Clio has taught education courses at the college level and has a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction.
Rachel is a special educator who works with students with emotional impairments in a self-contained setting, where they learn and grow separately from their typically developing peers.
For the last few years, Rachel has been focusing on improving her ability to meet her students' academic, social, and emotional needs. She feels good about her professional capacities in these realms.
However, now Rachel is starting to notice that her students' parents are often floundering. It can be really challenging to parent a child with emotional impairments. Behaviors can be difficult, it is common to feel guilty, worried, and even angry, and many parents might feel very stressed about their children's futures.
Rachel can see that to help her students continue to grow, she also needs to help their parents. She starts learning more about the different resources available for parents of students with emotional impairments.
First of all, Rachel knows that many of her students have very difficult behaviors. They might engage in frequent tantrums, tend toward oppositional behavior, and even get aggressive and violent toward themselves and others. The following suggestions can be very helpful to parents when it comes to these behaviors:
Some of the parents of Rachel's students have told her that they are also struggling to communicate with their children. This can be for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, emotional impairments are comorbid with language delays and difficulties. Other times, students with emotional impairments may shut down or seem unwilling to listen to their parents. Rachel recommends the following strategies:
Finally, Rachel reminds her parents that they have a challenging task and it is important for them to take good care of themselves if they are to continue caring for their children.
Rachel encourages all of the parents in her class to get personal emotional support of their own. This might mean:
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