Should I Let My Child's Teacher Know We're Divorced?

For the good of your children, it's best their teachers know your family situation. It's not for compensation to be granted, but rather to ease communication. Your children are not unique because they come from a Complex Family; many schools are well-equipped to handle the complexities that arise - but they do need to know first.

The teachers do not need to know the details of any separation or divorce, but it can be helpful for them to know the general day-to-day care routine, along with the levels of cooperation or hostility between the parents. Your teachers are usually aware from observing your child's behaviour if they're in a happy home situation or not. However, they are also trying to teach another 30 children in a classroom, with equally valuable life stories; so instead of expecting teachers to be detectives, guessing what might be happening, a simple conversation at the beginning of the year will help.

How to Handle Changes with Family and Friends, Work and School

In our case, while the children were preteens and younger, I ensured that each teacher our children had was aware of the Complex Family environment within the first week or two of the new school year, and explained the cooperation between our homes. The teachers were always grateful to have the insight early, although it did not prove to be particularly necessary, given our belief that no special treatment was required. This said, there were times teachers wanted to classify our underachieving or poor-attitude child (because we've had them too), as another statistic of a broken-home or split-family, rather than addressing the real issues. In these cases, it became necessary for the teachers to understand that by buying into a rather poor paradigm, it would only enhance the levels of blame and excuses. Instead, we all needed to pull together and have parents and teachers hold consistent levels of expectations, appropriateness, and acceptability.

Until next time, all the best on your parenting journey.

PS: If you've got questions, stories, or comments, I'd love to hear from you. Please post a comment below or email me.