can empower families to be the collaborators in supporting the student learning and achievement that schools, teachers, and most importantly the students need them to be.
Building trusting relationships with families provides the lift that is required to make family engagement; including rich and purposeful two-way communication a successful tool in raising student growth and achievement through all of their years in school.
At TCM, we believe in the benefits of parent engagement in schools and that strong parent and family engagement leads to thriving students. That’s why we offer free resources, lesson plans, and activities designed to help educators build deeper connections with families. From interactive tools that encourage at-home learning to strategies that foster communication, our resources make it easier to create meaningful partnerships. Explore our materials today and strengthen the bond between school and home!
