Dear Kerry,
We have a regular conference coming up with my daughter’s second grade teacher. She seems like a nice person, but I have questions about some of her methods. I don’t want to antagonize her, since I don’t want my child to suffer. I always get nervous before these meetings. Any tips?
-LR, Plymouth

Dear LR,
Parent-teacher conferences are designed to help parents and teachers work together as a team. But, all too often, they get loaded with other feelings that can undermine a positive process.

Did you know that teachers get terribly nervous before conferences too? It seems as if both sides could use some insight to change the atmosphere. If we step back from the immediate for a minute, we can see some of the roots of the trouble.

We all relate to people on the base of earlier experience. Everyone knows that children who have loving, secure early relationships are most likely to grow up to be trusting, optimistic adults. Those big dimensions are pretty obvious. But it’s also true that there are other parts of our old relationships that persist into adulthood.

Think about how you felt about your first- or second-grade teacher. Wasn’t he or she the most knowledgeable, nicest person you had ever met? What your teacher said became gospel, for at least the first few years of school. If your teacher disapproved or scolded, it was powerful and made you feel bad.

We all carry residues of that intense respect and reliance on teachers as authorities. We think of teachers with a capital “T.”

Teachers have the same sorts of feelings about parents — after all, everyone has had parents and has looked up to them as the ultimate authority and judge through the early years. Teachers often unconsciously think of parents with a capital “P.”

So both parents and teachers can walk into conferences worrying that each is going to judge the other. Teachers fear being blamed, and parents think they will be criticized. This is a recipe for a wasted meeting and bad feelings afterwards. What can you do to make the conference a constructive part of the partnership you want with your child’s school to support her development?

There may be real issues that both parents and teachers want to address. Parents often feel concerns about what they hear from their kids about the classroom. At the same time, they want to approve of and support the teacher. Teachers often wish that parents sent them children who are better-behaved, kind, attentive and who know how to control their impulses and feelings.

How can you approach tough topics without hurting feelings or antagonizing someone important in your child’s life? The pre-conference work is to set yourself to share information and concerns. You can bring information and perceptions from home that will help your daughter’s teacher know her better and appreciate where she is coming from.

Then you can think through what your questions are — sincere curiosity about why the teacher approaches a topic the way she does, or how to help your child get the most from an assignment, gives the teacher a chance to use her professional knowledge to help you understand the lessons and rules of the classroom.

Don’t leave the conference without an agreement with the teacher about next steps. When you have devised goals for moving forward together, you will truly be working as a team for your daughter’s growth on all fronts. Parents and teachers can feel supported by shared expectations and plans to implement them, to your child’s ultimate benefit.

Kerry Kelly Novick is a local child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst, and author, with Jack Novick, of "Emotional Muscle: Strong Parents, Strong Children," available at amazon.com or through http://www.buildemotionalmuscle.com. Check the website regularly for blogs and news of upcoming media appearances and events. She welcomes your email with comments and questions for future columns at kerrynovick@gmail.com.