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Friday, March 21, 2025, marked my family’s final parent-teacher conference. After three kids, and a cumulative 44 years of such conversations, here’s what my husband and I have learned:

How to Listen So Teachers Will Talk

Parents see one side of their child. Teachers see another. My husband, a teacher, advised that the best thing to do is, “Listen. Don’t bring up any issues first. You don’t want the teacher to mirror you. You want them to provide information of their own. Always ask for numbers to go with words. It’s nice that they’re a joy to have in class. But that doesn’t tell you how they’re really doing. Ask for hard data.” 

When to Listen to Teachers

Teachers know things about kids that parents don’t. When my oldest was 4, his preschool teacher informed us, “He can read.”

“Oh, no,” we dismissed. “He just memorized a lot of sight words. He can’t read.”

He could read.

A few years later, that same child was in his school’s lowest math group. He was struggling. His teachers recommended we move him up a level. That made no sense to me. The teachers moved him up anyway. His performance improved. They had intuited that he was bored and tuning out, and that he’d do better if presented with the material faster. They were right. I was wrong.

When Not to Listen to Teachers

From the time my daughter was in second grade, her teachers would show me sloppy, dashed-off written work, full of misspellings, random transitions and sentences that stopped in the middle of a thought, and lament, “What comes out her mouth doesn’t match what she puts on the paper. She must have a learning disability.”

“No,” I’d say. “She just doesn’t check her work.”

Her teachers would look at me with sympathy – another deluded mother – and promise, “We’ll send her to the learning specialist. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

A few weeks later, I’d get the follow-up phone call. “We heard back from the learning specialist. It appears she just doesn’t check her work.”

When Not to Listen to Your Child

A similar situation popped up with my younger son. His teacher reported he’d gotten a D. “It might be a learning issue.”

“It is a learning issue,” I confirmed. “He didn’t learn the material.”

My son insisted the work was too hard, he didn’t understand it, he couldn’t do it. That same week, he was invited to join his dance school’s pre-professional program. I replied, “It’s a multi-hour-a-week commitment. You can’t accept if it takes you hours to finish one homework assignment.”

His learning issue miraculously cleared up.

Yes, teachers very often spot problems parents are oblivious to. With my oldest, we didn’t realize he’d suffered a hearing loss/auditory processing disorder. It took professionals to point that out. We’re grateful for the intervention. 

But with the two younger ones, it was laziness. Both were willing to hide behind inaccurate diagnoses, and their teachers were happy to cut them the accordant slack. I was the one forced to call them all out on it.

When to Listen to Your Child

Then there was the time I really got it wrong. Third grade was a nightmare for my middle child. He’d made a mortal enemy. They fought, using words and fists. The teacher advised us that this was a personality conflict between two boys who’d taken a strong dislike to each other; both were equally at fault. My son insisted the other kid started it, but the teacher was blaming my son disproportionately.

Years later, in conversation with other parents from that grade, I learned that the boy my son was feuding with had targeted other kids. We’d all been convinced by the school that this was an individual issue when it was a widespread one. My son, I was told, defended other kids against this bully.

Even more heartbreaking, my older son confided, “I saw it. The teacher was picking on him.”

My son told me. But I’d believed his teacher, instead.

Reasons to Attend Conferences

In New York City, attendance at parent-teacher conferences is down 40% since before the pandemic. In 2016, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that while 89% of families nationwide attended elementary school conferences, that number dropped to 57% by high school. A fellow senior year mom told me she just couldn’t summon up the enthusiasm to attend her child’s final, spring semester conference.

Here’s why I went to every single parent-teacher conference: because I wanted to hear how my children were doing. I wanted to hold my children accountable. I wanted to hold their teachers accountable. I wanted the teachers to know my children had someone looking out for them. Despite how I failed my middle one in third grade. I learned. I’ve tried to do better since.

Reason to Attend the Final Conference

But the primary reason my husband and I logged into our final parent-teacher conference was that we wanted to say thank you.

Thank you to the English teacher who made Bronte and Shakespeare compelling to jaded seniors and spent many more hours advising the school play than his union contact mandated (including a midnight run to Home Depot).

Thank you to the marine biology teacher who brought in live samples. Thank you to the coach who launched an Ultimate Frisbee team with no budget, and to the AP Government teacher who gamely tried to connect lessons on how the system should work with how it actually did.

Thank you, especially, to the AP Calculus teacher who saw our daughter for office hours in the morning before school and then again in the afternoon. When we told him how thrilled we were with her B in the class, we said, “We know how hard you both have been working.”

Parent-teacher conferences can be a chance to see your child through fresh eyes, to find out what issues they’re having, to decide on a plan of action — and to push back when you don’t agree with the school’s perspective. It can be a chance to stand up for your child, and an opportunity to let your child know they were in the wrong. And it can be your best chance to say thank you to the people who contributed to the adult your child will become.

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