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By Tracy Vasquez, Emily Farkas and Marjaneh Gilpatrick, faculty
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In support of the continued foundation of learning, leading and serving, as educators, we can extend efforts toward healthy relationships with families by implementing strategic procedures. Taking steps such as those discussed below will allow us to collaborate with the community and establish partnerships that will nurture all developmental aspects of our students.
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As educators, we can help families improve interactions and relationships between students and families by encouraging each pause before discussing and administering disciplinary actions. For instance, rather than raising one’s voice and responding when students exhibit challenging behavior, family members can state, “I’m going to take a pause from this conversation to reflect and I encourage you to do the same.” After a brief period, the parties can regroup and discuss the logical consequences. You can help each family member express their needs to one another in a loving and kind way.
We can help families practice restorative communication by demonstrating asking open-ended questions that lead to reflection. For example, instead of asking, “Why did you do that?” you could ask, “What were you feeling when you did that?” As another example, instead of asking a child why they're crying, you could ask, “What are the tears for?” These types of questions encourage students to think deeply, understand, and explain their actions. Families can use these questions as springboards to extend conversations and critical thinking that can focus on misbehaviors, responsibilities and resolutions.
Family meetings are an opportune time to discuss accepted practices and expectation agreements. When an expectation is violated, the family can discuss alternative actions and appropriate consequences that will restore the family relationships. A family can prioritize treating everyone with respect and talk about how this will be implemented as a family.
For example, being mindful of one’s tone of voice can ensure that feelings are not hurt while modeling respect. These family meetings can additionally lead to discussions on logical consequences. For example, as you help families develop their family boundaries and consequences, you help them understand how consequences are directly related to the misbehavior and associated hurt feelings.
When you collaborate with families as equal partners in fostering positive and respectful relationships, you are helping to develop and nurture restorative practices that lead to balanced childhood development. This enables students to become effective and contributing members of their communities.
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