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Six Strategies for Working with Aggressive Parents

Parents, just like students, bring varied backgrounds and experiences with schools and educators. They also rely on a variety of strategies to meet their needs and accomplish their goals. Some parents defer to educators to make the best decisions regarding the learning and education of their children. Other parents take a more assertive approach in advocating for the opportunities and supports they believe their children should be offered. Still other parents take a more confrontational, demanding, and aggressive approach in their engagement with us. The first two types of parents are usually the easiest and most pleasant with which to work to find answers and develop plans to serve their children. They come with a foundation of trust and an inclination to collaborate in seeking the best solutions. They often have a positive history and successful set of experiences with schools and educators and are inclined to value the relationship. Resolving issues and creating paths to success for their students may be challenging, but the presence of trust and an inclination toward collaboration creates a foundation for working together. Parents who take a more aggressive approach can present different challenges and require different strategies to build collaboration, resolve issues, and create a path to success. Working with them can be more challenging emotionally, and they may test our professional confidence and skills. Aggressive parents do not necessarily begin with the assumption that we have their and their children’s best interests in mind. Our challenge is to work through the potential barriers, find the best solutions for immediate issues, and lay groundwork on which to build a trusting relationship. Let’s examine six strategies you can employ with aggressive parents to increase your potential for success. First, when meeting with a parent whom you expect to be aggressive, meet face-to-face and have the conversation from a sitting position. When face-to-face, we are better able read emotions and respond more effectively than via voice, video, or text. The exchange can also be more nuanced and flexible when the conversation calls for assurances and redirection. Meanwhile, aggression is more difficult when sitting than when standing. If possible, avoid sitting directly opposite the parent; a 90 degree angle or side-by-side position reduces feelings of confrontation and win/lose thinking. Remember: Under their external image, aggressive parents are often fearful, uncertain, and anxious. Position the conversation to communicate that you and the parent are on the same side: You both want what is best for the student. Second, listen, show empathy, and keep cool. Allow the parent to tell their full story without interruptions, if possible. Recognize and respect the emotions the parent is communicating. The level of emotion the parent conveys can offer important clues about the intensity and seriousness with which the parent sees the situation. If the situation the parent describes involves an incident or aspects of a situation of which you are not aware, thank the parent for bringing the situation to your attention and suspend the meeting until you can collect the information you need. Attempting to argue or speculate risks making the situation worse and further undermining trust. Third, keep your ego out of it. Refuse to allow your emotions to cloud your judgment or provoke you to say something that further complicates the situation and that you later regret. Take time to frame and consider your responses. Use “I” statements and avoid vague references or hinted accusations. Stay calm and resist blaming. If you hear a threat or begin to feel unsafe, terminate the meeting and inform your supervisor. Fourth, remain focused on the child. Be clear, concise, and confident in your language. Show care, trust, respect, and integrity. Do not get into an argument. Consistently bring the conversation back to the child and what is in their best interest. Do not respond to personal attacks on your integrity or professional skills. Fifth, be clear about your position, but remain open to input and compromise. Where practical, integrate elements of the parent’s concern or perspective into the plan of action. Point out overlap and synergy between what you see as needing to be done and the parent’s perspective on the situation. Where possible, offer creative solutions that show the parent that there is more than one way to solve the problem. However, avoid being pressured into making a deal that you would not or could not make for other students. Sixth, conclude with a specific plan for improved communication. Consider scheduling a check-in after a few days or weeks, depending on the situation. Ongoing communication can reduce suspicion and build trust. Further, your ongoing communication can increase the level of confidence the parent has in your skills and ability, and it may prevent another difficult and awkward confrontation. Aggressive parents can present difficult emotional challenges. However, when approached with care, confidence, clarity, compassion, and creativity, what begins as a confrontation can become a productive collaboration that leads to greater trust and more success for the student.

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Five Values We Can and Need to Teach

We might think that with so much division and discord in today’s world there are no universally shared values. Certainly, the impression left by much of the news leads us to think it’s impossible that everyone could agree on a set of core values. We might even wonder if everything is morally relative. We may also think that it is too risky to deal with values in a public education setting because not everyone will ascribe to what we may teach, nurture, and reinforce. There are differing views on many aspects and elements of our society, especially what we value and teach. Yet, extensive research by Rushworth Kidder and others has established that there exist at least five core values we consistently support regardless of political perspective, community size, voting history, gender, education, region, and other factors. In fact, we share these values worldwide. Tested hundreds of times in dozens of countries, some form of these five values surfaced consistently regardless of culture, race, socio-economic status, education level, or other demographic element. The five core values we share:

Honesty
Respect
Responsibility
Fairness
Compassion

The exact terms people choose to describe these values may vary. As examples, integrity might be used in place of honesty, love in place of compassion, and promise-keeping in place of responsibility. Importantly, the five core values, whatever form, remain consistent across groups, communities, and countries. These values also may enjoy differing levels of priority among diverse groups. It is possible for these values to be held tightly within a family, close circle of friends, and a community, but not extend to include interaction with the wider world. Nevertheless, we can teach, nurture, and reinforce in students these core values. We can teach the value of honesty, even when something less would be easier and more convenient. We can teach what it means to be respectful of others and to have respect for oneself. We can teach that promise-keeping and follow-through are important behaviors. We can help students to understand what fairness is and why being fair is important in relationships, communities, and society. We can teach students that caring for others, reaching out to help those less fortunate, and seeing others as worthy people are important attitudes to adopt and important behaviors to practice even if they come from another culture, socio-economic background, or other life circumstance. Our important values reflect fundamental differences in what we view as right/wrong and good/evil. Also, our values are as much aspirational as normative. They provide a standard for behavior to which we all aspire even though we may not practice them as consistently as we desire. We can remind students that sometimes we fall short, but that does not necessarily make us bad people. We need to sincerely apologize if our actions have hurt someone and then commit to do better in the future. We also can teach and coach the value and importance of extending these core values beyond those with whom we commonly associate and see as like us. When we practice these values widely and consistently, trust and understanding grow. Our class, school, community, and nation become stronger.

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