How can a teacher be relationally competent in relation to students in a digital learning environment? The digital context changes the conditions we are used to regarding both verbal and nonverbal communication. Much of the tacit and intuitive knowledge teachers learn through their practice is based on a combination of reading students’ body language, as well as using their own. In a study when teachers moved their teaching online, they noticed how much they needed to adapt their communication because the body-aspect was missing as a tool for both orchestrating and communicating (Wiklund-Engblom, 2018). This study explores teachers’ relational competence, operationalised as three separate competencies: communicative, differentiation, and socio-emotional competence (Aspelin, 2018). The part of the study presented her is based on qualitative data on teachers’ own experience and conceptions about what a teacher can do to facilitate positive relationships in digital learning environments. While collecting data to validate a newly developed questionnaire measuring teachers’ relational competence (quantitatively) based on Aspelin’s (2018) theoretical framework, we also collected qualitative data about teachers’ ideas about their own strategies to facilitate positive relations digitally with students. One open-ended question was included at the end of the questionnaire “Describe how you feel that you as a teacher can support positive relationships in a digital learning environment (e.g. a distance course).” Thus, when respondents had completed the questionnaire composed of 29 variables (Likert-scale measure), they had at the same time been introduced to the concepts of the theoretical framework underpinning the construct of relational competence, but in a general sense. The questionnaire was distributed to Swedish-speaking teachers on all levels in both Sweden and Finland generating 231 replies, of which 123 respondents answered the qualitative question.The results are based on a qualitative and quantitative content analysis comparing replies in relation to background factors of the respondents such as gender, nationality, age, and teaching experience. Furthermore, the results are also based on a reflexive thematic analysis and comparison of a variety of definitions on teachers’ relational competence. The main purpose is to explore how teachers’ digital relational competence can be understood and defined. This pertains both to theoretical development and for application, making it useful for teachers’ own development of this kind of competence.