How to Parent Challenged Students

It is the dead of winter and students are locked up in classrooms with limited time to play outside due to unrelenting wind, cold, rain, or snow. Several students are recovering from viruses and flu. Many survive boredom by spending relentless hours playing computer games and visiting with their classmates online. Teachers are challenged with students suffering from cabin fever and mild winter depression.

Effective Classroom Strategies for Home Use

Here are 10 effective classroom management strategies that teachers use to calm students. These strategies are also effective for parents to use with their children at home.

1. Create a quiet space for children that is away from distractions and provides a nurturing environment. My classroom quiet space includes large soft huggable stuffed animals that children can lay on and read mediative books to self-regulate when overwhelmed with challenging situations.
2. Provide an assortment of fidget toys that may include squish and squeeze toys, rainbow relief sensory viewers, puzzle cubes, and fidget toys. These toys help students reduce their anxiety, relax, self-regulate, and concentrate.
3. Teach students slogans and cues to help them refocus and relax when learning difficult lessons.
4. Encourage students to breathe deeply and slowly exhale five times when feeling over-whelmed.
5. Integrate brain breaks throughout the day that may include dancing and singing with a video song, exercising, playing Simon Says with various movements, and participating in a daily run in favorable weather.
6. Have students participate in meditation and yoga activities before tests, after lunch time recess, and before large assembles.
7. Transition from one activity to another with fun brain breaks.
8. Reward students working extra hard with stickers and small incentive rewards.
9. Reward the class with points that are gained from focused learning and successful completion of assignments. A total of 50 points earned can be rewarded with special activities including pajama day, pizza party, popsicle treats, and technology day.
10. Reward the class on Fridays for a successful and productive week with 30 minutes of free play at the end of school day.

Emergency Survival Strategies

Some days are excessively difficult for struggling students. These 10 strategies can help teachers and parents reset a challenging day into a calmer day:

1. Have a staff member escort a student to a neutral area outside of the classroom for a time-out or for added time spent outdoors when weather permits.
2. Send the student to the nurse’s station or to the front office when the student is so overwhelmed with disturbing behaviors that may hurt themself or emotionally traumatize other students.
3. Conference with parents on a regular basis to ensure the parents of aware of their child’s challenged behaviors and work as a team to solve classroom misbehaviors.
4. Invite the student’s parent to volunteer in the classroom to help calm the student.
5. Partner with the parent to seek outside professional help for severely troubled students.
6. Model strategies that parents can use to help calm their child at home.
7. Encourage parents to practice regularly scheduled and relaxing bedtime preparation activities with their child that ensure sufficient sleep.
8. Encourage parents to prepare nutritional snacks and lunches that their child can easily eat at school.
9. Make sure the student drinks sufficient amounts of water daily and uses the bathroom regularly.
10. Enlist the assistance of the school nurse, counselor, and administrative staff when necessary.

When all else fails, the school staff will meet with parents to create a student success plan to monitor behaviors and ensure the student is receiving adequate support at home with partnership support at the school site.

Much success as you navigate the winter and spring quarters with your child in partnership with the classroom teacher.

Student Report Cards

Parents try a wide range of strategies to ensure their children are putting in the effort needed to bring home a strong report card. Many parents offer incentives, special meals, trips, events, and even cash to get kids to put in the work for their grades. While these tactics may work in the short term, the real goal should be to build intrinsic motivation for kids to do their best. Research shows that these external rewards (also known as extrinsic motivation) may fall short in the long run.

Talk About Academic Performance

So, what will work? Research shows that increasing motivation requires a focus on long term outcomes, values, and goal setting. These are not fully developed skillsets in children. Parents need to step in and help kids along the way. Here are some things you can do to help build this motivation from home:

1. Don’t wait for report cards to discuss grades. Teaching kids the importance of grades and to always try their best are values that are developed through regular discussion about expectations. These are not only expectations for grades, but for all activities: sports, art, music, and school.  As my mother used to say, “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”  Whether kids are cleaning their room, working on a project, or studying for a test, we have to constantly teach them to put their best foot forward.
2. Help kids set goals. Whether kids are knocking it out of the park or they are performing below your expectations, there is always room for growth. Help kids choose tangible steps for growth that will help get them to the next step. At times you will have to temper kids’ expectations and other times you will need to push a bit. Finding the sweet spot for steps towards growth is a process in and of itself. Kids need help to learn this important skill.
3. Continually remind kids that they are not alone. You are there with them to help along the way. They need to be reminded of this. Kids will need you to plan. They will need you when they succeed. Most importantly, they will need you when they fail. Kids need to know that you are in their corner and you are with them for the journey, no matter what.
4. Celebrate the wins! Yes, I realize this may sound contradictory to my opening comments, but it’s important to recognize growth and effort. I would advise against grandiose gestures. Be sure to talk up your child. Tell your child that you are proud of their accomplishments. Maybe, get some dessert to recognize their efforts and growth. If they put in the work, it’s important to be there to celebrate and to continue to encourage that effort. The words and tone you use with your child becomes their inner monologue. You have the opportunity to build an inner voice that encourages growth and effort, or one that is self-defeating. When you’re there to celebrate the wins and to offer encouragement in the losses, your kid will learn to speak encouragement to themselves without even realizing it!

Writing in the AI Era

As a school principal at a small school, I wear a lot of hats.  Educators in general do much more than just ensure kids are learning.  Schools take on the role of instruction, enrichment, parent support, wrap around services, field trips, college readiness, emotional growth, nutrition, and much more!  While I love doing this work, there are some tasks that are very time consuming and they take me into my office and away from working directly with my students and families. In recent years, I have used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help me with some of these tasks.  AI can write letters, emails, and memos for me; it can create schedules and lesson plans, and professional development slides.  And it’s the same in the classroom. Most assignments given to students can be done very quickly by using generative AI tools.  So why do kids really need to learn to do things on their own?

When Students Ask Us Why They Must Learn Specific Topics

This question has been asked about school courses for years.  Kids will ask, “Why do I need to learn this?”  or “When will I use this in my real life?”  While this may be a fair question for some topics, many things kids learn in school may not be about that specific topic of the day.  We don’t need to memorize the specific dates that the Aztecs inhabited Mexico, or the year the Magna Carta was written.  We study history so we can better understand our world and so we can learn from the past.  We learn math to help our brains develop critical and abstract thinking skills.  We learn science so we can understand how to theorize and test, and so we can better understand how the world works.  And we learn to write so we can effectively communicate our ideas to others.

Setting Boundaries for Students Using AI

AI may be a great tool, but it isn’t perfect.  When we ask AI to do things we already know how to do in order to save some time, that’s great!  That’s like me asking AI to write a letter to parents about the after-school pick-up procedures.  Could I do that myself?  Absolutely.  Does it save me time to have AI do it in a fraction of the time it would take me?  Without a doubt.  Additionally, when AI does produce my work for me, I have the skillset to review what was written so I can ensure it is up to par with my expectations.

When your child wants to take the easy way out, talk to them about the skills they are supposed to be learning and the power of having our brains master clear communication and complex thought.  Teachers assign essays so students can learn to organize thoughts and convey ideas in a way that is engaging to the audience.  Without these skills, it is possible that they will be too dependent on AI.  They will also be lacking in clear communication skills that will help them succeed in all aspects of their lives.

Remind Students They Must Learn How to Write

So when your child comes home and doesn’t want to practice their letters or write that essay, remind them that writing is still a necessary skill, even in the era of AI!

Growth Mindset: The Power of Yet

When my daughter was a toddler, one of her favorite videos to watch on repeat was The Power of Yet.  This Sesame Street song was upbeat and fun for her to dance to, but the message was great as well.  The singer was shown with a variety of muppets as they tried or practiced new skills; the message was that things may be difficult at first, but that just means we have not mastered them YET!  This is the idea behind having a a growth mindset, a very important skill or approach to life that we must teach our kids.  Without this mindset, they are likely to grow into teens and kids who cannot handle difficult situations or failure.

How to Help Our Kids Learn New Skills

Developing new skills takes time and kids need support to manage their emotions while they tackle new activities.  As parents, we want to be sure our kids can be successful, but we have to be aware that too much intervention will keep our kids from developing appropriately.  If our babies get frustrated with learning to use a spoon and we feed them to avoid the crying, we are robbing them of the time to learn that fine motor skill.  When they are learning to tie their shoes, they will get frustrated at those darn bunny ears, but if we don’t encourage them to keep trying, they will be 30 years old and still wearing Crocs and velcro shoes.  While these situations may seem silly, these are the early times when we are teaching a growth mindset.  As kids get older, the situations get more serious: learning to advocate for themselves, learning to solve problems on their own, learning to speak out against unethical or immoral acts.  As kids grow, we have to allow them to struggle as they learn new skills so they learn that failure leads to learning and success, not that failure leads to someone stepping in to do it for them.

Teaching Our Kids Critical Thinking Skills and Grit

So what can you do to help your child develop that growth mindset?  Here are some very tangible suggestions for how to push your child to develop the skills, critical thinking, and grit needed when things get tough:

1. Talk to your child openly about this concept.  When they ask for help, remind them that we learn by trying and practicing, not when others do things for us.  We need to explain that we will help by giving advice and through encouragement, but many things they will need to learn and do on their own.
2. Remind them of the Power of Yet!  We won’t be great at everything the first time we try it, but the more we try and the more we practice, the better we will get.  When they say they can’t do something, remind them that they just can’t do it YET, but that they will get better and better over time.
3. When they are a bit older, include them in household problem-solving.  When you need to create a grocery list, do a simple repair, or work out a budget, include them in the conversation.  This will model that everyone has challenges and that they can work with you to solve problems as they arise.
4. Model learning a new skill!  Whether you want to learn to play the guitar, invest, cook, or do some artistic landscaping, it’s good for your kids to see you struggling with new skills as well!  You can talk about your wins and frustrations as part of the learning process and model a growth mindset for them.
5. Work with your child to set goals.  Having goals and working towards them fosters motivation and engagement.  These can be goals for home or school, but having goals helps push us forward.

Model Growth Mindset

Parenting isn’t easy, and none of us wants to see our kids struggle.  But remember that it’s your job to help them learn how to problem solve and to learn new skills, not to solve problems or do things for them!  Teach and model that growth mindset and take advantage of those teachable moments.

Get Support for Your Child at School

Many schools these days share that they are a “PBIS school” or that they “Use the MTSS framework” for student support.  The use of these acronyms may leave some parents feeling lost or unsure about the programs that are in place for their children at school.  It’s important to know and understand the systems your child’s school uses so you can be informed when you are asking for support.

MTSS, a commonly used system for addressing student behavior and needs, stands for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support.  In this framework, efforts to support students are divided into three categories: Tier 1 (universal supports), Tier 2 (group supports), and Tier 3 (targeted interventions).  A breakdown of these tiers is provided below:

Tier 1: Universal Supports

These are supports and expectations that are in place for all students.  One of the basic elements of this tier is having a set of clear expectations for all students that are taught and enforced in all areas of the school.  Many schools use a set of expectations like, “Be safe, be responsible, and be respectful.”  These are recommended expectations because they are easy to understand and most student work and/or behaviors would fall into these three categories if they need to be addressed.  Schools also have explanations and examples of what meeting these expectations would look like in all areas of the school, including classrooms, walkways, and the cafeteria.  Tier 1 supports may also include a school token economy or rewards system, and there may be a set of both positive and negative consequences for meeting (or not meeting) these expectations.   Approximately 80-85% of students will be successful with just tier 1 level supports and interventions.

Tier 2: Group Support and Interventions

These supports will be necessary for 10-15% of the school population.  For these students, they have a specific need that is not addressed by tier 1 supports, but it is still a need that at least a small group of students may have.  For example, there may be a group of students who are bullying others or a group of students who are frequently absent from school.  These students may be referred for group therapy, additional check-ins with a staff member, or they may be referred for after-school tutoring or a club.

Tier 3: Targeted Interventions and Supports

Tier 3 supports should only be necessary for approximately 5% of the population.  These students need more targeted services and supports than most general education students, and school-based teams can work with families to determine which interventions are needed.  For example, a student may have extreme anxiety, may be far behind academically, or they may have a need for individual counseling or therapy.  Whatever the need, tier 3 interventions are typically unique and targeted to the specific needs of individual students.  To be clear, not every need will require tier 3 supports; these interventions are reserved for more serious and urgent student needs.

If you believe your child needs support, make sure you go to the school and advocate for your child.  Schools have systems, partnerships, and staff in place to bring these needs to the right people at the school so your child can get the support they need.  Using this information about typical supports at a school will help you have a great conversation with the staff at the school to help find the right support for you and your family.