ED 589 Achieving Success with parents of Students with Special Needs

Jacqueline Kaufman
Preface and Chapter One Assignment

Question #1: Discuss the pros and cons of encounters (with parents) described as
“generally brief, cordial and superficial.”

Brief, cordial and superficial at first can be experienced as a relief, a clear division of
teacher-parent turf and responsibilities that can be summed up as a sort of “you do your
thing in your classroom and I’ll do what I need to do at home” attitude. There are so
many ways this approach can lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and
misrepresentation of a specific situation, mistakes, mistrust and all the attendant afflictive
emotions that so often lead to blame, acrimony and administrative involvement.

Brief and cordial can work, as long as superficial is replaced with precision and exertion.
It is essential, I believe, for the teacher to take the lead in informing parents:
• how she runs her classroom
• what her expectations are for a child on an IEP or 504 plan
• what her expectations are for the parent/care-givers throughout the school year
• an agreed upon schedule and method for weekly communication.

Gorman’s citation from Hancock in Chapter One, “…it needs to be recognized that
parental involvement is actually a very demanding form of curriculum development for a
class teacher. (Hancock, 1998, p. 410)” (Gorman, 2004, p.2) is resonant with my direct
experience. Like so many aspects of being a teacher, this means more work for me.

Question 2: Attributes of a relationship with a parent (s) that allowed for rewarding
collaboration.

The attributes of a rewarding collaboration with this parent are: Honesty

• Being direct and courteous, especially about the hard stuff
• Using space, taking time before responding in a potentially volatile situation
• Gratitude for each other’s stamina and patience
• Consistent and clear communications via email with copies to involved school
counselors, school administrators and community agency representatives
• Copies of all communication

Question 3: Discuss how working on parental involvement is or is not challenging

for you.

I would so much prefer NOT to have to provide the coaching, counseling and scaffolding
necessary for parents to accept and engage in their kids’ lives in consistent and positive
ways... I would prefer to be the teacher and trust they will be safe, affectionate and
supportive parents who provide for their children’s’ basic needs. when they leave school.
Sadly, this just doesn’t happen very often.
 ED 589 Achieving Success with parents of Students with Special Needs
Jacqueline Kaufman
Preface and Chapter One Assignment

In my teaching practice, working on parental involvement requires courage and exertion.

Often, these parents are people who did not graduate high school and do not have
pleasant associations with school. When I ask what their dreams are for their teenagers, I
hear that they want them to graduate from high school and go on to college. And then, I
hear from their children that there is no food in the house, that the parent threatened to
kick the teenager out of the home, that the parent was too drunk to come to school, that
the student smells like marijuana because the parent was smoking in the car, that the
parent’s boyfriend kicked them out of his apartment so the teen doesn’t have her school
supplies or winter coat…..And I am expected to have the skills and stamina to work with
these parents to make their stated dreams for their children come true.

Question 4: Factors that impede cooperation from parents

1. Unpaid phone bill makes telephone contact difficult

2. Unpaid electric bill makes email contact difficult
3. Frequent changes in residence makes US Mail contact difficult
4. Absorbed with other family issues that take priority: jailed spouse, recent arrest for
narcotics possession with intent to sell
5. Alcohol and drug abuse
6. Mental illness
7. Distrust of teachers
8. Tendency to see only the teen’s disability rather than potential
9. Unwillingness to come to meetings
10. Tendency to support and excuse excessive absenteeism (20+ days per semester)
11. Unwillingness or inability to practice listening skills
12. Unwillingness or inability to articulate and follow through on expectations for teen
around school and home responsibilities
13. Incarceration
14. Hospitalization

Question 5: Describe the type of involvement of cooperation from parents that

would fit well with your teaching style or personality.

My teaching style is grounded in practicing presence with mind and body, so I can deeply
listen, and ask questions that provide a chance to go deeper into an articulation of feelings
or experiences, being responsible to my students for a high level of preparation and
engagement with their individual learning styles.

I appreciate parents and caregivers who can be

• Honest
• Direct
• Courteous
 ED 589 Achieving Success with parents of Students with Special Needs
Jacqueline Kaufman
Preface and Chapter One Assignment

• Grateful for extra exertion

• Willing to use time at home to further school success
• Consistently available through their chosen form of communication
• Present at parent-teacher-student meetings and speak to their teenager in that
setting, not as if the child was not sitting at the table.

Question 6: What are the seven characteristics of effective parent-teacher alliances

as described in Chapter One?

Mutual respect
A clear understanding of one’s role
A clear understanding of the other’s role
Opportunity for feedback
Openness to change or adjustment as needed
Similar expectations
Defined common goals
(Gorman, 2004, p.3)

Question 7: List some of the ways that you currently use, or plan to use to nurture
the characteristics in your relationships with parents.

Based on my reading and contemplation of this chapter, I’ve identified three

characteristics that I would like to delve into deeper this school year.

1. clear understanding of my role

2. clear understanding of the parent/care-giver’s role
3. similar expectations

Here are some early thoughts on how I will do that:

• Short and precise written list of my role given to parents/caregivers or sent to

them prior to the school year with an invitation to respond with information that
helps me understand what their understanding of their role throughout the term.
• Follow up communication from me repeating what I have heard from them and
going on to articulate how we can complement each other’s roles through contact
and communication on a weekly or bi-monthly basis.
• Once we have agreed on our roles and communication vehicle throughout the
term, I would request that the parent/care-giver inform the student of our plan
• Request each student to relate to me his or her hearing of the plan that is in place
and determine how the student would like to be involved as well
 ED 589 Achieving Success with parents of Students with Special Needs
Jacqueline Kaufman
Preface and Chapter One Assignment

Question 8: Describe a challenging family situation. How did you cope? Reference
the definition of empathy in the text.

Gorman defines empathy as being able to take the perspective of another and also feeling
compassion and sympathy for another in her citations of Ickes, 1997 and Batson &
Shaw, 1991 (paraphrase, Gorman, 2004 p. 5).

In my direct personal experience empathy also involves recognizing the

interconnectedness of being human. The fear and rage and hope and sadness another
being feels is directly related to my own experiences of those deeply felt mind and body
sensations. Even if the details, the storyline if you will, do not overlap, our ultimate
experience of the emotions and attitudes engendered are the same.

So when I received a distraught call from a Dad of a teenager with an emotional disability
that informs be the teen is in juvenile jail for breaking and entering a home late at night to
go to the bedside of a rival for a girl’s affection wielding a baseball bat and breaking his
legs, I have no comparable life experience. I do have experience with shock and horror
and grief and loss that allows me to connect, rather than condemn, creating space rather
than leaping to some judgment or conclusion about this human being’s parenting style.

Empathy allowed me to be present with the parent in his distress, ask about his own
wellbeing and give reassurances about school work, taking one item off his list of things
to be concerned about.

Question 9: Given the unique challenges of parenting a child with special needs, do
you feel these parents sometimes make having empathy more or less difficult?
Please explain your thoughts.

Empathy is difficult when a parent becomes aggressive, hostile and accusatory and there
is a mind and body lunge for self preservation and back up from people with
administrative titles and better parking spots.

Empathy is difficult when a parent seems unable to notice and appreciate the inner
beauty, courage and strength of a teen whose outer presentation is affected by a disability
so that all the parent speaks about is what this child can’t do in the child’s presence.

Empathy, in my experience, requires practice. Empathy begins with me. Having

compassion and understanding for my own sadness or sorrow or loneliness or anger is the
ground for being able to have genuine empathy for another. Empathy, like generosity
and deep listening and discipline and exertion and patience, must be practiced in order to
become available in the moment when frustration or judgment or impatience or hostility
is directed at me, and I want to respond in a way that makes me feel safe. It takes
practice to simply be present and allow what is happening to happen without reacting.
 ED 589 Achieving Success with parents of Students with Special Needs
Jacqueline Kaufman
Preface and Chapter One Assignment

Question 10: Review several positive verbal and nonverbal communicative

behaviors.

Open questions provide parents and caregivers to articulate previously unexpressed

attitudes and beliefs about their children, about school, about the repercussions of a
specific incident and, perhaps most important, with a chance to experience being heard.

Active listening or deep listening is a gift. It is a willingness to simply be present and

open your hearing to another being. Deep listening sometimes doesn’t even require a
verbal response. All beings know when they are being heard. Truly being heard is a heart
opening experience that engenders trust. Deep listening requires the listener to put down
her own story line of related life experiences, put down the tendency to give advice and
simply listen. It is a very affirming and increasingly rare experience outside a retreat
setting.

Summarizing important points is a way of demonstrating deep listening, especially

when prefaced with the phrase “This is what I heard you say…..
I will also say, “This is what I heard myself say…” These words seems to create an
avenue for shared experience of what just happened and give room for the frequent
possibility that each person heard something different. It invites clarifying questions or
conversation so that both/all parties to the conversation are content with a final summary
of important points.

Open posture is essential to presence. Straight spine, relaxed jaw, quiet hands indicate
you are here now and available in this moment. Open posture gently communicates that
whatever is going on right now is the priority.

Responding to nonverbal cues is a component of deep listening. We can hear what is

said, and also what is not said by observing eye movement, body tension, and expressive
hand gestures. Non-verbal cues can often reveal more than what a person believes are the
appropriate spoken words.

Eye contact also indicates presence, expresses value in another’s communication and can
provide a bridge to empathy by observing if the speaker is tearing up or seeking a quick
exit with his or her eyes.

11. List some of the poor communication skills. Have you ever found yourself using
any of them? What were the circumstances surrounding the situation?

Poor skills: Sitting far away, looking away, displaying closed posture, blaming.

I am taken refuge in all of these. When I feel attacked, disregarded, not allowed a single
misstep or poor choice of words then I tend to close up and back away from parents. In
general, the circumstances run something like this: I have a troubled teen on my roster
 ED 589 Achieving Success with parents of Students with Special Needs
Jacqueline Kaufman
Preface and Chapter One Assignment

that might be on an IEP or 504. I have put in a lot of time to create a caring environment
and personal relationship with the child. I have crossed the line into counselor, for which
I have no training, with the parent, and it all comes back to kick me in the posterior when
the child is failing or suspended or caught with drugs or cigarettes and somehow, it is my
fault. That’s when I retreat. And, once I have crawled into a seemingly protective shell,
I do not have a good record of coming out again. Relations revert to the cordial and
superficial level for the remainder of the school year, and I work to shed the child from
my roster before the next school year begins.

12. Describe the six actions listed that the author offers as ways to strengthen
relationships and limit legal liability with parents.
• Document everything. In an organized format that works for me, Gorman
recommends documenting every encounter with non-judgmental factual or data-
derived language with the understanding that parents have a right to see all paper
and computer records around their child’s education.

• Focus on the truth. This is a fuller recommendation of using language that is data-
derived and non-judgmental, suggesting language like, “Grace has not attended
school 42 of the 84 days this semester” as opposed to “Grace’s attendance is
awful.”

• Go to the source. School can be like a crazy game of Operator with the original
incident or message completely changed by the time it reaches my ears. So often,
well intentioned grown ups respond to what they have been told without sourcing
the information prior to choosing a course of action.
• Get help. Gorman recommends involving another professional who can help in the
event of a conflict with the potential to escalate. I have frequently experienced
relief at my personal policy to never speak to a student about a potentially
inflammatory incident or comment without another teacher present.

• Be professional at all times. The practice of empathy can be a double edged

sword in these litigious times. Too often parents of challenging students at the high
school level are looking for a savior rather than exploring family dynamics and a
team approach to their adolescent’s difficulties. There is a fine line between being
genuinely empathetic and becoming the catalyst for fulfilling the parents’ dreams
for their child in the few years left under the protections and benefits of an
Individualized Education Plan.

Build relationships conscientiously. Gorman offers, “Ultimately, people who like you do
not sue you.” (Gorman, 2004, p.11) I’m not sure I agree with her. Look at divorce court.
However, effort counts and I have seen even the most distrustful parent let down their
guard when I have made an effort to take time over the weeks to call or email
consistently, and especially with good news.
 ED 589 Achieving Success with parents of Students with Special Needs
Jacqueline Kaufman
Preface and Chapter One Assignment

13. Describe the group development stages identified by Bruce Tuckerman.

Forming an orientation process in which there is mild tension and guarded polite
interaction

Storming Over time, initial inhibitions subside and the group begins to work together.
At this point, some conflict occurs, propelling the group into the stage of storming.
Changing minor factors about when to meet and how to communicate might ameliorate
this initial storming stage.

Norming is the phase groups move on to if the conflict in the storming stage can be
successfully resolved. This is when the group begins to tightly bond and there is a
feeling of unity and camaraderie that allows the group to be productive.

Performing is when the group has effective communication, common goals and
delineated roles. The work of the group is getting done.

Adjourning is the terminology for the attainment or completion of the group’s goals or
the phase when time to work as a group simply ends, like graduation from school.

14. Have you ever been involved in a personal or professional relationship stuck in
the storming stage? Thinking back, was there anything you could have done
differently to help move the relationship to a more productive place?

I wish you could witness my extremely exaggerated eye roll as I answer an emphatic
YES to the first part of this question. Many times I have stalled out in the storming stage.
What I can always do more of is create the time and space for me to get in touch with my
emotions and notice what I am telling myself, the judgment, the labeling, the hot felt
sensations, and give my self compassion and summon the courage to just let all that be
until, of its own accord, like clouds in the stratosphere, they dissipate. Then I can take a
deep breath, and try to do better.