38: Teachers: how, and why, we should talk to our teenager's teachers.

Rachel Richards: 0:02

Hello, I'm Rachel Richards and welcome to Teenagers Untangled, the audio hug where we use research by experts and our own experience to discuss everything and anything to do with parenting teenagers.

Susie Asli: 0:14

Hi there. I'm Susie Asli. I'm a mindfulness coach, mindful therapist and musician, and mother of three teenagers, two of them are twins.

Rachel Richards: 0:22

As a parenting coach, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters. I've seen the transformative power of getting people together to share ideas and support each other. So here we are, welcome, pull up a chair. And let's begin now we are going to talk about how we communicate with teachers in this episode, and that comes off the back of the previous episode. So you might want to listen to that. But it was sparked by Nicky who contacted us and saying, oh, had a horrible parents evening, teacher after teacher said my son's lazy, doesn't pay attention in class, all this stuff. And I just came home enraged and let fly at him. So we thought actually, why don't we talk about how we communicate with teachers? Because it does change when they become teenagers. And you just sort of drop them at the gate and it's not the same.

Susie Asli: 1:11

And there's a huge difference between teenagers; 13 to 19 is a huge range. Yeah, there's a huge difference within this time.

Rachel Richards: 1:17

Absolutely. We're going to do that. But first of all, we've had some feedback. We keep asking for feedback. We asked for it, we love feedback. And this is from Albert Hall. I wonder whether Albert Hall has a parent who loves classical music? Because we have a famous Albert Hall in the UK, but he's American, so that may have no nothing to do with it. Susie read it out for us.

Susie Asli: 1:47

Okay, got it. Hey, the rustling here. Okay, Almost Perfect. It's called.

Rachel Richards: 1:53

Four, not five stars.

Susie Asli: 1:55

I do love this podcast and find it so helpful around numerous difficult subject matters with our teenage children. I do however, wonder if your own children are really that perfect. It seems that whenever you mention your children, you're relieved that they have never been interested in drugs, vaping, porn, etc, etc. When I'm sure they have, it would be more genuine. If you talked about a situation that you had to deal with, rather than 'I asked my children who thankfully just aren't interested in it.' But here's what to do with your kids who have

Rachel Richards: 2:26

I, I'm not laughing at you, Albert, but actually I love this feedback. And it did make me stop and think, are we misleading people here? The thing is, I've scared the bejesus out of my children in terms of drugs, and vaping, because I started when they were quite young. And every time there was an article about it, I'd say, Oh, look at this. How do you think this person died? Yes, drugs! And also, I've told them, we have mental health problems in the family. So any drug they take that's a recreational drug could potentially take them over so it's not really raised its head. And as far as porn goes, I haven't actually asked them directly. I have. I've talked all about it around the subject. Go ahead.

Susie Asli: 3:11

I have well, in the episode of porn, yes, my son squirmed and nearly died. We had a conversation about it.

Rachel Richards: 3:18

I mean, we talked about porn, generally. But I haven't said so. Are you watching porn?

Susie Asli: 3:23

I think the point we made in that episode as well was, you have to presume they are.

Rachel Richards: 3:27

Yes, exactly. Because they will have come across it. And the question is, what sorts of things are they being exposed to? How do they feel about it? And how do they unpack what's going on? You know, once you put it into context, first of all, you're the cool parent who actually understands what's being pushed at them, and and how that's affecting their own environment. Yeah.

Susie Asli: 3:50

But valid, very, and really, really interesting as well. And my kids are absolutely not perfect. And my eldest has definitely been drunk on many occasions. So there we go.

Rachel Richards: 4:01

But I think that one of the issues is that my two teenagers have issues that really fall into two buckets. One of them's about friendships. And one of them's about academics and for her all the lying, and all those things happened quite early on. And that's partly why I do this podcast because I learned so much from it. And over time we've built this incredible relationship, she's learned to really trust me. Yeah. And now we don't really tackle those problems in the same way because they're not coming up. Because she's, comfortable in who she is. So I think, because of doing this podcast, I haven't had to face a lot of them.

Susie Asli: 4:51

No, and it's the connection and it's not to say that they won't come up in the future, but hopefully, with an emphasis on connection we can have those conversations and when they get trouble, which they will, we can deal with it.

Rachel Richards: 5:02

But this one's for you. My nugget this week is my daughter wanted to paint her bathroom. It's a very small one. And it's a very small space. So she wanted to just make it more colorful because it's just white and looks like a place in a mental health institution. So I bought the paint for her. And I explained to her how you use masking tape and all the brush care, how to put cloths down to protect the area, everything. Then said, Shall I help you? No, mommy, I'm fine. I'm doing it myself. And I thought Great. So then after she'd finished I went and looked at it. And it was a disaster. There were fingerprints everywhere. The rollers had been left on the floor. They hadn't been washed out, you know, it just it was not good. My daughter does have a short attention span. And she finds being tidy quite difficult. She's quite chaotic. I love her but this is her modus operandi. So what I did is I initially felt- not enraged - but quite upset. And then I did the breathing technique, and how am I going to respond? And instead of what my parents would have done, which has been to pick up the phone and rage at me down the phone, I thought, oh, do I take away her phone? But then I realized that because of all the conversations we've had about phone management screen time, she goes through some weekends where she doesn't use her phone at all. She sort of puts it away because it's a sanctuary for her. So that wasn't going to work. So the next really powerful thing I thought of is her allowance, which I set up, I used Episode Four to discuss it. And it's been invaluable. So I removed her allowance for that week. It went into her account and came straight back out again. And she noticed it and sent me a reminder using Revolut 'Oh, by the way, you know, where's my money?' And I just ignored it. And we spoke on the phone. But she didn't ask that I don't mind tidying up that if you leave a mess, you're telling everybody in the house, it's someone else's responsibility. Whose responsibility is it? And I have said to her, 'I will do this for you. But you pay me and I will charge you extra if you don't tell me ahead of time as a penalty, because that's what the banks do. Right? If you go overdrawn,' so she lost her allowance that week. But you know what? Not a raised word. She looked at me and she said, Okay. And she's learned her lesson because she hates losing money. She likes her money and we moved on.

Susie Asli: 7:51

Yeah, amazing. That's brilliant. A fantastic thing. So she's not perfect. Well mine this week is very different. It is my eldest turned 18. I mean, that's just crazy special. Yeah, really special. And it kind of took me a little bit by surprise as to how symbolic that is. And we always make a big fuss of birthdays anyway, because it's fun. But 18 is a big deal. And maybe also because I've been on my own with him since, I don't know, four. It's kind of like wow, we've done it.

Rachel Richards: 8:25

Yeah, and he's a great kid.

Susie Asli: 8:28

Yeah, he's a great kid. I mean, he really is a great kid. And I think it's different for boys and girls I mean he doesn't seem particularly adult like there is a glint...

Rachel Richards: 8:42

You've got another seven years to go...

Susie Asli: 8:45

He's great company and he's brilliant in so many ways. But the point of the nugget was it was his birthday and it was the family dynamic. my kids haven't always got on brilliantly, particularly my daughter and him. They are very alike and they used to fight like cats and dogs and I always said to them I think you're really alike I think you will get on and they'd go no, we hate each other. And suddenly the last couple of years. They've got older. But on his birthday, there was this really beautiful day. In the morning and in the evening they had really put effort into get him really sweet presents that were really thoughtful. He got up early to have breakfast with us which - if you know him - that's quite extraordinary. Just to enjoy being part of the family and it was just really beautiful and the relationship that they have with each other is there's a lot of banter in our house. We muck about a lot. And it just made me feel very warm and fuzzy.

Rachel Richards: 9:55

How wonderful. It gives us all hope.

Susie Asli: 9:57

Yeah, because I really did wonder whether they would ever get on. And now I've had a glimpse that maybe as adults, they'll actually have a decent relationship with each other and have each other's backs. Of course, they're gonna fall out. And of course, there's stuff that we deal with all the time. But it was a really lovely glimpse into a possible future.

Rachel Richards: 10:15

And hang on in there, my bonus daughters were the same. I mean, they were pulling hair, they were scratching each other. And my goodness, I'd struggle with that, but they are so close now. And they go on holiday together, they back each other up. It's lovely. So hang on. This is can feel really hard. So, back to teachers. Yes. And it's interesting, because we sometimes think we can pull back when they become teenagers, they're at high school, it's their job now, you know, but a study published in the Journal of Child Development included more than 1400 families in the eastern United States and found that teenagers whose parents stayed involved in their child's education through the secondary school years are more likely to have positive academic, behavioral and emotional outcomes. So the key findings were that parents should always be involved. It's just the style of involvement that can change. So how can parents be involved in a child's education, right, there's frequency of communication between parents and teachers, quality of that communication, the extent to which parents encouraged children to figure out their own solutions to homework, structure, parents establish at home in the form of schedules and guides for studying. Now, this particular one they found had a really dramatic impact in households of African Americans, and low income households. It's really key, the structure and the extent to which parents discuss with their children, the importance of education and future success is linking it to their future. And I found that made a massive difference for my daughter who was really off the rails when she first went to senior school. It was a big problem. And I started the mending by talking about her future. Yeah; not telling her what she had to do.

Susie Asli: 12:06

I think you did it in a really lovely way. Like, what do you want leaving it open? Because it can quickly become a pressure if you do that in the wrong way. Your future is going to be awful if you don't put some work in kind of thing. And then that's a massive burden and a stress but you didn't do it?

Rachel Richards: 12:21

No. I mean, you can listen to that one. And I think it's Episode Five, where I just asked her what do you want out of life? Where do you see yourself? How do you see yourself? What's your future, and let's see, let's talk about how we can work back from there to here. And I don't care if you go to university, I don't care about any of these things, I care about you having a life that you want, and that really took the pressure off. And then we could work from there. So in terms of the results of the study, the results were that - in terms of academics - all of those types of parental involvement were associated with improvements in GPA, which is a grade point average that they use in America, behavior, frequency of Parent Teacher communication, all those things, the home structure, definitely, they had fewer problem behaviors, and emotional outcomes, fewer depressive symptoms, once again, will link to these relationships where you've got a real connection with the school because they're spending so much time at school. And all of it was linked to the level of parental warmth in the home. Yeah, of course. So it doesn't matter what socio economic background you come from, what race background, it's that warmth. That helps them through the really difficult stages of being a teenager.

Susie Asli: 13:36

Yeah, connection, like we were always talking about.

Rachel Richards: 13:39

So we know the background. Just a quick one on parents evening. So this was prompted by poor Nicky, who had this awful, you know, five minutes with each teacher, every single one gave her bad feedback. And what's happened at parents evenings is that many of them have gone online. Yes. And the reason for that, because I've asked teachers is, having gone online during COVID, lots of them have stayed online so that they can switch the off button on parents who start ranting because there are I saw one teacher on Twitter who was deeply deeply upset because a parent, had decided to spend 20 minutes yelling at her during parents evening, even though she had other people coming in. She said nobody came to my rescue. And it's very distressing. It's very abusive, very abusive, not what they want. So they're now they're going to contain it to five minutes.

Susie Asli: 14:31

Yeah. And timing wise. I've been on both sides of the fence. So I'm a parent, obviously. And I've also been a teacher, not as a class teacher, which is different. I mean, I teach classes of mindfulness, but parents evening wise, I am one to one violin and viola teaching, which is very different, but you still get the feeling of you know, the parental feedback and sometimes parents don't behave very nicely. And that's not cool.

Rachel Richards: 14:57

That doesn't help anyone. No, because we have to start from the assumption that the person who's teaching your child cares about the outcome; that they actually care about your child. And one thing I read, and that I tried to do myself is I try to always introduce myself to the teachers. And I just say, Hi, I'm such as such as mother. And this is how you can communicate with me. Good luck. Let me know if there's any other any issues. Yeah. Because then you've got a very light hearted introduction. No pressure on them. But they still know that you're there.

Susie Asli: 15:35

If you can do that brilliant. I think there's also a huge difference between the relationship between teachers and parents in private schools and state schools, I think it's a massive, massive difference, just by the very nature of the setup of the school. Private schools are a business.

Rachel Richards: 15:53

So those are paid for schools?

Susie Asli: 15:55

Yes paid for schools, they're a business. So the relationship is, you're a customer. And so you have expectations, it works both ways. You know, you have expectations and maybe demands in whether rightly or wrongly, and the dynamic is really, really different. Whereas at a state school, where, you know, there may be the teachers have got more kids in the class, they're more stretched. They can't, and they won't, you know, do that, or they don't need to, it's not a business. It's very different. So I think it's that distinction.

Rachel Richards: 16:28

I think that's absolutely right. But I've seen parents at both schools behaving in equally awful ways. I've seen parents saying, 'oh, you know, I'll let the teacher sort out this horrible behavior.' And I think, why is that the teacher's job? And that's not down to a socio-economic background.

Susie Asli: 16:50

No. And it goes both ways. I mean, some parents, give the teacher the responsibility for bringing up their kid. Also, as parents, we don't see our kids in school. So, you know, if I've been teaching classes, you know, some of the kids, you know, maybe they're really annoying. I know, we shouldn't say that. But maybe they don't behave in a way that is conducive to giving them extra help. Yeah. And it's really good to have that feedback. But maybe the teacher is not pulling their weight. It goes both ways.

Rachel Richards: 17:33

We need to work as a team with them. Which means, if your little Johnny's coming home and saying, my teacher hates me, they're always disciplining me. I hate that class. The first thing to do is try and make an appointment. Again, I know it's not easy, always. But it's worth trying to instigate an appointment. Because apart from anything, you then end up with a paper trail saying, Well, I've been trying to communicate with this teacher, and they haven't been responding. But most teachers are amazing. They want to talk, of course, but don't expect an instant response, because their primary role is to teach pupils not to talk to you. So give it time, before you start complaining. scheduling the appointment, organizing your thoughts beforehand about what you're trying to achieve from that appointment. I mean, I was talking to my daughter who's having to make choices about what she studies next year. And she has been struggling to choose. We decided we would write an email to all these key people and ask them for their opinion. And I started writing the email, which was, 'here are the issues,' then I thought, well, what am I asking them? I need to ask them a question they can answer. Right? So before you go in there, what are you trying to achieve? They're busy people. And when you are talking about things, the best thing to do is be very clear and specific. So for example, your child isn't making friends at all they're struggling rather than saying, nobody's talking to my child, what are you going to do about it? You say, Brenda is saying that nobody seems to have been connecting with her and that she's quite alone. What are you seeing?

Susie Asli: 19:26

Yeah, so you're presuming that they're the experts and you're asking for their opinion? I think that's a really good approach to most things in the world.

Rachel Richards: 19:35

Hand it to them. Because, you know, for example, my husband when we're in a restaurant, if he gets wine and he thinks it's corked rather than saying Hello, excuse me, can we have a different bottle of wine? He'll say, Oh, could you smell and taste this wine? It doesn't seem quite right. I'm wondering if it's corked, because it's a much more gentle way and every single time he's done that they're gone. Yeah, actually you're right. No one's confronting anyone.

Susie Asli: 20:02

Also sometimes we're not we were not very open minded

Rachel Richards: 20:03

Yes. And you have to decide ahead of time, am about our own kids. Sometimes we have presumptions, you know, the teacher may genuinely be seeing something very different. Yes, I going to have Johnny in this meeting with me - because the you know, Johnny's coming home and complaining about something or whatever the issue is. And actually in the classroom, it looks very different to the teacher. And then it's really useful information. best position when they are in secondary school is to be their coach, not their protector, be by their side and say, Okay, you're being told this, here's how we can deal with it.

Susie Asli: 20:49

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, different schools, and different colleges have very different approaches to this way. Um, I have one child who is in a Sixth Form College, and they're really hands off in a way that doesn't really work for my son. I'm sure it works for others, but it's not been enough for him. So my thoughts have always been no news is good news from schools. That wasn't the case. But their approach is like, well, you know, he's this age. Now it's his responsibility, which I agree with to a certain extent, but it goes too far. So each school and each college has its own own way of its own culture around how they deal with parents. And it's worth just sitting with that for a bit and checking that it resonates.

Rachel Richards: 21:39

That's a fantastic point, because here we are, if you have a child who's going into school, and you're hearing nothing, assuming that everything's good isn't necessarily the right decision. You know, we need to be just checking in with them. How's the homework going? Checking in with the reports? Yeah, making sure that actually what's coming back is enough information. Yeah. If you're not hearing anything there, maybe they're just not communicating properly with you rather than Oh, everything's fine. Yeah. Because we're all like that, you know, we're busy people, you've got three kids. You know, you're just like, well, that's great. He's doing fine and he's nearly an adult. Fine.

Susie Asli: 22:17

I believe him. Yeah. Oh, he's oops.

Rachel Richards: 22:22

So once you've got into this meeting, and you've asked them how they see things, I always like to take notes as well. It makes me sound like a secretary but I do quite like to. And part of why I like to take notes is at the end of every parent's meeting I've had with my daughter, I've sent her a copy because they'll usually say, 'Oh, she could be doing this better. And I say, 'what would you suggest?' And then I send it to her so that she's got backup. Because otherwise this stuff just disappears. Always identify what the concerns are together, and the ones you agree on, then try to brainstorm possible solutions, and then decide to give something a go as a team. If you're there on your own with a teacher, you then have to come home and report what the teacher said. And the teenager is taking no responsibility whatsoever in the process.

Susie Asli: 23:17

Yeah, yeah, I think that's really good that the kids are there. I did have one. I remember parents evening where it was optional. And I have twins. So one of them came and one of them didn't, it was all online. And actually, it was really useful at that point to be able to have a different kind of conversation with some of the teachers where she was maybe struggling a bit. But I think once they get to a certain age, then it's good if they're there.

Rachel Richards: 23:39

Yeah, yeah. And so just just unpicking some of the language, the teachers might say. So for example, if your teacher says your child is having trouble with their schoolwork, that can mean all sorts of thingsor it can be a symptom of all sorts of problems. So the right response might be well, what do you mean by that? Is that all of his schoolwork? Is that just in this lesson? Is it that he's not getting it in on time? Is he not doing it? Is it a really poor. Unpick what what exactly do you mean by this? Because if you don't know exactly what they mean, you can't really help. Again; misbehaving or your child is acting out in class. What are they doing, because for some teachers, a child dropping a pencil a few times is going to drive them nuts, and they're going to think that's a really bad kid. And then other teachers will have infinite amounts of patience and your child's spitballing and throwing things at the back of the class. You know, what do we mean by this?

Susie Asli: 24:36

And it depends on the school as well, isn't it? Some schools you know, have have very few behavioral problems and some schools in some areas of the country are really struggling. It's a lot of you know, behavior. Behavior control is a big part of the lesson. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's a tricky, conversation.

Rachel Richards: 24:57

And the truth is sometimes it's the teacher. I mean, honestly, sometimes the teacher is just not up to the job. And I've had my kids come home and complain about this or that teacher. And again, I'll say, Well, what do you mean? What, is the problem here, and I'll try and get as much information as possible. And then I'll go back to the school, again, my kids are at a private school, so it can be very different. But I rather than say, this teacher is not up to scratch, I'll say, there seems to be this sort of feedback. Are you getting that from anybody else? And could you check? Maybe they need more support? So I always go into it saying, I think this teacher needs more support, because I assume that maybe it's really hard because they've got some horrible kids in their class, or, you know, with one teacher, he'd just come over from another country and was adjusting to the shedule. So I start there. But if it doesn't get fixed, then I'll come back in again and say, so I'm still hearing the same thing,

Susie Asli: 25:57

which is a great strategy. And if that is helpful, that's brilliant. And feedback, if the school can take it, as always, is always useful. I think there are a lot of schools that don't have the capacity for that. Or they'll just be told, well, sorry, we, we've got a chemistry teacher teaching a French because we don't have anyone at the moment. And we can't think about it, sorry. It's always worth trying.

Rachel Richards: 26:19

And you've made a really good point there. Because, you know, in the UK, and I'm sure in a lot of places, we've got a real shortage of good science teachers, and this feeds back into the amount they're being paid to do the job compared to other jobs they could get. And it also feeds back into how we treat teachers, because we need to show a bit of appreciation and respect for putting up with our kids day after day.

Susie Asli: 26:47

Parents can be tricky. And I think it also relates to, you know, the idea, we're super individualistic in our culture, and so and our lives can tend to, you know, revolve around our own particular children, I put my hand up for that completely. And a school is a community, gosh, that's a good point, the community, and the teachers are seeing their classes as a community. And you know, if every parent goes in, yeah, my little Freddie's not getting enough protection, then well, that might be the case. But we're actually looking at the bigger picture and trying to get this out of the situation. And you know, it, I think it's really helpful to try and step back from this, my child has to do the best they possibly can, because they're going to be a failure in life.

Rachel Richards: 27:34

Yeah, absolutely. And so coming to the situation where I've had kids say, you know, I've tried, I can't move the teacher on, they've still got the same teacher, they're very jealous about somebody else in another class, because in the other class they say the teacher's great, and you just feel so hard done by because you think why, why is my kid in this awful school or with this awful teacher, I've been to those schools. So I understand. What I didn't have, which you do have now is that everything is online, everything. So now when my kids come to me and say, it's not fair, I can't understand this. I pull out my computer, I don't know if you can get it in America, or all these other countries. But we have, for example, BBC bite size, which has videos that cover everything on the syllabus for the UK education plans. As you get higher, there's Khan Academy for mathematics. This has become a massive wave of online videos and explanations of how things work. So often, they're things that I don't understand, because I've got lots of gaps in my schooling. And my kids ask me, and I don't know, I will pull out my computer, type in whatever it is, and I'll watch a video with them. I just think there are lots and lots and lots of things. So getting into groups with other parents, if your kids that are failing school or school where they're not getting what they need, so that you can share resources, find out what other people are using, and I think the online community now is incredible. It's such a gift, that part of it is brilliant.

Susie Asli: 29:36

Yeah, mine have a real mixture of teachers. It's, you know, some of them are amazing. And some of them are, some of them are temporary, some of them are - you know - filling in for other people and, and yeah, they can look up online.

Rachel Richards: 29:51

It's kind of giving them a sense that the onus is on them as well. And the teacher is not up there just to fill your bucket, they're there to work with you.

Susie Asli: 30:00

Yeah, my eldest regrets doing physics A level. He's finding it really hard. He loved physics GCSE, but finds physics at A level really hard. He came to me a few times going, Yeah, physics is really, really hard. I'm really struggling with it. And I'd be like, yeah, that sounds awful. But I'm waiting to hear this is what I'm doing about it.

Rachel Richards: 30:37

Yeah. And that means that even if you're coming from a background where you don't have the finances to get them the extra tutoring or whatever, encouraging that understanding that they can find stuff elsewhere, is a really wonderful thing to impart.

Susie Asli: 30:53

And most teachers if they're not utterly swamped, but especially if you want to get to the, you know, the final years, they're really invested in the kids. I mean, they all are. If your kids go to them and go, you know, I'm really struggling. I don't get this topic. They'll go Oh, great. Yes, they love teaching. Come back at lunch. Not all of them. And I've been a teacher as well. So of course, you have busy days where you can't but you know, generally, there's there are options.

Rachel Richards: 31:25

So start from the premise that they do care about their job, that they do want the best out of the kids, and that they are good at their job. Yes. And go from there. But don't stop talking to teachers just because your kids are in secondary school because they still need it. That communication could be vital. So what do you think? Have you had issues with education, we have done several different episodes. One of them also was how to get your kids to keep going instead of giving up at the first hurdle. And that one I made in response to a teacher who'd asked for it. Saying one of their biggest problems is that the kids try something and then they just give up because it was hard, because there's this talent myth. So we need to try and help our teachers by explaining to the kids at home that just because things are hard to start with doesn't mean you can't do them. It's a team effort. So if you've enjoyed this episode, then why not help other parents, tell your friends, tell the school and subscribe to our podcast. And it would be a massive bonus if you left a review. You can contact Suzy by her own website, which is

Susie Asli: 32:33

www.amindful-life.co.uk. And you can also book if you want to do like a free 20 minute chat if anything's issues want to explore them further into introducing mindfulness.

Rachel Richards: 32:48

I'll be calling tomorrow. You can also sign up to receive all the latest at our own website, which is www.teenagersuntangled.com There are lots of reviews links to every episode, we have a blog or I have a blog. Lots of easy ways to contact both of us. And please be kind to us in our report card.

Susie Asli: 33:32

Bye bye for now.