Backpacks litter your front hall, lunchboxes sit, with contents untouched, in the sink, and overtired children melt down just as you put dinner on the table. The school year is upon us again, and with it our renewed hopes for your children: that they will learn, that they will make friends, or, at the very least, that they will not be social misfits.

And there is no one who shares your goals more than your child's teacher.

Now, that may be hard to believe if you’re still waking up in a cold sweat with images of your fifth-grade teacher—who bore a scary resemblance to Morticia of the Addams family--looming before you. If a bad experience with a teacher thirty years ago has the power to render us blithering idiots at 2 a.m., no wonder we’re so defensive about our kids!

Most teachers, though, went to teacher’s college to make a positive difference in children’s lives, and not to learn how to destroy their spirits. They’re on your side, and this year they’ll have more opportunity to influence your kids positively than anyone else next to you will. But while your goals may be the same, your agendas certainly are not.

Picture it like this: you're looking for the mocha cappuccino grande of education, with thick, rich foam smothered in chocolate swirls. You want the individualized attention, the stellar curriculum, and the teaching tailored to your child’s learning style. Your child’s teacher, though, probably doesn’t have a cappuccino machine. He or she has an old faithful percolator that makes black coffee—and definitely decaf at that.

Your teacher can't give your child the bells and whistles—no matter how much he or she wants to—until the class is subdued, which is no easy task. Likely there are 25 or more students in the class, all too many of whom show up to school on the first day without an adequate lunch, backpack, or snack, and with runny noses and dirty clothes to boot.

The only way the teacher can teach this hodge podge of kids is to figure out how to get all 25 to listen at the same time. This requires conformity, not individuality, and it can be awfully hard for some kids to adjust to. Put them in a class where twenty others are swinging their legs, picking their noses and eating it, giggling, passing notes, or making faces, all while supposedly learning long division, and they can’t function. Much as the teacher may want to give each child attention, keeping these kids corralled has to come first, and it can be an exhausting task.

As a parent, you can help your child by becoming the teacher’s ally in this taming of the masses. Start the year not by making demands, but by offering encouragement and help. Tell the teacher about little Johnny's problems recognizing "b" versus "d", or how sitting near a certain child will turn little Johnny into a miniature Charles Manson. Teachers cherish these tidbits like these; that’s one more thing they don’t have to learn the hard way. Send encouraging notes, and ask in what areas your child needs extra coaching. If you can find time, go on field trips, or volunteer at the school. Help do some of that corralling yourself.

But it’s not just the practical help teachers cherish. My friend Adam, who teaches grade 4, says it’s just comforting to be reminded that parents really do care, for all around them is evidence that too many do not.

This alone can build a sense of common purpose with the teacher. And if you can keep these lines of communication open, you can build a relationship so that, if a problem surfaces, the teacher can tell you before it gets out of hand. Otherwise, you risk being summoned in because Johnny never understood first semester’s math, and now he’s taking out his frustration by punching kids at recess. How much better to learn of this the first time Johnny can’t complete an assignment!

So make the teacher your ally, and then, in thirty years, your kid is less likely to wake up screaming in the middle of the night. And more likely to remember long division.

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