Texting: A simple path to building trust

Early adolescence brings with it the perfect conditions for students to become disengaged with academics. For many students, this period coincides with the transition from elementary school into middle school, which offers a more complex academic environment than elementary school: Teachers tend to face different kinds of time and resource constraints, and students tend to experience stricter discipline, less robust teacher-student relationships, and fewer opportunities for autonomous decision making (Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Duchesne et al., 2009). Further, this transition occurs alongside a series of physical, cognitive, and emotional changes that result, for students, in increased desires for autonomy (Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Sanders, 2013) and changes in the parent-child relationship (Eccles et al., 1993).

Although parental engagement in the middle school years remains an important influence on student achievement (Hill & Tyson, 2009), it tends to be weaker than during the elementary years (Smith et al., 2019). Often, parents come to realize that the ways they connected with the elementary school have become less effective (Hill & Tyson, 2009). Levels of trust between teachers and parents declines (Adams & Christenson, 2000), and parents and teachers are left uncertain about how they can work together to support students during this time of transition.

Two high-impact parent engagement strategies at the middle school level have emerged from the research. First, evidence suggests that parents and teachers should support students’ autonomy and developing sense of independence by collaboratively setting behavioral guidelines (Bronstein, Ginsburg, & Herrera, 2005). Such guidelines are most successful when adults seek adolescents’ input, communicate confidence in their abilities, and provide empathy and the chance to reflect when mistakes occur (Grolnick et al., 2014).