Monday Memorandum #4

Five more points from TCC’s Parent-Teacher Partnership Skills Session

“Kids don’t care about how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

 4^th of 5 Things Teachers Wish Parents Knew

• Your over-involvement is the key to decline
  • Plain and simple – parental support is great. Support comes in the form of giving your child the tools to become self-reliant and responsible for age-appropriate responsibilities. Over-involvement and micro-managing is bad!! I used to laugh when Ben’s elementary teacher’s posted homework in the hall…everyone can tell when a student brings in his spelling sentences with the kind of structure and advanced vocabulary only an adult is capable of. It’s easy to see whose science project was dad’s piece of perfection. Do we really think it will help our kids in the long run? It will help, actually. It will help them fall flat on their face when they’re out in the world alone!

4^th of 5 Things Parents Wish Teachers Knew

• My kid is not a number and has individual ideas, needs, personality traits
  • The quote that I chose to go with this section is above: “Kids don’t care about how much you know, until they know how much you care.” As parents, all we ask is that you get to know our children as little people – evolving, curious, under-confident souls who flourish from the kindness and interest of their teachers (and parents!).

 4^th of 5 Things Kids Wish We All Knew

• We crave structure and discipline – in a respectful, simple way
  • Study after study shows what we’ve known, but somehow pushed away for a long time – your children and students, whether they are 2 or 20 – want firm, fair guidelines. It makes them more secure. We never do them a favor by excusing poor behavior or giving them too much leeway. Over lenient is bad, respectful expectations are good.

4^th of 5 Things I Wish Parents and Teachers Knew

• Teachers: You can’t ALWAYS make a difference
  • One of the hardest things a teacher, coach and even a parent will ever deal with is that there are some kids with whom you cannot penetrate, cannot teach, and cannot make a positive difference in their lives. This goes back to sometimes not being able to undo what is being done at home or elsewhere in their lives and sometimes we come across kids with undiagnosed learning disabilities, eating disorders and victims of domestic violence or debilitating anxieties. What can we do as adults and mentors? Naturally, if you are working within an educational setting and you encounter or suspect these things, you must report them to your counselors and/or administration and the proper protocol will be followed from there. In addition, we must simply keep the door open, keep the compassion and concern obvious and know we’ve done our best not to lose them.