How to Handle Difficult Parents of Students with Visual Impairments

Working with anyone has it’s challenges, especially working with the people who care for and possibly gave birth to your learner. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Let’s discuss.

In this podcast episode:

• Introduction

• Benefits of Working with Parents

• Benefits for Parents

• Benefits for Students

• Communication Strategies with Parents

• Recap

• Outro

Transcript of the Episode:

Introduction

Okay, so I know that was a little bit of a hook because if you know me at all, you know that you're going to get some great tips for working with parents. They are not the enemy here. And if you're a parent who's just listening, just to make it to this point, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry, friend. I've got your back as much as I can, given that I'm not a parent. And I have my own interactions and my own perception of working with parents. But I do invite you, actually invite everybody to be here on this podcast with me so we can have a genuine conversation about what it's like to be in your shoes, and for you to give it your perspective.

Now for my O&M specialists, we know that working with anybody on a team who is different from us can present itself with some challenges. We also know that once you set the groundwork for your learner's and all of their success by setting the right goals and you have impactful teaching strategies, the next skill is going to be to generalise their skills. And the way to do that in the best way possible is by having their parents on board. Because unfortunately, as much as you love that learner, you do not love them nearly as much as their caregiver loves them. And since we are with our learners only 1% of the time, it's really important that we give up our role as the expert in the students’ lives as fast as possible. So that way, we can give it to the person who actually needs it, which is the caregiver.

Now I'm going to use the word caregiver and parents interchangeably. So if you're a grandparent, or if you are a guardian, or something of that nature, just know that I'm really talking about all of them in the same. When I use the word parents, it's really going to talk about the person who takes care of the learner with a visual impairment. And since all own and specialists can work with people with visual impairments, their entire lives, it might be a parent, or it might be a child, or a son or daughter, who's taking care of an elderly person with a visual impairment.

On this episode, today, we're going to go into some of the benefits of working with parents together, how to build parent teacher relationships, and what to do if your relationship is just rocky and not going well. Now as a compliment to what we're talking about here on this podcast today, on April 7, we'll be having a free live training. You have two different options of times to choose from, that will give you even better communication strategies to help propel your relationship with any parent or caregiver even further so that your learners can generalise their skills faster, without you having to be there or burning out or seeming like the O&M police, or too much of the nice guy.

Benefits of Working with Parents

There are a lot of things that we often do. And we don't realise when our communication attempts miss the mark. And luckily, since I get to study all of these fun things, and I get to have a relationship with so many people from all around the world, I really get to see what works, what doesn't work, and use all of that data and expertise to help save you guys time. Because really, we need you. Can't have everybody leaving the field.

I remember when I was working at the school, and it was a school that the learners actually lived at. Because I only saw the parents maybe three times a year, at the very beginning of the year when they dropped off their kiddo for a registration day, maybe on parent weekend and then at the very end when they came and picked up their kiddo and that was about it. And I went through my whole 20s a little bit envious of my friends who would text their learners’ parents, like have text conversations and share different videos of what their learner was doing, how does a great relationship with them. And I remember being like, man, I wish I had that. But now that I am out in the real world, and I'm contract staff, and I'm working with learners when they're not in school, and at night, and I am talking with the parents more, I realised that I'm just way too introverted; my work life boundaries are way too high. And, you know, I have to say that that's okay with me. But it's not for everybody.

So no matter where you are on the spectrum, if you're having conversations with your students, parents all the time, or if you only text them, when you really need to have a conversation, or when you want to follow up with something that's like fun and celebratory, and you want to just maintain your good relationship, but you don't want to text them a lot. That's also okay. And no matter where you are with where you stand with communication with your parents, and their students, their children. The key here is to work together as a team, you don't have to be best friends. But it does really help the students if you can work together and see eye to eye on many things.

I found this article on Reading Rockets called Building Parent Teacher Relationships, as I was researching for this podcast episode. And it explained things in a way that I don't think that I can. So we'll link the article in the show notes. But I'm also going to share with you the things that it says.

One of the most important paragraphs, it says that the manner in which schools communicate and interact with parents affects the extent and quality of parents home involvement with their children's learning, to music that as a we are responsible for their home environment in their home learning. And as a single parent myself, sometimes I've been in conversations with other teachers. And they'll say negative things about a parent and how they don't follow up or are not doing what they need to be doing. And man, as a single mom, I cannot keep my head above water most days, and I only have my kids 50% of the time.

If your learner is in a household, that is now the majority of households, are divorced. And they are split between one parent and another. You probably have a primary parent who's doing a great share of the work in our worlds. And I love my ex husband dearly. A lot of you guys are still friends with him. And so am I. He's an amazing person. But there's this term called Disney dad, and Disney Dad, it could be mom, it could be whichever parent, that's the parent that does the fun stuff that gets to do all the great things that doesn't have to spend their money on haircuts and shoes and new markers, and all of this other stuff.

I'm not saying that my kids’ dad is that. But we still have a dynamic where I'm the one doing everything that needs to be done for my own children. And I cannot keep up. Personally, even as somebody with a master's in special ed, I have missed multiple parent teacher conferences this year, this year alone. And it's not at all that I don't care. It's that I'm literally trying to get my kid off the bus during the only time that they had available for a parent teacher conference. And I couldn't do both very well. And I forgot and I missed it.

So if you’re and O&M specialist or a TVI and you were struggling to understand the perspective of that parent, please know that they are trying their hardest. They are working themselves so much. And if you don't have kids, there are zero words to actually portray how things feel as a parent. I could say all the things we could read all the books, we could read all the articles, but I can't actually get you to feel how stressful it is in your body until or unless you actually have children.

So when you are communicating with parents and when you are trying to reach out to them, understand that the manner in which schools communicate and interact with parents affects the extent and quality of the parents home involvement in their children's learning. Just like you don't want to be reprimanded and told what you're doing wrong all the time, neither do they, they are stressed. And they are working themselves to the bone to make sure that their child has the best life possible. And they were given a deck that they were not expecting. So you also have to take into consideration that this parent could be anywhere on the cycle of grief at any given moment, and you don't know, you don't know what's going on in their life, only they know what's going on in their life. And they may or may not feel comfortable sharing that with you. But it's our responsibility to open that gate to open that relationship and allow them in as they are for who they are. Just like you would with your learner, you take them all in every aspect of them, you don't say, you know, I wish you would change this, or I wish you would change that you accept your learner for every little bit that they are, if we can do that, for the parents that we work with, we would have such better relationships with them.

Benefits for Parents

For example, if you only communicate bad news about the learner, this is gonna solve a bad tone. If you only communicate in long form emails that nobody reads, don’t tell me you read all your emails, or every word in every single email unless you're staying up till 2 or 3 am. How to communicate in a way that is positive for them, and talks to them in a way that they can actually be open to hearing. And parents actually benefit from these relationships, they need them. Parents benefit from being involved in their children's education, you're able to give them ideas, you're able to open up their world to see how they can implement things at home because they want to, and you're able to show them how they can support their children even better and make a better impact.

And in the article, I really liked how it said the parents benefit by becoming more confident about the value of their school involvement. They just really develop a greater appreciation for who you are and what you do. And then you can share with them a little bit more about why you're doing the things that you are doing.

Benefits for Students

Some of the benefits for students, of course, they are the one benefiting from all of this. It's their independence, it's their lives that are benefiting from it. They have more motivation, they have improved behaviour. A lot of them may have more regular attendance, so say the studies and a more positive attitude about school in general. And for us, as the teacher it allows us to increase our intercultural competence.

If you go back to Episode 80, increasing your intercultural creativity with Genein Letford, you can hear all about how when we get involved with the parents, and we get to see what our learners are actually doing at home, it really can help us in our teaching as well, because then we can start to say the words that they are used to hearing. And we can start to tie in things like oh, when you went to Disney, or different dishes that their parents make or different things that actually relate back to their regular life, it allows them to give us a little bit more respect, because they can then tie it back into their regular lives.

Communication Strategies with Parents

Okay, so we talked a lot about the why, and even the what of really great communication with parents. Let's talk about just some easy communication strategies. You'll get some of these information in detail at your live workshop. But one of the things that I really like to do besides like phone calls and texts, is celebrating your learner with the parents as well. We need to see positive interactions, more than negative interactions in order for us to have a positive relationship with somebody.

Same goes with their parents. So we… like I said before just going to the parents when Oh, the kiddos doing this wrong or going to the parents when the parents are doing something wrong, that's not going to help them in the long run. But maybe if we can send a newsletter, or we can go visit their homes or we can just have a simple conversation with them, or allow them to have specific office hours where they contact us. We can make our relationship with the parents so much better. And just with any relationship that you have with anybody, consistency and frequency are going to be some of your best assets when building the relationship. If the parents only hear from me once, every few months, it's going to be less of a positive relationship than if they hear from you once a month.

Now there was a time back in the day, when I could call the parents on a rotating basis every Friday before I left with the demands of data over the years that had to slowly find its way out. So now I have to write it into the IEP in order to make sure that I schedule that time. Otherwise, I won't, especially as contract staff.

Now let's talk about what to do when things either go sideways or on the parent is difficult to work with. As with any relationship, when you are working with that person, you're coming to a shared goal. Now, if tensions are high, need to wait until you calm down. When something happens with the learner, it's better to address it pretty timely, rather than waiting a really long time. Because the learner may forget, you may forget, or the parent may just not even be able to help at that point. If you wait like three weeks a month, even a full week, that might be too long. So see if you can calm down and come to a place where you can have a crucial conversation within about 24 hours. You can contact the parent that day and say, Hey, can we schedule time to meet pretty quickly or within a few days, so that way you guys can have that conversation. If it's something simple, I think it can stay between you guys.

But at any given moment. And make sure to check with your admin on this and follow their rules and regulations, your policies and procedures that will determine that. Go ahead and alert your higher up to the situation. Whether it's a lead teacher, for the assistant principal, or the principal or special director, whoever's right above you, if there's a situation brewing with a parent, don't just sit on it and expect to be able to handle it yourself. Now we're coming into a crucial conversation with anybody, I think it's important to have as much connection as possible. Definitely not having crucial conversations with parents over texts, there's too much that could go wrong. Definitely also not having these conversations over email, same thing too much that could go wrong, face to face as best video chat, then a phone call is the third best. Once you can have those interactions, a lot of times you can help dispel whatever their fear is.

And here's the way that I like to think about it. If a parent comes to me with a question, there's a thought behind that question. And I'm going to try to figure out what their thought is an answer that as well. And if they're coming at me with a negative tone, there might be a fear behind that. So gently, I might ask for more information or for more clarification about their question so that I can answer it better. Because sometimes it doesn't really matter what your answer is. It matters more about their fear and being able to overcome the thing that they are angry about. Whatever that emotion is, is driving their question. So you can get to that you can help them even better. And when you come and you sit down with them, you and your admins will figure out exactly how to handle whichever situation.

This podcast is not an end all be all. But we want to make sure that there are no surprises going into the conversation. And that you try to find things that you agree on. And even more than that, allow yourself to be in the position of just listening. If you're afraid and you're angry, see if you can identify those before you go into the conversation. So that way when you're there, you have a good understanding of where you are starting from. If you're scared that you're going to lose your job, your reaction is going to be a lot different. Then you're just angry that the parent is not having their kid use their cane. That's a completely different levels of emotion and high insensitivity.

Now in each interaction, you and your admins will figure out what the best time type of action is for that parent and that communication. The key is to come to a general consensus and understanding, because you guys are all working together. And all of you guys all have your own independence, you don't need it. It's the learner that we can stay focused on. And when we can do that, we can come up with Win-Win solutions. So as long as we stay calm, we approach the situation head on. And we get support as we need it. And stay open to the possibility of what could possibly go right, you'll be in a much better place.

Recap

I hope that this was really helpful for you. Working with parents is something that is really, really beneficial to everybody and I want you to have a successful time with it. If you're interested in learning more collaboration methods, and how you can begin to role release the skills that your learners are doing to the parents and caregivers themselves. I invite you to come to our webinar April 7 is going to be amazing. You can find more information at alliedindependenceonline.com/training. Have you used this information help you take one more step forward my friend. I will see you next week.

Outro

You know that feeling when you've been rushing around all day. Your kids need food your students need to be scheduled. It's five minutes before your next lesson, and you have no plans. Teaching during a pandemic has had many challenges. Wouldn't you agree? One of which being it takes so much longer to plan for a remote O&M lesson, then he did to plan for a face to face lesson. But that's not a problem anymore because my friend we have got you covered. Your Allied Independence community stepped up. And we've bundled together eight remote O&M lesson plans that can be taught virtually or distance all created by your community and customisable to your individual students unique needs in five minutes or less. You want ‘em? I know you do. All you have to do is go to Allied Independence online.com forward slash remote R E M O T E and grab your copy. Eight free O&M lesson plans so you can start spending your time doing what you do best and that my friend is teaching.