Effectively Communicating with Parents About Behavior

An important part of behavior management is following up with parents about behaviors that have occurred in the classroom. With everything else you have on your plate everyday, communicating with parents can be tricky. In this post, I’m sharing my teacher-tested tips for effectively communicating with parents about behavior. 

The Importance of Parent Communication

Kindergarten is a grade level that requires regular and effective communication with parents. Since students are young and many parents haven’t had a child in school before, the line of communication between home and school is absolutely essential! Here are three specific reasons why it’s important to prioritize effective communication:

Develop a Partnership – When parents and guardians aren’t in regular contact with the school, they can begin to feel disconnected from what happens in the classroom. This is especially true when it comes to behavior! Communication with parents and guardians will allow you to develop partnerships with them as you work together to support their children.

Reduce Misunderstandings – We’ve all had a student who relates a story about their weekend that leaves us scratching our heads and thinking “Wait….what?!”. The same thing can happen when students relate stories about what happened at school! Communication with parents about behaviors (and consequences) can help prevent misunderstandings when students go home and talk about the day.

Increase Student Accountability – Finally, effective communication with parents can support your efforts to hold students accountable for their behavior. School shouldn’t be an island that their parents never hear about! If a student is disruptive at school, their parents should be informed about what happened and what consequences their child received as a result. When students know that their parents will hear about what they do at school, they are more likely to make positive choices in the first place. 

Tips for Effectively Communicating with Parents

Looking at a kindergarten class list, it can be daunting to think about establishing and maintaining effective communication with all of the families of those students. This is especially true when it comes to keeping parents informed about behavior! There are a lot of both positive and negative behaviors every day, so it can feel like you’ll be spending all of your prep time writing emails and making phone calls.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to be complicated to communicate with parents about behavior! In fact, here are four simple tips that can help you make these parent contacts more effective.

1. Be Consistent

The first way to improve your communication with parents about behavior is to establish consistent methods of contact with families. When your students’ parents are already in the habit of looking for information from you each day, a message about behavior is less likely to get lost in the shuffle. 

Glow and grow notes are the single most effective behavior tool I used in my kindergarten classroom. Parents and students both loved them and I loved how easy they were to use consistently. They are easy to slip into daily communication folders and the consistent format is easy for families to recognize.

2. Be Prompt

We know how important it is for students to receive timely feedback when they are practicing academic skills. The same is true for behavior! Whether a student has made an awesome choice or has disrupted learning with their behavior, parents and guardians should hear about it as soon as possible. 

By simplifying the communication tool that you use (like glow and grow notes), you’ll be able to send prompt feedback after behaviors occur in the classroom. All you need to do is fill out a simple checklist and jot down any additional information that would be important for parents to know.

3. Be Constructive

If you need to communicate with parents about negative or disruptive behavior, it’s important to keep it constructive. Sharing the details of a student’s misbehavior doesn’t have to be a completely negative report. 

For example, a glow note can give detail and context about a behavior choice while framing it as an opportunity for growth. It has space to share what the student can do to make a better choice next time.

Instead of sending home a behavior calendar with no context, you can send home a green grow note with constructive feedback. This one small shift in communication can make a huge difference!

4. Be On the Lookout for Positives

Communicating with parents doesn’t have to be reserved for times when students misbehave. Be sure to share positive reports with parents, as well. You can do this by sending home a glow note.

This is especially important for students who have received a grow note for negative behavior. Try to follow it up with a glow note as soon as you can! This shows parents that you aren’t just looking for the negative in their child. 

Once students experience the excitement and positive attention of taking home a glow note, they’ll be eager to earn another one!

Printable Parent Communication Tool

Would you like to incorporate glow and grow notes into your daily routine? I have put together a bundle of printable glow and grow notes that will last all year!

This bundle is filled with different themes and a variety of formats that you can choose from. You’ll be able to set up an effective communication routine that works best for your classroom. 

These glow and grow notes are editable, so you can use phrasing that is consistent with your classroom expectations. You could also change the behaviors on each checklist to create specific notes for individual students!

If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this bundle of glow and grow notes, you can find it in the Teaching Exceptional Kinders shop or my TPT store. 

Save These Tips for Effectively Communicating with Parents

Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these tips and resources when you’re looking for ways to communicate with parents about behavior.