As a child gets older, parent-teacher communication tends to lessen.

Students take on more and more responsibility for their own success, learning to communicate directly with teachers without relying on parent intervention. There are times, however, when a pressing issue or concern will make you wonder whether you need to contact the school. This is a difficult decision, and often the communication guidelines are not clear cut. Here are some tips to help you decide when and how to get involved.

• Ask your child, but don't rely solely on the answer.
  Most children by the time they are 9-10 years old don't want their parents and teachers to have any "out-of-the-ordinary" meetings. They take their role as home-school courier very seriously and want to control communication. This is especially true for middle school adolescents, and even more so for high school students, who consider themselves "adults." Of course, this doesn't stop any of them from coming home with tales of teacher and peer injustices that place parents in the uncomfortable position of having to decide, "How serious is this?"