Sunday, November 8, 2009
Who Knows Best?
One thing that I noticed quickly in my beginning days as a teacher is that parent communication is crucial when you are a teacher. Parents need to be informed and stay informed of the progress of their students because they are on your side to help you teach their children. Although this can be positive in that the parents and the teachers work together to accomplish a goal or teach the children different ideas, I have found that sometimes it can be difficult as well. For example, the children in my classroom are 2 and 3 years old and therefore they are still taking naps at school. The majority of my class is potty trained at this point but almost everyone is still wearing pull-ups during nap time to prevent accidents. A few weeks ago we had parent conferences with the parents to inform them of progress in the class on all accounts including potty training. One particular students mother voiced that she would like for her daughter to not wear pull-ups at nap time anymore. Well, I keep a record of who is wet and who is dry after naps and this particular child was wet after nap 3 times just that week. It was a difficult situation that I realized is going to come up very often as a teacher in that the question who knows what is better for the student? It was so hard for me to accept this mothers decision because she is the one who is in control of the situation, but I spend a lot of time with her daughter (7 hours) each day which is probably more that she spends with her own daughter. I know that I must follow the requests of the mother but it was an extremely difficult situation for me as I felt like I knew better than the mother on this particular subject.
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That is a huge challenge!! I had to deal with that at the school I used to work at. The child in my class really need some physical therapy as well as speech therapy, the mom didn't think it was necessary so for the longest time we just had to respect her decision. It was really hard because the child was very delayed compared to his fellow classmates. It was difficult for the teachers, as well as for him, he knew that he was a little different and he would get angry a lot. Luckily the mom finally decided that therapy would be a good thing to do. I hope that your situation works out well... it is hard when you, the teacher, spends more time with a child then their parents do. I completely understand that battle!
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