They may have mostly received negative feedback, criticism and even abuse at home.

Their parents may have been so focused on dealing with their own problems like depression, leading to the child experiencing emotional neglect.

Some children may have "biological" challenges (ADHD, autism, etc...) that make it harder to meet expectations and access praise.

Children may have prior negative experiences, such as previously being rejected by adults or peers/expelled that lead to them believing they cannot be successful.

Some children are so used to getting negative feedback that they feel uncomfortable with praise and put up psychological armor, pretending they don't care.

Some children have delayed social skills and may be unsure of how to accept praise in a socially acceptable way.

Children who tend to be inattentive or impulsive may miss praise delivered in a neutral tone of voice and may even interpret neutrally delivered praise as negative.

Some children just don't like praise, just like some adults don't like praise. It's a personality difference and it's best to avoid praising those students too much.

If student's work is inadequate, praising it could lead to other children not trying as hard.

Public praise can make children jealous of each other and more likely to be negative with their peers.

Praising children with challenging behaviors more frequently in moments of success is unfair to other students who might not get as much praise.

Overly vague praise like "good job" can be unclear for students about what specifically the student did to earn the teacher's praise.

The teacher repeats a child's word(s) and then expands the idea. For example, when a student says "rocket" the teacher says "You are drawing a rocket and I see a powerful engine. That is awesome!"

The teacher follows a student around closely in order to catch them meeting expectations.

As part of developing peer praise, a teacher assigns a peer to "tailgate" another child and praise what that child is doing.

The teacher uses a visual praise chart of the board of two cars. When the teacher catches the students praising each other or praises them herself she moves the cars closer together. When the cars are tailgating, the class knows they have met their goal.

Promote child self praise such as saying "Everyone who is sitting on their spot, give yourself a pat on the back."

Keep praise pure by avoiding combining praise with put-downs/criticism like "You didn't hit today," or "That's great you picked up your toys, next time do it before I ask."

Praise children with challenging behaviors more frequently, knowing that they are likely getting much less praise outside of school.

Use a classroom compliment circle where students compliment other children who followed the rules. Children who were disruptive are ignored and should not receive compliments from peers.

Before school starts, teachers can make an extra effort to build a positive relationship with parents of children who have a history of struggling in school.

Send positive notes home, recognize parents who volunteer, and send home a newsletter sometimes.

Focus on clear boundaries in the relationship by making sure the parents know that you are the expert, and their child will do best in school when parents see you as the authority and respectfully defer to your judgement. If parents are unkind, very firmly let them know that you will not put up with that behavior.

If a student is struggling in school, reach out to the parent right away to schedule an in-person meeting to seek parental input and positively problem solve together.

Parent: You need to understand I am a single mother. I work. I don't have time to deal with this.

Teacher: Don't you care about your child?

Parent: Billy doesn't seem to have any friends.

Teacher: I'm glad to know about that. Billy must be feeling very lonely. What does he say about friends at school?

Teacher: If you spent more time with your child, maybe he wouldn't misbehave so much.

Parent: Why am I only hearing about this problem now? You should have contacted me earlier in the year.

Teacher: Yes, I should have contacted you sooner. I can understand why you are upset.

Admits a mistake if there was one

Defends herself and her classroom, such as saying "You don't have 15 kids all day long. There is bound to be some hitting. All young children do that."

Show concern by getting more information about the complaint.

Refocus parent's negative complaints into positive recommendations. For example, instead of saying "Don't you care about your child's success?", the teacher could say "Yes, I will give her extra attention at school when I can and I also think she would benefit from some extra support outside of school in this area as well. I know how busy you are. Can we brainstorm what this might look like?"