As a teacher, talking to parents is a balancing act. Basically, they can say what they want but a teacher cannot and has to balance between being professional (can only say official stuff) and the personal.
There was one year, more than a Chinese zodiac cycle ago, when a student in my upper sec form class had a dispute with his Mother Tongue teacher. I was not present at the dispute but my understanding of it is that the boy was defiant and it became a power struggle until the teacher snatched a pencil from the student and it broke. The student was made to write an apology letter.
As the form teacher, I had to call and inform the parent about this. The boy's father was not pleased and accused the teacher of being violent (in breaking the pencil). I explained that it was an accident.
"Why must my child write an apology letter? Why can't he just say that he is sorry?"
"Even when the government wants people to apologise, they are required to put out an apology ad on a newspaper." I said. I probably said this as a pushback to the parent's aggression. My words did not help things.
"Oh! You want me to print a newspaper apology!" The parent said angrily. "Can! I want to see your principal!"
"If you want to see, you can come and see." I said. I then went to the canteen to have tea and within a few minutes, the parent's car had pulled into the carpark. From the canteen, I saw him walking towards the General Office.
Uh-oh...
The principal managed the parent and somehow defused the tension.
This was an act of bungled diplomacy by a younger version of myself. If this happened now, I am 100% sure that I would not have handled it this way. When such things happen, it is not about who is right or who is wrong. It is about convincing the parent that we are on the same team and smoothing over the rough edges.