Family Characteristics
The more you know about a child’s outside of school life, the better you can help them in the classroom. If a child’s parents are going through a divorce and fighting all the time, the child’s focus won’t be the same. They may be tired from not sleeping often from all the late night fights. Knowing things like this can help us as teachers, and parents, know how to treat the child.
Understanding how families work not only benefits the child, but also the parents and siblings. It only takes one person to make a different. It can help to know which sibling our student is closest with to know to know that they have someone in their home. Knowing whether their family are open or closed communicators will help us know how best to speak to our student and the questions to ask.
My ability to work with children, families, and students has expanded because of my understanding of how families work. Building off of last weeks topic about Family Systems and Subsystems, knowing the inter workings of a family is really beneficial. The top three things to remember when dealing with families are: Respect, Trust, and Communication.
It doesn’t matter what the parents say to us, we got to remain passive, not let our emotions cloud our judgement. The parents will always be the expert on their child, but we can suggest things to do and help their child, if needs be. We need to respect the parents opinion on their child. There also needs to be clear communication between both parties. Whether that’s a small note sent home every day, or an email sent out at the end of the week. It’s up to the teacher and the parents to figure out what’s going to work for them. Between the respect and the communication, there has to be a bit of trust between the two parties. Trust that what’s being communicated is the truth. Trust that things are in the open (or what can be). Trust that there is respect for and from both sides.
If you want to know more, comment below and I’ll respond when I can!
I’m always open to talking about people with disabilities and my personal experiences with different people.
