Infant Toddler Mental Health Module 8 Alicia Hathaway

Parent Involvement Parent involvement is one of the most important factors in the academic success of your students. Even though parents come in all forms and their level of involvement in your student’s academics may or may not be ideal, always remember that they are an ally and not the enemy. They love their child and want them to be successful, and the vast majority will respond to your efforts to collaborate with them to support your student (Reichart, K).

Questions to Consider Who is the child? Are they motivated? Do they like school? Who is the child’s family? How involved are they with their child? What type of communication do they wish to use? Are they educated?

Things to Consider when Forming Partnerships Partnering is reciprocal and involves listening as well as sharing. Partnering is NOT telling someone what to do. Instead, offer your expertise (academics), and encourage them to offer their expertise (knowledge about their child and the family environment) to brainstorm the best strategy to support the student. Recognize that family members have had varying educational backgrounds and may not know how to participate in their child’s education. They may be hindered by a their own negative experiences in school, or feel ineffective because they themselves were not good students. Also, if the family is from different cultural or linguistic background than the school’s majority they may feel alienated from the schooling process. Realize that family dynamics influence parent’s availability and involvement. Issues such as changing work schedules, transportation, number of children in the household, and custody arrangements may influence the ability for family members to work consistently with their child. Collaboration with parents should account for these dynamics (non-judgmentally) so you can account for the family’s constraints while problem solving for solutions. Parent involvement tends to decrease in the higher grades, but the need for parent involvement does not. Teenagers are a vulnerable group as social and developmental changes occur. Older students may not need a parent to do homework with them as younger children may, but they do need guidance and encouragement to maintain good habits, manage increasingly heavy homework loads, and set goals for their future (Reichart, K).

The steps parents go through when finding out their child has a disability Finding out your child has a disability is very new to parents, and can be quite overwhelming. It is important as educators to understand these difficult steps and to do your best to help them through it in anyway. 1. The ostrich phase. Parents do not deny a disability but do not fully realize its impact. For example, a parent may say, “He’s all boy. He just doesn’t like to sit still and read a book.” 2. Special designation. Parents begin to realize that their child has a special need and seek help or ask for special services. 3. Normalization. Parents try to make the differences between their child and children without disabilities less apparent and may actually request a decrease in services and more regular classroom time. 4. Self-actualization. Parents do not view being different as better or worse, just different. They support their child in learning about his or her disability, including how to be a self-advocate (Ray, Pewett- Kinder & George)

Families are actively included In planning and decision-making Programs invite families to actively take part in decision-making opportunities concerning their children’s education. Programs and families collaborate in establishing goals for children’s education and learning both at home and at school. They understand the necessary role families play in making decisions about their own children and include families in shared decision making about and goal setting for their children’s education and learning (NAEYC).

Family Involvement Families act as advocates for their children and participate in decision making when they complete an individual education plan for their child. This written plan documents parents’ goals for their child’s learning. The plan is updated when goals are accomplished. Parents and teachers collaborate on observation reports, discussing observational benchmarks in the January and June reports (NAEYC). Each program conducts parent-teacher conferences on a regular basis (usually twice per year), in part to initiate a joint goal-setting process. During conferences teachers and families discuss goals for children both at home and at school. Some teachers also make a class website that could include any upcoming test dates, homework assignments, questions, and an update of the things the children learned that day.

Communication is Key As is true with families of all children, ongoing two-way communication Between teachers and families is key in working successfully with families of children with disabilities. You can arrange a meeting with the child’s parents prior to the child’s start in your program or school. To get to know each other, find out as much as possible about the child and the family’s goals for their child’s learning and development, and tell parents how you design your program to meet individual children’s needs (Ray, Pewett- Kinder & George).

Teach Families to be interventionists Parents need to be guided by a professional to show them the importance of their role in their young child’s development and to empower them to support their child’s education. Given that young children with disabilities are most at risk for academic failure, we need to help parents become effective interventionists in their child’s life and to let them know that what they do early on really matters for their child’s long-term cognitive and physical growth. When parents think about themselves as interventionists, they feel confident exerting an influence in their child’s life and feel that they are able to implement strategies to help them to improve their child’s behavior, cognition, or emotional state. Parents can carry out goals and expectations, and also different activities for the child to practice while at home (NAEYC).

References Reichart, K. (n.d.). How To: Create Partnerships with Parents and Families. Retrieved March 03, 2016, from how-to-create-partnerships-with-parents-and-families how-to-create-partnerships-with-parents-and-families NAEYC. (n.d.). Family Participation in Decision Making and Goal Setting. Retrieved March 03, 2016, from Ray, J., Pewett- Kinder, J., & George, S. (n.d.). Partnering with Families of Children. Retrieved from naeyc.org