Positive Parent Interaction & Dealing with Difficult People

1. Positive Parent Interaction&Dealing with Difficult People (Creating a culture of cooperation and collaboration.) Presented By Mark Foster

3. George Bailey Talk with the person next to you about George. • What type of person is George Bailey? • What happened that caused George to react out of character? • What are the implications for schools when working with parents?

4. Home-School Relations (First Generation) The First Generation: In the effective school parents understand and support the school’s basic mission and are given the opportunity to play an important role in helping the school to achieve this mission.

5. During the first generation, the role of parents in theeducation of their children was always somewhat unclear. Schools often gave “lip service” to having parents more actively involved in the schooling of their children. Unfortunately, when pressed, many educators were willing to admit that they really did not know how to deal effectively with increased levels of parent involvement in the schools. Home-School Relations (2nd Generation)

6. In the second generation, the relationship between parents and the school must be an authentic partnership between the school and home. Many teachers believed that parents, if they truly valued education, knew how to get their children to behave in the ways that the school desired. It is now clear to both teachers and parents that the parent involvement issue is not that simple. Parents are often as perplexed as the teachers about the best way to inspire students to learn what the school teaches.

7. The best hope for effectively confronting the problem—and not each other—is to build enough trust and enough communication to realize that both teachers and parents have the same goal—an effective school and home for all children!

9. Positive Parent Interaction • Think back to the worst encounter you have ever had with a parent? • Did the parent have horns, a bifurcated tail, and a pitchfork?

10. Difficult Parents • The truth is, the difficult parents we all have to “deal” or work with look just like us. • Have you ever been a difficult person? • No coffee!!! • This can make me a very difficult person to deal with.

11. Difficult People Trading Cards: Once the music starts you will move around the room trading cards. When it stops find someone with a card that is a different color than yours. While the music is playing think back to the encounter you pondered a moment ago.

12. Dealing with difficult parents. • Okay, take a moment and answer these questions in response to the difficult person you had to deal with. • Had previous encounters been used to build trust, rapport, and respect? • How did you feel? • How do you think the parent felt?

13. Dealing with Difficult Parents • How did the situation turn out? (Was it a win/win, win/lose, lose/win, or lose/lose?) • What did you learn from the situation? • What, if anything, would you (did you) do differently after that encounter?

14. Situations • A planned meeting. • A spontaneous meeting. • An ambush!

15. People we encounter • Great parents having a bad day. • Over-protective parents who enable their children. • Parents with no skills. • Parents going through tragedy. • Parents with substance abuse issues. • Bad parents, abusive parents, and nuts.

17. Communicative Intelligence • It is very important and helpful to get to know the difficult parents we work with. Knowing what motivates them, what their needs are, and what their goals are can be very beneficial in helping build positive relationships.

18. Characteristics/Variables of Difficult People • Personality: the collection of emotional and behavioral traits that characterize a person.

19. Kahler’s Six Personality Types(From Kahler, T. (1982). Personality pattern inventory validation studies. Little Rock, AR: Kahler Communications, Inc., and Kahler, T. (1996) Personality Pattern Inventory. • Reactor • Workaholic • Persister • Dreamer • Rebel • Promoter

20. Personality Types TypeCharacter StrengthsPerception Reactor compassionate, sensitive, warm Emotions Workaholic responsible, logical, organized Thoughts Persister conscientious, dedicated, observant Opinions Dreamer reflective, imaginative, calm Inaction Rebel creative, spontaneous, playful Reactions Promoter resourceful, adaptable, charming Actions

21. Motivational Needs of Personality Types Type Needs Recognition Reactor of person/sensory stimulation Workaholic for ability to think clearly, work time structure Persister for work, convictions, and commitment Dreamer (solitude) Rebel (playful contact) Promoter (incidence, excitement)

22. Placemat Consensus • Okay, everyone get into groups of four (each color should be represented). • In working with difficult people, what are positive absolutes (necessary to effectively work with difficult people)?

23. Placemat Consensus • Okay, now brainstorm negative absolutes (what things cannot be present because they hinder collaboration and successful resolution of conflict)?

24. The LAST Principle:LISTEN • Listen:to pay attention in order to hear. • Hear:to gain knowledge of by hearing, to heed, to learn, to attend to. • It is very difficult to really listen when thinking about your next verbal flurry (Real men learn to listen.)

25. APOLOGIZE • Apoligize: to express regret. • Empathize:to experience as one’s own the feelings of another. • (Empathy defuses very volatile situations, but doesn’t necessarily mean concession.)

26. SOLVE • Solve: to find an answer for or solution to. • It doesn’t mean they are always going to like it!

27. THANK • Thank:to express gratitude; conscious of benefit received. • Must be genuine. Don’t patronize! You can get better at this with practice.

28. Enough is Enough • You don’t have to put up with abuse in any situation. If the person you are dealing with is vulgar, threatening, loud, in need of deodorant or belligerent, calmly let them know that the meeting is over and thank them for coming. • Okay, just kidding about the deodorant, but how many of you can relate?

29. Developing Self • It is very important to interact and communicate intelligently with parents in order to build a positive relationship. • It is equally important to meta-cognitively prepare ourselves for interactions with parents, students, colleagues, and patrons.

30. The Four Agreements • 1. Be Impeccable With Your Word. • (Never promise things you cannot deliver; when something happens that doesn’t allow you to keep your word, apologize ahead of time.) • Being impeccable with your word builds trust.

31. The Four Agreements • 2. Don’t take things personally. • (Know who you are, what you believe, and be strong.) • When people start taking things personally it breeds paranoia. • Rude, inconsiderate people who say mean things are speaking of themselves not others.

32. The Four Agreements • 3. Don’t make assumptions. • (Perception becomes reality.) • Always try to give others the benefit of the doubt. • We operate on paradigms in a world that breaks paradigms everyday.

33. The Four Agreements • 4. Always do your best. • (We can always do our best. Our best looks different from day to day.) • When we do our best our good starts becoming great.

34. Johnny the Bagger • http://www.stservicemovie.com/

35. Works Cited • Lezotte, Lawrence W. Correlates of Effective Schools: The First and Second Generation. Effective Schools Product ltd., Okemos, MI, 1991. • Ruiz, Don Miguel. The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book. Amber-Allen Publishing, Inc., San Rafael, CA, 1997.