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As tutors, it can be tough to manage parental expectations, especially during exam periods.
To ensure smooth and effective tutoring for our students and for our personal well-being, it is crucial that we learn to communicate with parents in order to set reasonable goals and expectations.
After all, the end goal is to ensure the students benefit from the tutoring. Here’s a guide to help tutors like you effectively communicate with parents!
Set Realistic Goals Together
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Many parents can have unrealistic expectations when they hire tutors to help their child, such as expecting that their child will become a high-achiever only after a few tutoring sessions.
While this might be possible, it is important to sit down and manage their expectations.
A good method is coming up with a schedule and a goal list and sticking to it.
This is so that the parents will put more of their trust on you and would not set as high expectations of you.
Work together with the parents as well as the students to ensure they revise and are keeping up with their studies.
Set Healthy Boundaries
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If you are a full-time tutor, your schedule may be packed, which means your personal time is scarce.
Therefore, it is important to set healthy boundaries right from the beginning of when you meet the parents.
Make it clear to them when and how they can contact you, as well as setting at least one non-contactable day for your own personal time.
There should be a limit to the number of times they reschedule for the sessions and they should not expect you to reply on your rest days just because it may be during an exam period.
If you don’t set or manage these expectations with them, there may be parents who become overly demanding or disrespectful.
Be Open to Feedback
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Feedback is extremely important for growth and success. It does not just highlight your areas of improvement and weaknesses, but also your strengths.
When we are just working by ourselves, we tend to miss several blind spots since we are evaluating ourselves, so having someone else’s point of view is always beneficial to facilitate learning and growth.
Encourage parents to share their concerns and questions with you.
Always be open and take the time to listen to their feedback.
This can help you to better understand their expectations and worries and adjust your approach accordingly.
Involve Parents in The Learning Process
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Instead of continuously having to ask you how the lessons are going, why not get the parents to experience a snippet of the process?
Provide opportunities to involve the parents during lessons. This could be in many forms such as class activities and events.
Not only will they gain more insights on how the lessons are conducted, they will also feel more connected with their child and understand their learning styles and needs.
Therefore, there is no need for regular communication if the parents are already aware of what the tutor is attempting to accomplish for their child, what their child is learning, and how they may support them most effectively as parents.
Additionally, this helps to create a partnership between tutors like you and parents, where both parties work together to support the student’s development.
When parents are involved, they can reinforce what is being taught in the classroom when at home, which helps to enhance the child’s learning.
Conclusion
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To conclude, navigating expectations can be challenging.
However, it will be easier if we establish clear expectations and goals from the beginning and communicate regularly with the parents.
This establishes trust, enhances communication, and improves outcomes, helping to create a positive and supportive environment that fosters the student’s learning and development.
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