BALANCING CONCERNS AND PRAISE

Do you have kids? If so, think about a time that your child’s teacher, or a stranger, or a neighbor, has commented to you about how great your child is. It probably made you swell up with pride! Now, think about when someone has brought a concern up about your child. You may have felt worried, or defensive, or even angry. Think back on your own interactions with your student’s parents. When you made a phone call home or wrote a note to that parent- how often has it been positive, and how often has it been negative or filled with concern about your student? Often, we focus on behavioral concerns of students and feel we are doing our job by informing parents of our concerns and our actions to correct those behaviors- and we are!

But, parents of “repeat offender kids” may rarely hear good news about their child’s behaviors or academic performance. Every individual has wonderful strengths and great character traits, but especially for students that struggle with school or with behaviors in class, we often forget to mention those positive traits to others.