A parent’s involvement in their child’s schooling always has a great impact on that child’s academic success.
In other words, clear and effective two way communications between both the parents and teachers are imperative not only to the academic excellence of the child but also their mental health.
However, with family life constantly evolving, parents often have multiple commitments on top of their full-time workload. This can make parent-teacher meetings less likely. But as imperative as it is for parents and teachers to meet, the new age of technology has found multiple ways for teachers and parents to communicate, without necessarily having to step into the same room.
The Importance of Parent Teacher Communication
Parents are some of the best teachers and role models that a child can have, which makes it 
vital for parents to take an active interest in their children’s academic life. There is also a lot of evidence and research that shows that children whose parents take an active interest in their academic life perform better than most students.
Other than their academic performance, positive relationships with teachers will also greatly improve the mental health and stability of their children, making it all the more important for you to keep positive relations with your children’s teachers.
What is Good Communication between Parents and Teachers?
From the start, both the student’s parents as well as the teachers should establish clear methods of communication, and communicate frequently. Every year teachers should decide along with parents how they will communicate with them as well as on what days they will communicate.
Throughout this decision-making process, both the teacher and the parent will also have to decide on the form of communication as well to streamline things. While most parents prefer the tried and true face-to-face meetings, many parents cannot often make the time to meet teachers. This is why schools and other institutions are leveraging various other forms of communication with the help of present day technology.
Forms Of Communication Most Institutions Use:
Radio or Podcasts:
Radios and podcasts are a great form of communication that only a handful of schools have developed to stay in contact with parents. It is also the simplest, yet most powerful medium that some schools in the United States are using to great effect.
These radio channels and podcasts discuss issues regarding the school or schooling system in general while conveying messages from specific schools to parents who are listening. The podcast doesn’t have to be a professional project, but a student driven podcast dedicated to spreading information to parents who take an active interest in their child’s life.
The biggest benefit is that parents can listen to the podcast on the go and learn more about the day to day process of the school. These podcasts can also be a virtual window into the classroom of your child, as the hosts explain the events at the school day.
Blogs:
Blogs have also been a very effective medium when it comes to connecting parent with teachers. Blogs give parents an inside view of the classroom and allow parents to receive information about the school day at their own pace.
While you might be thinking that blogs are incredibly one-sided, that isn’t the case with every blog. Some blogs encourage comments, which make the blog feel less like a lecture and more like a conversation. The blog can also be a great conversation starter for families and helps parents’ to keep track of their child’s academic progress.
Moreover, a class blog does not just help parents keep track of how well their child is doing; rather they can also see how their syllabus is coming along and if the general class is having trouble with a given subject, which is important.
Email Newsletters or Letters:
With so many people now relying on emails for essential information, schools are starting to take advantage of this and are connecting better with parents.
Although most schools still send applications and letters through students in the hopes that it reaches their parents, other schools are sending these letters directly to parents via email. Not only is this way of sending emails more reliable and much more instantaneous, but thanks to their format they can be a lot more personalized and private.
Using these letters will also allow parents to reply to the teachers and talk to them about the contents of the letter.
Social Media:
Unlike the other forms of communications, social media is a very good tool that most institutions are already using to their fullest.
Social media is one of the biggest advertising platforms for every type of business or institute, including schools. Schools continually update their social media to show how their curriculum is going as well as how their students are coping with the said curriculum.
Social media essentially helps schools advertise themselves as well as create a platform for parents to talk and place their complaints about the school actively. Social media applications, like Snapchat and Instagram, also allow parents to get an in-depth look at the school daily.
Parent Teacher Communication Is Faster And More Accessible Through Technology
Building strong relationships between teachers and parents has never been easier thanks to the technology readily available to both parties. With the help of these communication methods, parents are starting to place more trust in the school system, and the school is getting much better feedback from the parents, directly.
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