Five tips: looking for balance in parenting students

Recognize teachers have your children’s best interests at heart and treat them as allies rather than adversaries. Ask how you can help your child and the class, being upfront about your time constraints and your talents — whether you’re an accordion player or a zoology buff. Give schools the benefit of the doubt when your child comes home with a preposterous story of teacher misdeeds. Most crazy stories relayed over the years by my children and their friends had a stitch of truth embroidered with a bunch of hooey. Some of my children’s classmates once alleged the teacher was punishing the class by turning off the ceiling fan. The teacher was a woman nearing retirement and far more likely to suffer in a school that lacked air conditioning than 9-year-olds. It turned out the fan was simply malfunctioning.

You can read the full list of tips on her blog at myAJC.com.