Difficult conversations with parents can be one of the toughest elements of leadership.
Yet while the situations we face can be complex, multi-faceted and unique, there are some golden rules that can ensure these conversations yield beneficial outcomes, avoiding any rupture to the relationship that could lead to parents losing trust in the school and its staff.
One of these golden rules relates to understanding that there are two key elements to effective communication: the ability to listen and the ability to understand that there is often more to what someone says than the words they speak.
Difficult conversations with parents
There is a great debate about the accuracy of the phrase “all behaviour is communication”, but, with my Transactional Analysis psychotherapy hat on, when it comes to parents, I would say this phrase is true.
When a parent comes to you in a heightened state of anxiety or takes out their frustration by shouting profanities in your face - which happened to me not so long ago - it could well be because there are other, secondary, issues at play.
Of course, you may never know exactly what those things are (working that out is the job of a therapist), but it is crucial to be aware of the fact that external events are driving their behaviour.
For example, the situation they are feeling het up about may remind them of a time when they felt a loss of control, and this response is their way of trying to maintain control. Or they may be in the midst of a personal challenge, such as a dispute with a partner, struggling with loss or being frustrated with their job, which is causing anger.
Recognising this is important because it will help you to control how you respond and avoid falling into one of the more unhelpful responses that our brains are primed to use.
Finding the fourth way
Specifically, if we are faced with someone being aggressive or confrontational, our amygdala, often known as the brain’s “smoke detector”, goes into fight, flight or freeze mode.
If we decide to take “fight” mode, we risk rupturing the relationship. “Flight” mode, otherwise known as avoidance, results in the situation never being resolved and ongoing challenges with communication. “Freeze” mode results in parents and staff witnessing a loss of control as you struggle to know how to deal with the situation.
None of these are ideal. What we need is to be able to let these responses pass and, as hard as it may be, make a conscious decision not to engage in the type of interaction they are drawing us into.
Instead we need to choose a fourth way - one that involves analysing the interaction based on what we know about the parent and their context and moving towards a constructive, open and honest conversation that gets to the root of their frustrations.
In Transactional Analysis terms, this is known as the adult ego state - when our behaviour and response is based on the here and now and we are able to approach things rationally. In this state we need to base our responses on the facts. What happened? Who was involved? And, crucially, how are we going to move forward from this?
In this way we begin to see that we may not necessarily be the direct focus of the parent’s anger or frustration, but instead it may be linked to events from the past.
Know your school community
That is not easy - not least because the parent’s own amygdala is firing, sending them into defence (“fight” mode). Indeed, moving forward can be a real challenge when someone is in this state and is unable to engage in a more considered conversation.
What is key is for leaders to ensure that we know our parents so that we can help them recognise that the school is an ally, not an adversary. This is done through building a personal relationship between them and you as a leader or leadership team.
This means getting to know parents as individuals with their own complex lives, rather than just as someone’s mum or dad. It means knowing about ailments they are dealing with, who is arguing with their neighbours, who is studying, who has a high-pressure job, which families are expecting another child and so on.
Getting to know them on this level means that when a difficult situation arises, there is a much better chance of avoiding falling into a damaging conversation that leads to a rupture, avoidance or inaction.
By recognising that there is more to behaviour than what we immediately see, we can ensure that communications are open, honest and constructive and support the parent to get to the heart of the issue.
Amanda Wilson is headteacher of St Alfege with St Peter’s CE Primary School in London. She tweets @AmandaWilson910
