Time to talk about Parent Power

OK, the time has come, to say something that I have avoided as long as I could. It is time to give parents the power they need to help their children learn.

Up to this point I have concentrated on giving parents ways that they can help children learn. But something happened a few days ago that made me angry, and made me understand, finally, that parents need more than advice on ways to help their child learn, they need to understand, and take, their power.

This is what happened. I was visiting friends and we started talking about how well their children were doing in school. One of them has a hearing problem and has been advised to wear hearing aids in class. This boy is eight years old and finds the hearing aids uncomfortable so he often takes them out and then forgets to put them back. When this happens he tends to talk in a loud voice.

At a recent parent/teacher conference the teacher told his mother that she should make sure that her child wore his hearing aids at all time because his ‘outside voice’ was a distraction to the other children in class. From what I understand the teacher was quite blunt and the mother was left feeling that she was a bad mother because she didn’t make sure he wore his hearing aids all the time.

I know that children who are loud in class can be problematic, and I can understand the teacher telling the mother that she felt that her child should be wearing his hearing aids all the time, but the way she spoke to the mother was unhelpful to say the least.

Putting aside the fact that the mother cannot be in class all the time to make sure the child is wearing his aids there is a deeper issue here.

First, I must tell you that this mother is an experienced teacher in her own right. She teaches in a high school and helps students who are struggling to ‘fit in’ the system get an education. So she knows the system inside out.

This mother, qualified and experienced as she is, was upset about what the teacher had said, and the way she had said it. But she never told the teacher about her feelings. All she could do was complain to friends and relatives about the meeting and they way she had been treated.

And this mother knew the system, she knew how the system worked and had no reason to feel intimidated by the teacher. I could only imagine how other parents must feel in situations like this.

I realized that it is no use just giving parents advice and support on ways they can help their child learn. I need to giver parents the power they need to become active participants in their child’s education.

I can do this … watch this space!