How to Handle Difficult Parents:
Proven Solutions for Teachers
(2nd edition)
Author: Suzanne Capek Tingley
Editor: Lacy Compton
Publisher: Prufrock Press
Publication Date: August 1, 2012
I've been a preschool teacher for about a decade now, and my partner Mike is in his first few years as a middle school teacher, so we've both had reason to be concerned about "difficult parents." It's important to stay professional and focused, but some parents can drive you around the bend! Most of the time, parent interactions are smooth and easy, but for those other times, there's this book.
Mike and I agreed that we had never encountered a resource for educators about dealing with parents that was so, well, readable. We both read this book cover-to-cover almost as soon as we got it, often waiting impatiently for one to be finished a chapter so the other could keep reading. We skipped back and forth between sections, saying things like, "Did you read that part about the helicopter parents? I wish I'd read that before parent-teacher night!" This book was the subject of frequent conversations for several weeks.
And it's written to be conversational. Suzanne Capek Tingley is speaking directly to educators, almost as though she were in the room. She gets that we work hard, we do our best and we genuinely care about our students, BUT that there are times we just wish we could throw a coffee mug right at sweet little Johnny's blowhard dads (But don't do it, she cautions!) She also gets that we all want to be professional and not let difficult situations escalate if we can help it. In other words, she's on our side.
