The same principles hold when the other person is an adult, with one difference: they can tell you what is wrong, if you give them room to.
A parent usually arrives already talking, and the conversation ends with both of you going home. Tap the moves in the order you would make them.
An angry parent is usually a worried parent. Anger is loud and worry is quiet, so the anger arrives first and the worry sits underneath it, unmentioned.
If you go straight to the facts, you are answering something the parent has not actually said yet. Acknowledging the feeling first is not a softening tactic. It is how you get to the real conversation faster.
Empathy does not mean agreeing, and it does not mean absorbing. You can fully understand a parent's anger without accepting how it is being delivered to you.
Notice when you feel uncomfortable and treat that as information. Learn to say no without a paragraph of apology. Be firm about the behaviour and warm about the person. Decide what is yours to carry and what is not, and protect your time outside school hours, because answering emails at midnight teaches people to send them.
Boundaries and connection are not opposites. A relationship with no limits in it is not close, it is just exhausting.
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