How to Help Your Kid With a Student Survey Without Taking Over
It’s 4:15 on a Tuesday, my 7th grader Lila drops her scuffed backpack on the kitchen counter, slides her sticky cherry-slushie-stained Chromebook across the counter, and says exactly what I’ve heard a dozen times from my kids and my part-time tutoring students: “Help me with my student survey please.” The screen pulls up the annual district school climate survey: blue header, 38 multiple choice questions, the small note that says all answers are anonymous and will help the district improve school experiences for students. I lean in, start reading the first question about feeling safe at school, and before I can stop myself I say, “Oh, you love your teacher, you can put strongly agree here.” Lila yanks the Chromebook back toward her, crosses her arms, and says, “No. The hallway between gym and math is so crowded people shove me into lockers every day. I don’t feel safe there. Why would I put strongly agree?”
I freeze, because I remember doing this exact thing with her older brother three years ago. Back then, I told him to soften all his negative answers: change “strongly disagree” about enough bathroom breaks between classes to “agree”, nudge him to put “neutral” instead of “disagree” about bullying on the bus, because I was convinced if the survey looked bad the school would lose funding, or good teachers would get in trouble for things that weren’t their fault. He changed all the answers, we hit submit, and I forgot about it until six months later, when the district announced they weren’t going to add the additional bus route everyone had been asking for, because survey results showed “most students felt bus conditions were adequate.” That’s when I realized I’d messed up. My quiet interference had erased my son’s voice, just like I almost erased Lila’s right then.
The oven timer dings for the oatmeal cookies I was baking, so I step away to pull them out, let the dog sniff the pan while I think. I’ve talked to other parents about student surveys since then, and most of us do the same thing without thinking: we project our own good experiences at school, or our worry about the school’s reputation, onto our kids’ answers. We assume a kid’s frustration about one small thing is just a kid being dramatic, so we talk them out of being honest. But when a kid asks for help with a student survey, what they actually need isn’t someone to fix their answers for the school. It’s someone to help them feel okay saying what they really think.
I walk back to the counter, lean against the fridge instead of leaning over her shoulder, and say, “You’re right. That was my mistake. Tell me what you need from me: do you want me to read the questions out loud because the words are tricky, or do you just want me here while you fill it out?” She relaxes, says the wording on half the questions is confusing, so we work out a system: if she can’t parse the question, she reads it to me, I rephrase it in plain 12-year-old language, and that’s it. No comments about what I think the answer should be. When she gets to the question about having enough people to sit with at lunch, she pauses and says, “Mia has early band on Wednesdays, so I sit alone. Sometimes other people invite me over, but I’d rather be alone anyway. Do I put agree or disagree?” I don’t say “But you have friends, so you should put agree.” I just say, “What feels true for you? The question is asking how things feel for you, not what they look like to me.” She thinks for a second, clicks disagree, and moves on. That’s it. No big debate, no overthinking.
Over the past couple years, I’ve figured out a few small rules that work, whether I’m helping my own kid or a student I tutor. First, never confuse clarifying wording with changing answers. It’s okay to help a kid who struggles with reading or confusing academic jargon understand what a question is asking – that’s what they’re asking for when they say “help me”. It’s not okay to add your own two cents about what the answer should be. Second, if they’re overthinking because they’re scared they’ll give the “wrong” answer, just ask them “What was the first thing that popped into your head when you read that?” Kids almost always know their truth right away; they just second-guess it because they’re used to adults telling them their feelings are wrong or overblown. Third, if you have strong opinions about how the school is run, fill out the parent survey that almost always gets sent to you a week later. Don’t stuff your opinions into your kid’s survey. Their experience is different from yours, and that’s the whole point of asking students what they think.
Lila hit submit ten minutes later, closed her Chromebook, grabbed two warm cookies, and headed up to her room to watch TikTok. I didn’t think much about it for a month, until the school sent the annual survey results summary out in the parent newsletter. The first bullet point said the district would be adding a second lunch period next year to cut down on hallway crowding between classes, and launching a new quiet lunch table option for students who prefer to eat alone. Lila saw the newsletter open on the kitchen table while she was grabbing a granola bar before practice, and shrugged. “I said that hallway was crowded,” she said, before grabbing her bag and heading out the door.
It wasn’t a big lesson about youth empowerment or anything. It was just a small thing: a kid got to say what was true, and it changed something small for the better. I still catch myself leaning in sometimes, ready to tell a kid what answer they “should” give. But I stop now. Most of the time, when they ask for help with their survey, the best help you can give is getting out of the way.
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