Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello. We’re back with the Beyond the Session segment of the Securely Attached podcast. We are going to answer a listener question. I got Dr. Emily Upshur and Dr. Rebecca Hershberg here. Hello friends.

Dr. Rebecca (00:55):

Hello.

Dr. Emily (00:55):

Hello.

Dr. Sarah (00:55):

It’s good to see you. I have a question from a parent of a second grader. Ready?

Dr. Rebecca (01:03):

Ready.

Dr. Sarah (01:04):

Okay. My second grader was assigned a teacher who is notoriously old school and strict. I’m worried that her style won’t mesh well with my sensitive son. His teacher in first grade was amazing and they definitely clicked. She helped him really start enjoying school, so I’m concerned this could set him back. I don’t want to overstep or go in with a negative attitude, but I also don’t want to wait until something goes wrong. Are there any proactive steps you’d suggest I take without creating tension with this teacher?

Dr. Emily (01:33):

Such a good question.

Dr. Rebecca (01:34):

I was about to say I love this listener because of the way the question was phrased. It’s like, I don’t want to be a helicopter parent. I don’t want to discount that my child is resilient and can handle different personalities and different teachers and whatever, and I also don’t want to watch a train wreck happening without, you know.

Dr. Sarah (02:00):

And I’m aware that this is a human being, this teacher and the relationship is important and I don’t want to set it off on the wrong foot. I either, I don’t want to be antagonistic. I like that there’s a real genuine desire to serve the needs of all perspectives. She’s holding space for every angle, which I think is pretty awesome. So well done starting off there.

Dr. Rebecca (02:22):

Right. Well done listener. My answer to this listener is actually what I advise everyone to do universally, so I can kind of kick us off there if that’s okay, do it. I do it and I tell all my clients to do it, which is email your email your child’s teacher at the beginning of the year, maybe even before school starts to say thank you for all the work they’re already putting in. Right. Teachers are used to hearing from parents only when there’s a complaint, so I know how hard this time of year is, even though the rest of us are still on vacation, you’re setting up your classroom and whatever. Really appreciate that. Throw in something like, my kid is excited to have you and I’ve heard really wonderful things about you. Or if that doesn’t feel authentic, I’ve heard you’ve been in the district for so long and that’s whatever. Some sort of compliment and then…

Dr. Sarah (03:24):

Something generous.

Dr. Rebecca (03:25):

Something generous. And then I just wanted to share three things about my kid that might be helpful for you as you get to know him in the rest of the class. Take him or leave. I love that with the frame of like I’m trying to help one, he really, really responds to humor or really responds well to specific praise or he can be a little bit fidgety and so I don’t know how you feel about fidgets in your classroom, but just to be a heads up, he’s a kid that can benefit a very kind of generous and deferential, but I am setting the tone for a partnership, right? I am my kid’s parent. You’re going to be their parent in the classroom, and so here I am sharing my knowledge with you, having nothing to do in this particular case that you’ve heard she’s strict or anything about one of the things you share might be he can be a little bit sensitive in X, y, Z way. One way to really get him through it is to make him feel good about himself, particularly around writing where he can be insecure, whatever. I’ve never had either personally or tales from my clients, anybody ever say they received any kind of a negative anything other than a completely positive response to something like that.

Dr. Emily (04:49):

What’s so interesting about that approach? So good. I love that. And what’s so interesting about that approach, Rebecca, is I’m totally thinking back to my experience. I certainly that approach I did, I would do with my boys or I have, and that sort of feels aligned for me. It’s so interesting though for my daughter who actually is in this situation, I was inclined to just talk to her directly about how she would advocate for herself and how she can be resilient in the room and how, okay, so if you get a more strict teacher, what will that feel like and what will you do? And so it’s really funny because each child maybe warrants a different sort of intervention for both.

Dr. Sarah (05:37):

Yeah, I was going to ask you, in reflecting on that, if you could zoom out and say like, okay, well what were you, was informing that difference in approach? Was it the fact that it was boys versus girls or was it that it was more like you are anticipating issues with the boys and because your daughter is a little more resilient, you don’t think you need to as much? What are you responding to?

Dr. Emily (06:04):

I think there’s two things I want to put it out there, and with all the respect of the educational system, I think it’s harder on boys from a behavioral management perspective sitting in a seat longer the demands we have. And so I do think I personally have more anxiety about their ability to be as resilient in the room. I think that having a daughter and a daughter who’s pretty fidgety, don’t get me wrong, but still is able to hold the good intention of a teacher, she can follow a task and she can sit long enough to do something like that. It’s a little bit more self-driven in terms of her personality style and her ability to self-regulate, but I also think it’s a little bit maybe just birth order. I’m just like, I’ve seen it. It hasn’t as anxious as I’ve gotten about the teacher and the match, and I think that’s all really very important, but I also have been less protective of making it the best year ever. I’m like, okay, so maybe it was an off year. It’s okay.

Dr. Rebecca (07:09):

But what I think is interesting too is I never wouldn’t do that to me. It’s just something that I think every kid can benefit from.

Dr. Emily (07:21):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (07:21):

Right, for you have even if an exercise in this is how we start the school year, it’s just a prophylactic thing. I do kind of across the board to set the tone for the year.

Dr. Rebecca (07:30):

Exactly. And then depending on my kid, of course I talk to my kids also and have my clients talk to their kids and depending on who the teacher is matched, we can get into more specifics at home around that. But as far as how to, because I guess I read into this question she doesn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with this teacher, so I was thinking specifically about parent teacher interactions and just how you truly never can go wrong. Starting the gear with an email saying, thank you for your hard work and here’s something generous and here’s just a couple things to know about my kid. In some ways, having your kid may be a straight A student and you may think it’s a perfect match, great, do it anyway.

Dr. Emily (08:11):

It’s about being a relationship, like you’re doing this together and you’re sort of solidifying, I’m your partner in this, I’m here. Thank you for all the work you’re doing, but I’m also here as a partner for you if that’s helpful.

Dr. Rebecca (08:24):

And a lot of elementary school teachers, at least at our school, but I think at many others, send out something. They do it, tell us about your kid. Here’s our little intro questionnaire. So that could also be a time for this listener to share. Again, I would step away if I was this parent from anything that even would suggest there might be tension or a mismatch, but just more about I am my child’s parent, not even, we haven’t even gotten to advocate necessarily yet. It’s just I’m their parent. I’m going to share what I know about my kid with this teacher and I’m going to start by giving the teacher the benefit of the doubt.

Dr. Sarah (09:04):

In the same way, if you were hiring a babysitter, you would tell the babysitter a little bit about your kid. Exactly before you said, peace out, I’ll see you in a couple hours. In a way, I am not saying teachers are babysitters, I’m just saying in any, I think what you’re getting at Rebecca is there’s a similar approach of like, Hey, let me orient you to my child because I’m going to be kind of handing them over to you. And we are in a collaborative team now, and so we should know the cliff notes.

Dr. Emily (09:39):

I’ll say similar to babysitters, I am sure lots of parents have experienced this, but I will have a friend who says, this is the best babysitter. You’ve got to meet with them. And I meet with them and I’m like, maybe not a good fit for my family. This might be a teacher who somebody’s told you is so strict and so terrible or beware and they might be a great match for your kid.

Dr. Sarah (10:03):

Right, like that structure and a predictability that they in the classroom might actually be amazing.

Dr. Emily (10:10):

So I just think try also to be open-minded about the teacher, who they are, what their reputation is versus what it might feel like to have them in the room. Just being open-minded about that is helpful because not every teacher is the same for every the goodness of fit can really be a shifting model.

Dr. Rebecca (10:32):

My son in second grade had a very similar situation where his first grade teacher was super nurturing and he’s pretty sensitive and he got a very strict teacher and she was in fact very strict and it could have gone the way that Emily was saying of, okay, you win some, you lose some. He ended up loving her, I think because she was so strict, everything was really predictable and she wouldn’t let other kids get rowdy, which was helpful to my son that someone was in charge and not being loosey goosey with everyone, and I wouldn’t have predicted that and I wouldn’t have thought about that angle of things.

(11:13):

But having been through it, it was really interesting. And at one point he cried because he lost his colored pencils or something and she got mad at him. She was legit. I would’ve said like, whoa. But then I remember talking to him, it’s funny you say Emily, about how to advocate for himself, and he was like, I don’t have to. She cares about me. She cares about all about. It was sort of like, oh, okay. This is me putting my stuff on him. It really worked for him in some way and she remains one of his absolute favorite teachers. I love that. So you just don’t know.

Dr. Sarah (11:47):

That’s so funny. As we were talking and I was thinking about, I had this thought about not creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I kept challenging that for myself. I don’t think that that idea quite fits here because the parent isn’t the one interacting with the teacher throughout the year to kind of create that self-fulfilling prophecy. But what you said, Rebecca makes me like, oh, click. That’s what I was really thinking is we don’t know what our kid’s going to interpret the teacher’s behavior strict or otherwise to be. We are assuming, so it’s not creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by projecting onto our child what we think will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don’t know how your kid is going to interpret this old school strict teacher, and it very well may be that what you are interpreting as you are guessing their interpretation will be a negative one. It very well may be that it gives them a sense of felt safety to be in a classroom that’s so tightly run.

Dr. Rebecca (12:58):

Yeah, it’s so interesting and you just don’t know.

Dr. Sarah (13:02):

And if your kid genuinely doesn’t respond well to it and it is really challenging for them, I think we’re clearly identifying some proactive steps you can take, but I also think, so you’re not waiting for something to go wrong to act, but it’s possible that something might not fit and feel like it went wrong. But I think if you kind of set things up the way, Rebecca, you’re describing to create a dialogue with the teacher to help kind of set a tone of collaborativeness, but also like, Hey, my kid does better with this, or This is a struggle, this is a great intervention for him, then you’ve already set that tone and it’s a lot easier to go back to it if things aren’t going well to be like, Hey, it sounds like he’s having a lot of trouble with this particular way of this type of consequence to these types of behaviors, could we consider a different plan? I think there are also ways to address something that is gone wrong, and so I don’t want you to be so afraid that we never want to let it get bad.

Dr. Rebecca (14:22):

It’s not a runaway train. It’s not like you’re going to miss your moment and then it’s going to crash and burn. That’s typically not how if things don’t go well during a particular school year, it typically happens pretty slowly with a lot of opportunities, especially if you’re going to be a squeaky wheel potentially to intervene and discuss and get things back on track as best as possible.

Dr. Sarah (14:46):

And worst case scenario, because I’ve seen this too, where a kid just genuinely has a teacher who for whatever reason they don’t gel, the teacher’s triggered by the kid, there’s something going on in that classroom dynamic that really is starting to implode. There are things that you can do and that might be worth an episode in and of itself like, okay, things like poop has hit the fan in the classroom. It’s really starting to devolve between my child and his teacher. Their relationship is really falling apart. I feel like I’m at a loss. The teacher thinks I’m super annoying now and won’t respond and isn’t really responding to me anymore. How do I respond to, because I’ve seen this happen too in rare, unfortunately yucky situations, but I think before it gets that bad, there are things you can do where you are pulling in the school counselor or some conversations with an assistant principal or a principal. There are things that you can do if things are just really not clicking and your efforts to communicate with the teachers just aren’t landing. Have you guys seen that at all?

Dr. Emily (15:55):

Oh yeah. I think we’re trying to have a positive reframe on this. I think it’s definitely a positive, has a positive outlook, but I do think you’re right. I do think there are times when you have a particular child with particular needs and a particular teacher with a particular proclivity or skillset that isn’t the best match, and there are certainly interventions both with the teacher but also systemically that you can do to help facilitate a better year. I don’t think it’s lost. I don’t think you have to go to set, you win some, you lose some. That happens sometimes, but not if the stakes are high. I think we really have to put our finger on the pulse of how is this impacting our child, their learning experience, their self-esteem, and we really want to be sensitive to that and be advocates. I will always say, and my school says this a lot, and I want to honor, you should never apologize for advocating for your child, and you can do that in a nice way and you should do that respectfully, but you should never have to apologize for trying to advocate for your child.

Dr. Rebecca (16:58):

And you can also always in the spring, most elementary schools say, do you have any requests for next year? Not that they ever promise to honor them. And then many of them don’t want you to give name. It’s not like you can say, yeah, I really, really want Ms. Bren, but to say, here’s who my kid is and my kid tends to benefit from a teacher who is X, Y, Z in style or XY, and you can sort of advocate in that way. Again, though sometimes you get hit with someone like my son’s teacher who ended up being a great fit and I never would’ve predicted it, but kids needs absolutely come first. To answer your question, Sarah, yes, I have a hundred percent seen that happen. I actually haven’t seen it happen that often.

Dr. Sarah (17:51):

I find it rare, but I have, it does happen.

Dr. Rebecca (17:54):

And I think for me, and this is anecdotal, although sadly the national data would support it, it’s more frequently with boys, female teachers, boys of color, that’s where unquote mismatches for lack of wanting to use other words.

Dr. Sarah (18:12):

I also think it happens more with neurodiverse kids.

Dr. Rebecca (18:15):

Oh no question.

Dr. Sarah (18:16):

Boys of color who have neurodiversity are going to get it probably the most and any iteration of that up the scale. I think kids who have really a lot of trouble regulating their bodies and their behaviors and their affect in the classroom can…

Dr. Rebecca (18:34):

Yeah, schools are not built for those kids.

Dr. Sarah (18:38):

And I mean, I have a self-selective population that come to see me. I get a lot of kids like that and sometimes where I’m like, let’s work with this. We’re going to figure out a plan and have definitely been a type like this teacher is not get this kid, and I then really don’t know if there’s any way that we’re going to change that this year. But that is all to say, don’t go to the end of the catastrophizing right now. I’m just trying to play out all the possibilities for everyone listening, but I think let’s start at the beginning, in the pre beginning and go with Rebecca’s plan, which is to just start on a really good foot and have a really open bid to connect with this teacher and give them a little bit of a cliff notes on your kid and approach this year as a collaborative team.

Dr. Emily (19:35):

Love it.

Dr. Sarah (19:37):

You got this. Your son’s got this. Thanks ladies.

Dr. Rebecca (19:43):

Thank you.

Dr. Emily (19:45):

Bye.

Dr. Sarah (19:45):

Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.