Hi Maggie,

How do you do? This is my fifteenth year as a teacher and semi-annual meetings with parents are something I do over and over again. 

I would like to provide some commonsensical ways to approach such meetings so that both parties leave feeling empowered and encouraged. 

From a parent's point of view, the overarching question: How do I motivate and help my child to grow academically and holistically. Not just academically, but holistically as well. After all, my child will grow up and needs to socialise skillfully and properly with other members of society.

From the teacher's point of view, the main concern is: How do I get the parents to be on my side and be a powerful ally in pushing the child to excel. 

The meeting should not be an opportune time to point fingers. Children can behave very differently at home and in school. Find out from teachers how your child behaves in school, so that you can see your child in an objective light. Let's face it: after all, when your child grows up and enters the workforce, he or she may spend most of his or her time facing others at work, not you.

The teacher has to enter the meeting armed with hard facts (eg how he or she will help the underachieving child academically, how the parent can play a supporting role at home) as well as soft facts (eg how to help the child to grow morally and holistically.)

It is not easy. Trust me, I have been through this time and time again. But we keep trying.

Hope this helps.
Cheers, 
Lance

Hi

I'm a High School teacher here in Spain. This year I had a case very similar to yours. A Chinese student whose fluency in Spanish was very poor. Speaking with the family, we found that she only spoke Spanish at school. At home she communicated in Chinese and did not read anything at all in Spanish.

May I suggest you start speaking with her in English at home? Not all time, of course, but from time to time.

It's hard to encourage a teenager to read nowadays. Almost impossible, to be honest. You could start by offering her a few comics or books suitable for her age. I'm sure you can ask for help to the school's library. 

To Tamara,

i couldn't agree more with you about smart phones. 

How I wish I could be such a nurturing parent as you!!!  In this English speaking country, we are just like the sticks cut and put in soil, no roots but still living.  It will take long time and great our own efforts to have the hair liked roots to come out.  The sun and rains help the sticks to be alive and the wind and frost hurt and make them weak. 

I am the old stick still growing my tiny silky roots. Hopefully the younger stick cut from me has got its roots and grows stronger and healthier day by day.

l am quite happy with my this creative writing work. Hehehe....

Mothers never stop worrying as I left school a long time ago and my mother still worries about me! Spending alot of time on a smart phone is not always good as we often get distracted with our phones and we're not spending as much time interacting with other people. 

I've heard that reading is good for developing imagination and creativity. I used to read point horror, thriller and goosebumps books as a teenager. I also really enjoyed (and still do) reading more classic books like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre etc which are masterpieces. Because I am from the UK I have an interest in British history especially the Victorian era (19th century) as I loved reading about how people used to live at that time. I read Thomas Hardy books which were less romantic than Jane Austen and more realistic, I learnt alot about my country's history that way even though they are non fiction books but the characters and situations in the books are based on real life. 

If your daughter can find a subject she is interested in and find a writer she likes or non fiction stories that are about reality then it will make reading more enjoyable. I'm not sure of your daughter's age but if she's already a teenager then she might find some adult non fiction books interesting. The Game of Thrones books are non fiction but many of the characters and situations in those books happened in real life especially in many countries governments, royal families. 

Hi there,

Maybe in order to develop her creativity in writing, reading non fiction books and developing her imagination may help her come up with different ideas when writing stories as a textbook cannot teach this. 

You could ask her teachers how can she develop her creativity? Do they think she needs to read more non fiction(stories), are there techniques she can use to use her imagination in creating stories. Many writers tend to create new characters and storylines from people and experiences they know about.

However her grades are still good and I don't think it's anything to worry about as different teachers will mark work, tests etc differently to one another.