School and family: a dialogue of the deaf

I have two children aged 9 and 11, so I have been attending the school environment for some years. Personally, I have never clashed with teachers: I have always found them well-disposed and also eager, more or less, to make their students grow in culture, but also in personal maturity. On the other hand, I have noticed that the majority of parents seem to consider the school not a place where teachers and families collaborate to make young people grow up, but a place where they are forced to bring their children, and teachers are judged in the same way as people who want to spoil the days, especially family weekends. But aren’t parents also responsible before God for the young people they give birth to?

B.S.

Not being a parent I answer your question on tiptoe to avoid “pontificating” on topics I don’t know firsthand. It seems to me that I can say that parents for the gift of having given life to their children are the first responsible and collaborators of their growth in all dimensions of existence. In this service to growth it is necessary to create educational alliances that require maturity and availability that sometimes clash with the stress of an often hectic and fatigued life. Of course it’s important for children to feel an educational harmony to be helped to grow and engage. If adults - especially parents and teachers - oppose and don’t esteem each other, it’s more difficult for young people to let themselves be oriented in a life that also needs rigour to become a unique and beautiful work of art. It’s to be hoped that parents and educators will always be able to find a harmony for the good of the youngest: the harmony of adults creates the trust and responsibility of children.