Dealing with angry parents and difficult children is a major part of being employed in the field of education. Learning how to handle volatile situations and refocuses angry emotions into positive energy for change and improvement is a skill that can be learned by almost anyone. Let us examine some time-tested techniques for defusing situations, approaching parents in a positive manner, and voicing concerns constructively.
How to Defuse a Volatile Situation
Angry parents are in touch with emotions but may have temporarily lost focus on children’s behavior or grades. Learning to defuse situations by acknowledging their frustrations but keeping the focus on facts rather than personalities is a valuable skill for teachers and school administrative staff. Here are three guidelines to quickly defuse anger and allow all parties to respond rather than react.
- Use time outs to allow emotions to dissipate. Acknowledge concern, but ask for the opportunity to research the situation and get the facts. Set a time for a conference to show the parent good faith about intentions to resolve the conflict.
- Ask parents to put the concerns into writing. This focuses them on facts rather than emotions, and makes them accountable to do fact finding with their children. Teachers or other staff members with involvement should also prepare a written version. Finally, do your homework and find out who the players are, what event or events triggered the conflict, where and why it happened, and what the expected resolution should include.
- At conference time, use a recording device or have a secretary take notes and prepare a written transcript of what occurred. Memories can be faulty and the heat of anger can cause distortions, so taking this precautionary step may save further disputes or conflicts.
Approaching Angry Parents
Maintain a calm manner with angry parents. Acknowledge their feelings, but avoid taking sides or being drawn into conflict. Delay dealing with the situation until there has been time to gather the facts and talk to everyone involved. Many conflict situations are self-limiting; in other words, they resolve themselves once the angry parent settles down and has time to think clearly.
How to Voice Concerns Constructively
Try to sandwich concerns or criticism between genuine compliments. Every child has admirable qualities and skills. Keep the focus on behavior and performance, not on the person. Avoid trigger words, and treat all individuals with dignity and respect – even when they are not acting in a likeable manner. Here are some quick tips:
- Do not become defensive.
- Keep your tone calm and use a soft voice.
- Keep the conversation private; move to another location if necessary.
- Acknowledge and agree with their feelings: “I can see you’re frustrated.” Let them know you are listening, and allow them to vent.
- Maintain relaxed energy and body language.
- Move on and use facts.
How to use Positive Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement is a great behavior management tool. Remember to reinforce wanted behaviors and ignore unwanted behaviors – this works for parents as well as students. Be specific about why their behavior was appropriate or helpful and help them see the benefit to themselves and others. Use praise, but be honest. Insincere praise destroys trust and credibility. Model the behavior you expect from others, and watch how defusing volatile situations becomes easy and less stressful for everyone.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I think that it’s really helpful to diffuse tempers first before going forward with your talk, either with a parent or a student. I don’t think a hot-headed person will listen to what you have to say anyway, even if you do make sense.
Waiting it out so that tempers could subside, you can get the parent or the child to listen to you and make the conversation a whole lot easier. Besides, it also allows you to compose yourself and keep calm.
I also agree with putting it into writing, not only are you forcing the other party to collect their thoughts and put their emotions in perspective, but you are also giving them the time to cool off. The written complaint/grievance also allows you to have a document that you can come back to later on to assess what else needs to be done.
Thank you for sharing these resources. I must admit that conflict handling is one of my weaker points and these tips and pointers really helped. It is quite rare to see these kind of stuff on the Internet, so I really appreciate how you’ve put it all together.
Hi. The Dealing with Angry Hostile Parents resource is no longer available. I do think that there is no reason to have to deal with parents for the first time when they’re angry. Why not make the effort to meet them at the start of the year or in some PTA function? This way, they would have a positive impression of you. One thing that I’ve learned from my former teacher is that making the effort to contact parents is a great way to reach out to them. She used to write notes to each child’s parents telling them how their kids were doing at school. She was very well-liked among the parents and the kids. I think this could really help thing when it comes to avoiding situations where parents have to barge into the school upset.
I really think that there is one more important subject that you’ve left out here. It is the angry child and how to deal with them. By angry, I don’t mean the angsty, long-term type of anger, but those flashes of anger they feel. I really think that they need to be encouraged to find an outlet for their anger, or at least to speak to an adult about it. You, as a teacher, should also learn how to defuse the anger that your students feel from now and then. You should also encourage them to go ahead and share their anger with you. What’s more important, you should be able to instruct them on how to channel that anger into something more positive.
I think that what’s more important here is the approach you take in dealing with the angry parents. Start it wrong, and you can’t really gain traction with any discussions that come next. And then there’s the constructive voicing out of concerns. It would be great though to find out what you mean by “trigger words”
There’s really only so much social engineering that can be done. When parents actively enable their young folks, it is difficult to come to a satisfactory resolution, and teachers need to be prepared for that reality. My current assignment is in a high school where student athletes are rarely held accountable for their behavior, despite the damage this often causes their academic standings, and more importantly, their skills in a great many wide world contexts. Most of this mess is directly attributable to survival pressures fmany families know as a result of economy, etc. Knowing that isn’t going to help you, but the way I see it, the less you internalize the crap some parents and some students throw at you, the less defensive you’re likely to be in the long run. And being undefensive, knowing how to backpedal, is very likely to keep you un PHYSICALLY abused and alive in a great many difficult contexts. And of course, the other piece of this is ignoring administrative dogma that wants teachers to believe that if something isn’t happening correctly with a student, that it’s your fault. Most school administrations anymore understand only the logic of nickel counting and test scores, so you’re not going to find much support there, either.
I’ve taught in SE Seattle, SW Seattle, Bedford Stuy, Harlem, the South Bronx, so I know a little bit about this. The “professional development” literature out there is strangely silent on most of this. But it’s real crap, and if it winds up driving your day, remember, you’re not neccesarily the cause, but you do need to know how not to engage with dangerous stuff. Moreover, you don’t have to. Make admin do their jobs. Work as many pre referral interventions as you can, beef up your bag of tricks, but when you run out, don’t lose any sleep when you have to send a kid packing, or call security. That’s what those folks are paid the big money for, a lot of them need to start earning it. You know this and I know this.