Get To Know Your Students’ Parents And Listen To What They Have To Say

“Are you listening?” “What did I say?” I should have known early on that the hundreds of times I asked these questions were advance warnings of things to come. Other signs, like our son Tommy insisting on knowing exactly what was going to happen at all times and his frequently saying “I’m bored!”

But being the good, conscientious parents that we were, we assumed we just needed to speak to him more clearly; we needed to make him watch our faces while we were speaking to him; and finally, he needed to be rewarded when he listened and punished when he didn’t.

We thought that when our son said he was bored, he was just being unappreciative of what he had. When he insisted on knowing what would happen each minute of the day, he had just been overly protected by his mother (his dad’s point of view, of course) and needed to be more independent.

What’s Going On?

Warning signs: When Tommy started school, we actually looked forward to the first parent conference with anticipation. We had received no calls from the teacher telling us about problems.

Our son had told us about fun times and good friends, and he seemed to be learning letters, sounds, colors and all those good “school” things. We heard statements from his teacher that would be repeated every year from that point through this year’s parent conference: “Tommy is a good student, but he really needs to lighten up.” “Tommy is just too serious about school. He needs to stop worrying so much.” My husband and I looked at each other in amazement. We didn’t feel that Tommy got his “too serious” attitude from us.

We were remembering the many times we had told him to not take things so seriously at home. In the next two years of his schooling, we got a few phone calls from teachers telling us that he had put his head down and cried at school because he was concerned with his performance on a task. When he was questioned and the work was reviewed, it always turned out that his concern had been unfounded and he had just not understood the directions. The other complaint we heard from Tommy was that he never had time to complete his work. He said he had to ask a lot of questions, and then it was too late to finish.

At the same time that we became aware of the few problems at school, problems at home had mushroomed. Tommy was often depressed about the amount of school work, his feeling of unacceptable work on his part, his feeling that no one liked him, and his feeling that his teachers didn’t like or understand him. He often described feelings of being “all quivery inside” and of wanting to know “what’s wrong with me?” At one time during the third grade, Tommy actually said he did not want to “be around” any more.

Along with our son’s depression came frustrations on our part at not being able to allay Tommy’s fears, depression and concerns. Bouts of our son’s depression were becoming compounded with sudden rages at home, occurring at the slightest (at least from parental points of view) provocation. We began tiptoeing around our child, amending all of our family’s activities and communication patterns so that he wouldn’t become so upset that we would not be able to handle his behavior or do anything together in public as a family.

When parents first start experiencing problems with their children and their relationship to school, they experience feelings that originate from their own school experiences as students. If their school experiences and their relationships with most teachers were positive, they will probably feel more comfortable communicating with the school personnel than will an individual whose experiences were negative.

Because of my history as a professional in the school district and my early positive experiences as a student, I did not hesitate to discuss my concerns with my son’s teacher, counselor and principal. Our problems arose when they described a boy in their classrooms whom I did not recognize as the boy who returned from school into our home.

The teacher described Tommy as a serious, hard worker who did not always pay attention and who asked for help too often. His teacher did not see the depressed, angry child that I saw, but a quiet, serious child who didn’t really like to have fun. The more frustrated and angry Tommy became at home, the more work he didn’t complete and the more puzzled the school became by my descriptions of the behavior that occurred at home. When I told them that he had bitten me and broken toys and a tablet, they were shocked.

The breakthrough came about at a conference with the teacher, counselor and school psychologist. The psychologist convinced the school staff to really listen to my concerns and my son’s fears and frustrations. The information was recorded and the group brainstormed ways we could alleviate the stress in the classroom while arranging for a multi-disciplinary assessment for Tommy.

I contacted the pediatrician and the private family psychologist and the “helping Tommy team” was born. Diagnosis and intervention: At last, the insight of a teacher and the caring frequent dialogue with another school psychologist led us to look at a possible diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder to account for some of Tommy’s problems. Consultation with a physician, another psychologist who worked with ADD children and families, and a lot of reading led us to conclude that we had a place to start working on our family’s quandary.

We began the task of becoming more educated about the different behaviors that occur in many children with attention problems. While some children have trouble attending, others have trouble starting a task and/or switching their attention from one task to another. When they say they are “bored” they may be verbalizing their need for additional stimulation or novelty. These same children show behaviors that might be considered obsessive, insisting on near perfection in their work and even fun activities, while becoming depressed when that perfection is unattainable.

They sometimes have peer problems because they expect perfection in their social relationships and/or they have problems meeting new people and only have a few that they know very well. Some children perform well in school’s structure, but fall apart at home after surviving the stress of the day.

What our reading and interviews indicated was that there is no one set of characteristics that children with attention problems exhibit. Whether our son was identified as a child with “Attention Deficit Disorder” (with or without hyperactivity), a central auditory processing problem, a learning disability or just inattention, he still was experiencing high stress at school, feeling depressed, experiencing problems with social relationships and wreaking havoc on our home life!

We had Tommy assessed by the school psychologist to ascertain his strengths and weaknesses on school tasks. With the psychologist’s and speech pathologist’s help, he was also diagnosed with a central auditory processing problem.

We established a relationship with a private family and children’s psychologist and began family counseling. We visited with our pediatrician, and with his help were referred to a child psychiatrist. Together they prescribed a regimen of Ritalin and Imipramine for Tommy.

All of these puzzle pieces were shared with Tommy’s teacher and she stayed in frequent contact with us (sometimes daily!), helping us to implement a multi-faceted plan to get our son to “lighten up,” have more success in school and with friends, and to make ourselves a family again.

We survived that year and made progress that astounded us all. The move to middle school was very frightening, but with the help of the learning disabilities teacher, the school counselor and school psychologist, appropriate teachers were selected and the year was a great success all around. We are now in the midst of reassessing Tommy’s unique needs as an adolescent and looking at options in medication strategies.

School has not been quite so successful; stress is higher; more social issues have emerged. However, the learning disabilities teacher and school counselor continue to provide emotional support for us all and we are convinced that we will end the year successfully. Battle scars do heal and we do become stronger and wiser after each of our challenges with our son.

In Closing

This mom has completed quite a journey over the past few years, one I didn’t anticipate as a prospective mother. But, I believe I’m a better parent because of the lessons I’ve learned and a better helping professional, as well.

It is my hope that by reading this, school personnel will realize that they must take action to assure that the parents of these difficult children are heard. Whether the child is a problem in school, a problem at home or both, the parents’ insights and experiences must be heard, understood and taken into consideration when the child’s intervention plan is developed.

Get to know your students’ parents and really listen to what they have to say. Imagine periodically what it might be like to live with that student sitting across from you, and utilize all the skills and resources you have and can “rustle up” to help make that student’s life a little easier. Facilitate communication between those parents and the other professionals with whom you work. Be the advocate you’d like to have working for you if you were the “mom” or “dad.”

Source: https://dticorp.com/get-to-know-your-students-parents-and-listen-to-what-they-have-to-say/