Helping parents with significant (parenting) concerns

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It’s a fact of modern life that many families are under stress and experience difficulties that impact heavily on parents, and on their children. Increasingly, parents are turning to professionals for their children to provide the support they need.

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Also, many teachers and school leaders are finding that what they thought was a basic meeting with parents about their child’s progress or behaviour shifts significantly when a parent reveals the difficulties they are encountering at home or in their personal life.

Often the level of assistance required is outside the skill set of educators, but parents will benefit from a sensitive and supportive response from their child’s school.

Recognise vulnerable families and difficult situations
Parents are particularly vulnerable when one or more of the following factors occurs in their family:

 Experience of family breakdown;
 Substance abuse of a family member;
 Experience of trauma or mental illness; • experience of a death in the family;
 During children’s transitional stages;
 Having a special needs child;
 Having a child with significant behavioural problems;
 Sudden or significant change;
 Experience of family chaos.

When working with such parents or with parents experiencing distress you need to borrow some basic skills and protocols from the counselling discipline.

These include:

1. Keep accurate records of all interactions
Record-keeping is essential for accountability purposes so make sure you record the date of meetings and keep details of who was present, as well as key discussion points, recommendations, referrals and follow-up activities.

2. Be prepared to listen
It’s not your job to solve their problems but you can listen to their story and their concerns. You may be the first person whom they have divulged important facts to, so confidentiality and trust are two critical issues. Similarly you may be the only person they talk with so your sensitivity will be appreciated.

3. Avoid overloading them
Troubled parents still want to help their children so avoid overloading them with too

much work to do if they have revealed their vulnerabilities during a conference about their child’s learning or behaviour. Work on one or two manageable areas rather than trying to fix too much and overwhelming them.

4. Consider having someone else present at the meet
Think carefully about whether you need to have other people present in a meeting if you know beforehand that the personal and family issues will be discussed. You might suggest that the parent be accompanied by a professional, family member or friend if they need someone to be their advocate. As a rule of thumb, only have as many people present as is absolutely necessary to keep the meeting intimate and personal.

5. Refer them to the support they need
It’s important to know the limits of your ability to help. Be ready to refer parents on to either professional levels of assistance or informal support such as family or other parents within the school community. Be mindful of the fact that many vulnerable parents lack social networks and may need special assistance to provide them with the support they need.

Most teachers and school leaders operate automatically from an educative mindset – which is basically about informing and up skilling. Working with vulnerable and at risk parents requires a shift in mindset to include listening, supporting and referring, which are all sound counselling skills.

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Michael Grose


Author, columnist and presenter Michael Grose currently supports over 1,100 schools in Australia, New Zealand and England in engaging and supporting their parent communities. He is also the director of Parentingideas, Australia’s leader in parenting education resources and support for schools. In 2010 Michael spoke at the prestigious Headmaster’s Conference in England, the British International Schools Conference in Madrid, and the Heads of Independent Schools Conference in Australia, showing school leadership teams how to move beyond partnership-building to create real parent-school communities. For bookings, parenting resources for schools and Michael’s famous Free Chores & Responsibilities Guide for Kids, go to www. parentingideas.com.au.