“Whoever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.” — Sir Francis Bacon

As a school leader, the success of your ongoing leadership hinges on your most recent family/parent interaction. The reality of school leadership is that the sum total of these interactions are more likely to start negatively than positively because people often reach out and speak out when things are poor/bad more than when things are good/great.

One of these reach out/speak out interactions that confronted me one morning involved a mother who had just checked in her child about 15 minutes after the start of the school day and she was clearly having a no-good, very-bad day. The family had encountered some car trouble during the morning commute and this parent was upset (Livid is closer to what I experienced when I entered the room.) that her child was marked tardy to school. I decided to let her continue to vent in my direction rather than towards my staff member sitting at her desk. When this mother took a breath, I invited her into a different office and we talked for a few moments. The issue for her was the school penalizing her child with a tardy for something for which the child was not responsible. I talked through a few scenarios – buses being late, trains blocking roads, weather delays, etc. – with this passionate parent, and by the end of our chat she had a better understanding of how tardies worked at our school, how this attendance office entry was simply a written record of where her child was and was not at a certain time (e.g. security protocols), and that it did not merit consequences based on how our processes worked. This parent departed campus with a clearer understanding of school policies (all of which were outlined in our student handbook), she was not upset with us as an organization, and most of all, her support for the school and the staff increased as a result of this interaction.

Had I been a brand new assistant principal managing the attendance office, would I have known what to do and how to do it in this situation? Probably not. We learn by doing, and from mistakes, and from reflection, and from mentorship/coaching.

Had I lost my patience with this slightly too loud and observably animated mother (which can easily happen in these sorts of moments), I would have missed an opportunity to build parent support. We all get upset at organizations when we feel we are being penalized for something beyond our control, and often, we simply want a reasonable, level-headed employee to listen to our concern, complaint, or request and treat us fairly. That is what this parent wanted; it is what she needed; and it was the only response that could have resulted in a positive outcome.

School leaders are expected to model behaviors like this. School leaders also need to train and lead their entire staff to execute behaviors like this independently. If your organization fails to seize moments of opportunity with parents and families, we can help you devise solutions to improve customer service and begin to garner parent support with patience and strategic communications from your staff and faculty.