VALLEY Parenting : An Apple for Mom : Instructing your own children in school can be fraught with conflicts. But many Valley parents manage the tricky task.

Ask a child what he or she did in school today, and the answer is often a blase, “Nothing.” But when Sally Loevner heard that from her kindergartner, she knew better. After all, she was the teacher.

Instructing your own children--or even having them in the same school--can be fraught with conflicts. But many Valley parents manage the tricky task.

The benefits of such an arrangement may include convenience of transportation, a possible break on private school tuition, and intimate knowledge of the school’s teachers, program and other students. The downside involves tiptoeing that fine line between being a disciplined instructor and a concerned parent, and perhaps being harder on your child to avoid any perception of favoritism.

When Loevner was first offered the kindergarten job at Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Van Nuys, where her daughter was enrolled, she almost pulled her out, worried that having her child as a student wouldn’t work.

“But my husband said, ‘Why should she be denied such a good program?’ ” Loevner recalled. In fact, the setup worked so well for her first child, she also eventually taught her second. “I never was an overly doting mother, so they didn’t hang all over me,” she said. “They knew the difference between me as mommy and as teacher.”

Such a distinction can be the basis of a workable relationship between teaching parents and their children, a bond that is, by nature, loaded with emotion, according to Carolyn Ellner, dean of the School of Education at Cal State Northridge. Ellner advises such moms and dads to set guidelines for the situation, and to discuss it fully, both with the child and even, in some cases, with the entire class.

Educators agree that flexibility is important to success--the knowledge on everyone’s part that, if necessary, changes can be made.

Danielle Rauser, 16, a junior at Chaminade College Preparatory’s intermediate school in Chatsworth, was initially shocked to find herself in her father’s English class. She wasn’t displeased, though. “He’s a really good teacher,” she said, and “he treated me the same as any other student.”

Joe Rauser, who has been teaching at Chaminade for 32 years and also taught a son, said it was understood that “if they were under too much pressure, or if they felt uncomfortable, they would change classes.” Neither did, though everyone faced adjustments.

Danielle disliked the fact that her dad knew her grades before she did. Also, because of his special information pipeline, “I always had to do my homework. And sometimes I resented his advice.”

Rauser agreed that teen-agers “need some independence,” and said that he learned “by trial and error” to back off. For example, at first, he would run to the office every time he heard his son’s name on the loudspeaker. The boy finally told him, “Stop breathing down my neck.”

As important as such lessons are for parents, children, too, must learn to ease off on family life at school. Carol Shibel, who teaches physical education to kindergartners along with computer and science classes at Chatsworth Hills Academy, had several rules for her three youngsters when they took her classes: “Don’t call me Mom, raise your hand like everyone else, and don’t expect special privileges. At school I’m Mrs. Shibel.”

Some educators are more successful with their children at school if they extend aspects of the parent-teacher dichotomy to life at home. Loevner, for example, “made a conscious decision that Daddy would help with homework, not me.”

Many teachers are equally adamant about never discussing problematic colleagues or pupils at home. Danielle Rauser reported that such topics were always taboo in her household. “We weren’t allowed to ask about other kids. (Dad) wouldn’t answer.”

Despite such strictures, the benefits of sharing school life with the family outweigh the difficulties for educators such as Ted Roter, principal of Dearborn Street Elementary School in Northridge. Roter considers it “a nice perk” to glimpse his third-grader on the playground.

Similarly, Shawn Burch, a sixth-grade teacher at Meadow Oaks School in Calabasas, appreciates having her children with her on campus, especially during emergencies such as the fires, floods and earthquakes of last fall and winter. While no such arrangement is ever perfect, for Loevner, the moment of balance in the parent-educator relationship came when her daughter told her husband, “Mommy doesn’t seem like Mommy at school. She’s more like my teacher.”