Dr. Anthony Kane: This is Dr. Anthony Kane from the Complete Connection Parenting program with another parent tip for today. Today we are going to discuss what would you do when your child has got a conflict in school. What I mean by that, is a conflict with the teacher.
Now we have all been in school and we all know that not every teacher out there is the best person in the world. They don't all handle problems well and some have some personality problems. And if your child is a difficult child, like a child with ODD or ADHD or some other problem or just a normal active child, he is going to have conflict with teachers during he is clearing the school. So what do you do about that, what you as a parent do about that?
Well number one thing is you do not complain to your child about the teacher, how bad the teacher is, how wrong the teacher is, how the teacher makes little bit of problem because when you do that, you do two things. First of all, you undermining the authority of the teacher, when you cannot do that. And second of all, you validate your child's inappropriate behavior and you definitely don't want to do that. So what you do do is you go to the teacher privately and talk about the problem or you go to the Principal privately and talk about the problem.
And I admit there have been times when I have had to go and have my children switch from classes because the teachers were just not able to -- it was just a personality conflict that was not good for the child. But you do not want to invalidate the authority of teacher in front of the child. There is another reason you want to do this is because, throughout your child's life, he is going to run to people who are difficult, who have had their own personal problems, they don't handle situations well and react and act inappropriately and many of these times these people are going to be in positions of power.
For example, it could be a person in the Motor Vehicle department, it could be somebody at the Passport Office, it could be somebody at the Bank, it could be, it could be a Boss. And there are going to be people that your child is going to have to deal with, that have power over him, who are jerks and your child has got to have to learn to deal with these people. He cannot always run away from the problems.
So with this you should use this opportunity to teach your child how to handle situations. How to talk to teacher properly, how to avoid conflict, how to obey difficult situations, difficult requests and how to basically get through with the year whenever possible.
Again, there may come times when you just have to get the child out and get him to a better situation but you should use this opportunity first of all, you do not want to undermine the authority or respect for the teacher, because that the child must have that and you do not want to undermine the teacher in any way and you do want to validate your child's bad behavior. When you do this, just try to get through it this way.
Again, it's Dr. Anthony Kane from the Complete Connection Parenting program. If you like more parenting tips like this, please go to our website at ccparenting.com and sign up for free newsletter.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services