An oil painting viewed from behind a blonde-haired parent, with a teacher listening across a classroom table in warm afternoon light.

Parent-teacher conference season is here again. I did the math: this is my sixteenth year teaching elementary school in the United States. With conferences every fall and spring, that's more than thirty rounds.

In the early years, I got nervous whenever conferences came around. Now I feel at ease sitting down with parents. I even look forward to it. It took years to feel this way.

Early in my teaching career, I once had my students read Chinese vocabulary cards for their parents. I wanted to give them a chance to show what they'd learned. But in front of their parents, words they'd read easily in class suddenly became harder.

A few children got nervous and stumbled. The room went quiet.

Several parents leaned forward, their faces anxious, looking as though they wanted to step in and say the word for their child.

I stood to one side, my own palms damp.

I was a new teacher then. When a child got stuck, my mind went straight to: Are they going to think I haven't taught them well enough?

Two years ago, when my daughter was in 4K, I sat across from her teacher for the first time as a parent.

It felt new, even a little funny. After all those conferences, here I was on the other side of the table, listening to someone talk about my own child.

As a teacher, I'd spent hours gathering assessment data, making charts, and choosing samples of student work. I always worried I wouldn't have enough to share, enough to show how much the children had learned.

From the parent's chair, though, what I most wanted to know was much simpler. Had she made friends? Was she having fun? Was she kind to other people?

I wanted glimpses of the school life I couldn't see.

Then her teacher said, “Sometimes she has trouble staying focused,” and I felt my palms grow warm.

Almost before I knew it, I was searching for an explanation, or a solution. I worried her teacher would think I hadn't done a good enough job at home.

I took a slow breath. Listen first. Don't rush to defend yourself.

In that moment, I understood a little more about the parents who had sat across from me. I'd been teaching for well over a decade. I was familiar with the language of schools and the way these conversations worked. Yet a comment about my own child could still make me tense up. How many parents had felt something similar while listening to me?

Her teacher went on in a light, almost playful tone, telling me how she was helping my daughter focus: having her sit at the front of the rug, and moving her to a different seat.

As I listened, I began to relax. Her teacher had noticed what was happening and was already helping.

I thought of my own students. Children this age often lose focus in my classroom, too. And I thought of the daughter I knew: observant, quick to notice details other people missed. She needed help paying attention. She also had strengths I wanted us to keep in view.

Hearing what her teacher was doing made it easier to listen to what she was saying.

Looking back, the fear on either side of that table was much the same.

As a teacher, I worried that a child stumbling over a word would make the parents question my teaching. As a mother, I worried that my daughter's wandering attention would make her teacher question my parenting. A comment about a child had quietly become a judgment I passed on myself.

Sometimes we start explaining ourselves before we've really understood what a child needs.

These days, I think of a conference as a conversation about a child we both care about. We can trade the small, funny stories we each have, talk about how the child is growing as a learner and a friend, and think together about how to help with whatever is difficult right now.

I see the child in the classroom; their parents see them at home. We each know things the other doesn't. A conference gives us a chance to put those observations together.

I didn't arrive at this understanding all at once. It came through years of reflecting, adjusting, and trying again. Gradually, I became less preoccupied with proving that I was teaching well, and more interested in what parents could help me understand.

In The Gardener and the Carpenter, psychologist Alison Gopnik describes raising children as the work of a gardener. We tend the conditions for growth, knowing that children will grow in their own ways. There is hard work in that, and sometimes disappointment. A gardener may watch a plant that still hasn't flowered, but can't make an entire garden grow according to plan.

Seen this way, a stumble over a word or a wandering mind invites a closer look. Where is this child having difficulty? What support might help?

Those are questions parents and teachers can explore together: observe, try something, and see what happens.

As conferences approach, I'm thinking about how to make it easier for the person across from me to speak openly.

As a teacher, I want to be specific about what I see. When does a child lose focus? When do they stay engaged? What have I tried so far? What do their parents notice at home?

My daughter's teacher reminds me how much it helps to hear what someone is already doing. Along with telling parents where their child is having difficulty, I can tell them how I'm helping. Parents need to know that someone in the classroom is paying attention to their child, and cares.

As a parent, when that familiar nervousness returns, I can take a breath and ask, “Could you give me an example?” I can share what I see at home. Together, we can get a clearer picture of how the child is doing in both places.

Then we can decide what to try next. Perhaps a small adjustment, followed by another conversation to see how it's going.

There has to be room for what we don't know, too. Teachers bring professional knowledge, but there are parts of a child's life we don't see. Parents know their children well, but sometimes don't know what to do. We can say these things to each other.

More and more, I'm aware that the people on either side of the table are two imperfect adults. Often, we've both worked a full day. We arrive tired, with plenty still waiting for us outside the classroom.

We say it takes a village to raise a child. For many parents today, that village seems to have vanished. The people who could lend a hand aren't nearby. Work, daily life, and the logistics of raising children have to fit within one small household. Much of the stress and frustration stays there, too. While parents manage the day's demands, they worry that they're not doing enough, that they might be holding their child back.

Teachers have their own crowded days: planning lessons, teaching, keeping assessment records, talking with families, attending meetings, and handling administrative work. In the classroom, we respond to different learning needs and to children's emotional and behavioral difficulties, while trying to keep up with expectations about progress and performance. The school day ends. The work doesn't always end with it.

Knowing this makes me hope that conferences can give us a little room to support one another. When we talk about what a child is struggling with, perhaps we can also hear what the adults are still struggling with.

And yet, because we care about the same child, our busy lives intersect.

I still find that remarkable.

I'm with the child in the classroom. Their parents are with them at home. At conference time, we sit down together and talk about what we've seen, what worries us, and what we still haven't figured out.