Home > Special Educators Group > Discussion Board

How do you handle parents who are unable to see the potential in their child and believe that they are unable to do things that you know they are capable of?

I am not a special educator, but I am the parent of two special-needs kids (both in college now), and I am a former school principal. I found it effective in parent meetings to talk to parents as a parent first and an educator second. It seemed to put them at ease to know that I have personal experience with parenting special-needs children. I would share with them how my children had progressed through their school careers and gone far beyond what I had expected at the time of their diagnoses.

When I meet with parents that do not see their students as capable as I so, I invite them to the class to "observe" their students. Additionally, when I meet with parents, especially at IEP time, I provide authentic work that the students have completed. Many times they are amazed at the progress of their child.

For my students that are moderate to severe intellectually delayed, we do "luncheons" at school where the parents are invited to witness their child prepare a lunch for everyone. Everyone has a "job" and it is amazing to see the look of transformation on the parent's faces when their child cooks pizza in an oven or makes spaghetti on the stove top!

We need to differentiate between the present performance of a child and the future potential. My observation has been that parents usually believe that their children have very high potential, and are dissatisfied with their present performance.

Of course, there are parents that have low opinion about both the current performance and potential. And frankly speaking, there are individual differences between different students. In such cases, it is not enough to convince the parents that their children are performing as well as others. The real need is to make the parents realize the need to be supportive to their children, to find out what they are good at, and to provide best possible support to them to realize their potential.

Skill to be supportive and helpful to others are perhaps one the most valuable skill for any one to have. These skill are specially useful to us in our roles as parents and teachers. Unfortunately such skill are also difficult to learn. While individual efforts of teachers to help parents appreciate capabilities and performance of their children is commendable, I believe there is a great need for a more organized effort in this direction.

I try to tell the parents of what I think the child is capable of and hope they agree. If that isn't the case and they think their child is a "lost-cause", I just go on expecting what I expect and hope the child just surprises the crap out of them.

As a secondary teacher who teaches Basic English with a SPED co-teacher for half of my classes, I have the resources to maintain a high-quality, modified classroom. If mom and dad think their child is incapable of something, fine. Whatever. That is your opinion folks. I have found that when myself and my co-teacher have a level of expectation and belief that the child can be successful, he/she will succeed. Like they say, if you set the bar low, they will go low. Set it it high and although they may not be able to reach it, they will still get up higher than if you preach mediocrity.

The way I look at it, as long as I am not breaking any laws and I am making sure that all accommodations on the IEP are met, they cant complain too much...and if they do, my butt is covered and the kid STILL comes out on top.

Keeping the student "your" focus is the key to success. I hold all students with high expectations. I have discovered that many of my high school students who are struggling readers have come to believe that they are stupid and can not/will not ever learn to read. It becomes my challenge to show them that they are indeed capable of learning --- especially to read. One strategy I use with my students is to have them chart their own data. It becomes a competition with themself to see how much better they can become. This past year, I had 60 students improve their reading at least 1 grade level and 50% increase over 3 grade levels.... did I mention they were 9th grade BOYS? For the parents who cared (not all of them did), they were floored and excited. The kids left school looking forward to next year!

It depends on the position that you find yourself in. If you are talking to them as a teacher, then you can praise the student and tell the parents that they are capable of so much more and tell them exactly what you think they are capable of.  Ask the parents if they have any plans for the child and ask the parents if they would like to see their child either do more or accomplish more. If you can get the parents agreeing with you or saying yes to you several times, their objections can be handled very well.

In reply to #1: I would refer them to "learned helplessness" and carefully explain how it damages the esteem and future capabilities of the student by adhereing to it.

I have run into this a few times. Some parents are enablers, usually without realizing it. So long as their child needs them--a lot--they feel a special sense of importance in their child's life. Some, I've found, are just overprotective. They fear their child really can't accomplish more and will be hurt in the process of trying. These are difficult attitudes to deal with, the first more so than the second. One approach that sometimes worked was to explain what I believed the student could achieve, in small steps, and figure out ways to involve the parents in the process. By being involved, they were more likely to understand what was going on in class and were more likely to recognize progress when it occurred.