Collaborative Relationships With Parents

1. Collaborative Relationships With Parents Jan Heppner Special Education Consultant RDSB

2. Rationale • It is of benefit to build “bridges”, not walls between parents and educators. • When the adults in a child’s life are squabbling, it is ultimately the child who is hurt. “When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.”

3. Rationale….. • Countless selfless, devoted, creative and gifted teachers invest limitless time and energy in designing and implementing programs to meet the unique learning needs of kids. • Sometimes all this work is lost to parents and all the potential for collaborative relationships is lost if things are not well-presented.

4. Ten Things Parents Wish Teachers Would Do • Build student’s self-esteem • Become familiar with each child’s needs • Communicate honestly and openly with parent • Assign effective homework • Set reasonably high academic standards • Care about the kids • Be fair • Enforce positive discipline • Use a variety of teaching methods • Encourage parental participation

5. Ten Things Teachers Wish Parents Would Do • Be involved in child’s education • Provide resources at home for reading and learning • Set a good example • Encourage children to do their best at school • Emphasize academics • Support school rules and goals • Use parental pressure positively • Be proactive • Accept parental responsibilities • Inform school of situations that may impact school performance

6. Where are the parents of exceptional students? • Working two part-time jobs to make ends meet • Buried under a mountain of paperwork and unpaid bills • At home diapering their 15 year old son • Fighting with their son/daughter over homework completion. Where is the agenda again? • Sleeping in shifts because their child won’t sleep more than 2 or 3 hours a night and must be constantly watched

7. Where are the parents?... • Struggling to keep a marriage together because adversity doesn’t always bring you closer • Sitting at home with their child because no one will help with child-care. • Trying to spend time with their non-disabled children • Struggling to help with homework when they themselves can’t read • Busy, trying to survive

8. What Parents Need To Know • Their child is valued • Their child is accepted and belongs • Their child is viewed as a whole individual • Their child is not classified or compared with others *Challenge stereotypes, classifications, assumptions • Their child’s rights are being protected • They are receiving support for inclusion as opposed to integration

9. Things to Consider…. • Parents travel on a journey from denial to acceptance • This is not a one-time journey, but one that must be repeated frequently • Parents will jump back to denial during times of stress or heartache or broken dreams • You don’t really understand, but you can show interest and empathy • “Listen with your heart” • If you have a good relationship with parents, you can tell them anything. If you don’t, you can’t tell them anything.

10. Tips on Meeting with Parents • Introduce all people at the table • Be welcoming and inviting • Speak in clear, easily understood language within a structured process with defined procedures • Don’t ask what the parents want – ask what the child requires • Model for the parents how to communicate collaboratively

11. More tips… • Allow sufficient time to talk • There will never be enough money or resources….try to accentuate the positive and don’t complain about lack of support. This only destroys parents’ confidence in our abilities. • Start with a positive comment. • When you run into conflict, it is sometimes useful to employ the “broken record” technique.

12. Yet more tips…… • Don’t meet alone with parents if you know it will be a difficult meeting. Try to have a witness. • Stick to your guns in an assertive manner and if you can’t reach agreement, reconvene the meeting. • To end a meeting, ask each person if they have anything more to add, or any questions to ask. Often this will bring out something really important. • Some catch phrases: “No one knows your child better than you do.” “I can understand how you feel.”

13. Thought for the day • Pretend that the student is the child of your best friend. How would you explain things to your best friend? How compassionate would you be?

14. Words of Wisdom.. • I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in a parent meeting. As a Resource Teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a parent’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a parent humanized or de-humanized.” • Haim Ginott