Parents and Teachers: Foes or Allies?

A mother of two adopted deaf sons, who is also a faculty member at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, explores the roles of parents and teachers in forming an educational team. The paper aims to help educators understand the difficulties faced by parents of deaf children. The paper's 15 considerations in the relationship between parents and teachers include: (1) remember that teachers choose to work with deaf children, but parents did not choose to have deaf children; (2) get acquainted with the family or home situation of the child; (3) don't assume the parents know much about deafness; (4) parents are not to blame for all their children's difficulties; (5) be aware of the ramifications of the various communication methodologies before pushing a "pet" one onto parents; (6) try to help parents learn the communication mode preferred by the child; (7) parents can help teachers get what they think a child needs, and can help teachers meet their own needs as well; (8) give parents good news more often than bad news; (9) help integrated deaf children and their parents get to know deaf adults or at least older deaf students; (10) give parents information about the child's program in writing; and (11) help parents to see that equal access and equal opportunity also mean equal responsibility. (JDD)