How to Handle Hard-to-Handle Parents

Maryln Appelbaum, Maryln S. Appelbaum

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781412964418
• eBook ISBN: 9781452272986
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

"As a school administrator and teacher, I have learned that parents are our most valuable asset. This book provides tremendous lessons to help school personnel maximize this priceless resource and positively impact the lives of students and families. Thank you, Marlyn, for a wealth of ideas and strategies for parents and teachers across the nation!"
—Lindsey Pollock, Principal
Houston Independent School District, TX

Discover strategies for positive partnering with all parents—even the difficult ones!

This must-have resource helps educators work effectively with all parents, even the most difficult ones, and prevent problems before they happen. Maryln Appelbaum offers targeted strategies, solutions, and skills to establish positive and harmonious relationships with all parents, overcome adversity, enhance the home-school connection, and boost student performance.

How to Handle Hard-to-Handle Parents helps develop specific skills for communicating with all parents, including parents who are difficult, angry, overprotective, or overbearing. Packed with sample forms, letters, scenarios, and vignettes, plus techniques for involving families whose first language is not English, this guide helps educators:

• Establish relationships with parents of all backgrounds
• Recognize, and work with, characteristics of difficult people
• Be proactive in getting parents to cooperate and follow through at home
• Conduct expert parent conferences
• Handle all types of parents, including "Know-It-All?s," "Blamers," "Helicopter Parents," and more

Indispensable for teachers, school leaders, counselors, and all educators, this will become a much-referenced resource for building cooperative parent-teacher relationships that positively impact students? academic success.

1

How to Reach Parents and Prevent Problems Before They Happen

The greatest inheritance parents and teachers leave, are children.

—Maryln Appelbaum

THE CHANGING FACE OF FAMILIES

Educators tell me that students have changed. They say that children today are often disrespectful, irresponsible, and rebellious. I tell them that children have not changed, but childhood has changed. I believe that is the same with parents. Parents have not changed. They still love their children and want the best for their children, but parenthood has changed.

The face of the typical family unit has changed. When I was raising my two children, it was a mostly two-parent family world. People got married in their early twenties and had an average of two children. Most women stayed home and raised their children. Men went to work and were the breadwinners. Slowly over the years, this picture changed. More and more women joined the workforce. I vividly remember my own reentry into the workforce. I worked and still was in charge of taking care of the home activities, such as dishwashing, cooking, cleaning, getting the children ready for school, and finding adequate care for the children after school. I was exhausted at the end of the day. I still cared about my children and their teachers and school, but I had less time available to go to their schools and be involved. This is often the case with today’s parents.

I saw many instances of diverse types of parenthood in my career as a teacher and administrator. There were some two-parent families raising children. More and more, I found that I had single-parent families in which mothers or fathers had custody as well as parents with shared custody. I had grandparents who had either temporary or permanent custody. There were many blended families, and sometimes those blends changed in the course of the child’s being in my schools. Parents married, divorced, remarried, and divorced. There were parents, stepparents, and step-grandparents coming to conferences and open houses. There were two-parent families in which both parents were same-sex parents. And there were parents who were separated not because of divorce but because of work. These were parents who were serving in the armed service and parents or stepparents whose spouses were working in another city, state, or even country.

Increasingly, there were parents who spoke little or no English. My own family growing up was like this. I entered kindergarten speaking absolutely no English. I did not even know that my name was Maryln because my name was said in a different language at home. Working with parents who speak little or no English presents its own challenges because many parents are like my parents and embarrassed to come to school even though they want to know what was going on. My own parents were not only embarrassed that they spoke no English but that we were living below the poverty line. When parents with little English-speaking ability do come to school, they may not understand what they hear. They may, in fact, hear something in such a way that that they get upset, and soon a situation can develop in which they become angry and the school perceives the parents as “hard-to-handle.”

There are also parents with different parenting styles (Rudney, 2005). There are parents who are authoritative and always having to be in control. Their children rarely get to have a voice in decisions or choices. At the other end of the spectrum, there are parents who are so permissive that their children are in charge. These parents may be passive with their children, but often they may be aggressive in defending their children, refusing to see that their children have done anything wrong even when it is flaunting them in the face. There are parents who are nurturing, and there are parents who are neglectful.

There are parents who desperately wanted to have children, and there are parents who resent that they have children. There are parents who are good listeners, and there are parents who have no idea how to listen to their children. There are families that are TV families whose only time together is gathered around the television. They eat in front of the television. They talk on the phone while watching television, and they make all their important decisions in front of that television. At the other end of the spectrum, there are families who do not even own a television or a computer. There are parents who are physically ill, mentally ill, alcoholic, or drug addicted (Rudney, 2005). Every parent is different. They are different even when they look alike. That is because every individual is different. Regardless of their differences, it has been my experience that all parents, in their own way, love their children.

Think about this. There is training to do most work, but for the most important work of all, to be a parent, there is absolutely no training. There is only the experience that each person has had growing up. Parents often vow to be different from their own parents, but without training, many fall back into patterns that they learned from their role models. Their parents also loved them and did the best they could do. Parents love their children and are doing the best they can, but without training, most parents are fated to repeat what they learned growing up, like it or not.

Throughout this book, whenever I speak of parents, I will be speaking about all types of family units and all types of parents.

WHAT PARENTS WANT FROM TEACHERS

Teachers Who Know and Care About Children

The number one thing all families want for their children in school is teachers who know and care about their children (Rudney, 2005). Mrs. Green was Jordan’s mother. Jordan was an only child. The Greens had tried to conceive for four years when they finally had Jordan. Jordan was very tiny for his age and had had a series of childhood illnesses that had left their mark on this little family. Mrs. Green was concerned about Jordan’s new elementary school. I asked her what she wanted for Jordan. She told me that she wanted to be sure that his teachers liked him. She said that if his teachers liked him, he would like them. She said he was so special to her and her husband, and she wanted him to be special to his teachers too, not just one of many students in the class.

Ali was a high school student. She had good grades and was one of those students who worried when assignments weren’t turned in on time. Her parents never came to school. I often wondered about that. Ali got really ill and was hospitalized. When I visited her in the hospital, I met her mother and realized that she spoke limited English. An uncle was there who spoke really good English, and he was our interpreter. He explained to me that Ali was embarrassed to have her parents come to school, and that is why they did not come. They cared very much for Ali and were very proud of her good grades. Ali was like many other teens, who prefer that parents do not come to school even when they are fluent in English.

The point of these stories is that all parents want their children to be noticed and to be cared for. They want their children treated fairly and respectfully (Rich, 1998). It doesn’t matter if their children are preschoolers, elementary students, or secondary students. They know their children will be part of a larger group, and they want to ensure that their children are not just a number, but someone who is special. They want teachers who care—really care—about their children. They want teachers to be knowledgeable, but first and foremost, they want to know that their children are cared for by their teachers.

Caring, Calm Classrooms

Parents want their children to be in classrooms in which teachers know and care about teaching (Rich, 1998). They want teachers who encourage their children to learn, teachers who set attainable learning goals, teachers who understand how to teach, and teachers who know how to reach students. They become upset when they hear that other children in the classroom disrupt the class and that children are not paying attention and learning.

Safety

Safety is another major concern of parents (Rich, 1998). Almost every parent at some time or another has seen video clips of school shootings. Parents fear that this can happen. Recently, in the Houston area, where I live, there were two terrorist threats. People who knew about these threats were worried. Some parents did not feel safe sending their children to school.

Parents also fear that their children will be victims of bullies and gangs. They want to know that their children are safe on their way to school, at school, and at the end of the day. That means that they are concerned for their children’s safety not only while they are at school but also while they walk or ride the bus to or from school.

Communication With Parents

Most parents want to communicate with teachers (Rich, 1998). They want to hear how their children are doing. They do not like to be surprised. Mr. Kentrall told me a story about his son, Lanny. Lanny had Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). It was not diagnosed until Lanny got into middle school. The differences in middle school—which meant changing classes, walking through crowded hallways, having different teachers for different classes—contributed to Lanny’s having problems focusing and paying attention. Mr. Kentrall took Lanny to a psychiatrist who diagnosed his son and started him on medication to help alleviate symptoms. When Mr. Kentrall attended the open house at the beginning of the school year, he met Lanny’s teachers. They were very busy, but Mr. Kentrall came away with the impression that Lanny was doing fine. When the first report card came out, Lanny was failing math and history. Mr. Kentrall was stunned and angry. He wished he had known earlier so that he could have worked together with Lanny’s teachers to help his son. He could not understand how Lanny’s progress could change so quickly. Lanny’s teachers did not communicate after the open house. If they had communicated, Mr. Kentrall would not have become so angry.

The ideal way to have prevented Mr. Kentrall from getting upset would have been for his teachers to stay in touch with him throughout that first grading period. At the school open house, his teachers could have told Mr. Kentrall positive points about Lanny and then also added any concerns about math and history. Later on during the same grading period, Lanny’s teachers might have contacted Mr. Kentrall and updated him on Lanny’s progress. Together, they might have worked out a plan so that Lanny did not receive failing grades. If they did not have time to call, they could have sent him an e-mail telling him options that were available to help Lanny.

REASONS PARENTS DO NOT COME TO SCHOOL

Too Much to Do Barriers

It’s difficult to reach and establish relationships with parents who do not come to school. There are many reasons that parents choose to not come to school. The most pressing reason is that they simply are so busy. They have great intentions but then have to work late, have to travel out of town for work, or may have so many other responsibilities that they just cannot come to school.

Language Barriers

There are parents who have limited English who sometimes do not come to school. This is often misinterpreted as lack of concern for their children (Yan, 2006). Cantu’s parents came from another country. They spoke very little English. When they came to school and met with her teachers, they did not understand what was being said. They felt out of place and embarrassed. It seemed to them that everyone else knew what was happening. Even though they loved Cantu very much, they eventually stopped going and instead, asked her to tell them what was happening.

Single-Parent Barriers

More than thirty percent of all children in the United States live in single-parent homes (Lee, Kushner, & Cho, 2007). The single parent has increased responsibilities within the home. In an intact family, there can be a division of responsibilities. In the single-parent home, the responsibility belongs exclusively to that one parent. These responsibilities can be extremely time-consuming to the point of lack of parental involvement in the school. Students from single-parent families do not do as well in school academically as those from intact families (Lee et al., 2007). This may be because the single parent is so tired at the end of the day that it takes a lot of effort to ensure homework is done. It is just often easier to take the child’s word that everything is fine.

Mrs. Carter has three children ages, fourteen, ten, and two years old. Her husband left when she was pregnant with the third child. She has not heard or received any financial support from him since he left. She has a great job as an executive secretary, and she is terrified of losing her job. When her company asks her to work longer hours, she does. Each night when she finally arrives home, she is exhausted but still has to deal with cooking dinner, getting the kitchen cleaned, packing lunches for the next day, doing emergency loads of wash, and trying to find time to be with each of her children. She wants more than anything to just put her feet up on the sofa and “veg out” for a few hour...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Dedication
• Introduction
• 1. How to Reach Parents and Prevent Problems Before They Happen
• 2. About Hard-to-Handle People
• 3. How to Handle the Hard-to-Handle Parent: Strategies for Success
• 4. How to Handle Parents With Bad Attitudes
• 5. Listening Skills for Hard-to-Handle Parents
• 6. How to Talk so Parents Listen
• 7. Parent Conferences: An Ounce of Prevention That Prevents a Pound of Problems
• 8. Parents as Partners: Enhancing Collaboration and Teamwork
• References
• Index