Saturday, April 5, 2014
Conflict Within My Work Area
Conflict is something that we face almost everyday in life, rather it's at work or at home. The key to conflict is being able to resolve it in a positive manor. I believe the text, and articles from this week have aloud me to better handle my communication in resolving conflict with someone in a positive manner.
One recent conflict that I have experienced has been through my job with a parent. We have had a disagreement on the way of handling her child's misbehavior in the classroom. She feels as if her child is a perfect angle and never does anything wrong. I have explained to her the type of behaviors that he is displaying in the classroom such as, putting his hands on me and my TA, hitting other students, throwing chairs, falling out in the halls, sliding up and down the hallway etc... Before things had escalated I began trying several different strategies with him such as: sitting him in his own area on the carpet, giving him something to hold while on the carpet, if and then charts, rewards system etc. This is all things that I had suggested to to the parent and used in the classroom, but it seemed not to be working. After that I asked for some assistance from the behavior therapist and this again brought up and issue with the parent, but with further discussion Both the parent and I had agreed for the school therapist to come in and observe just so that she could gain so more understanding of what I was trying to tell her. Still the parent feels that everything that I was telling her was a lie. It got to the point where an emergency meeting was called and I literally had to get written documentation from other teachers that had assisted me with this student to present to the parent to show that hey everything that I am telling you is the truth. Once in the meeting the therapist Pretty much confirmed everything that I had been telling to the parent from the beginning to be true. From there I began to receive help in the classroom to better handle this child behavior, but at the need of everything the parent and I relationship is not good. It's like she was offended because I was trying to get help for her child. At the present time the relationship between the parent and I is copacetic and since the meeting there hasn't been anymore drama with the parent. The relationship between the child and I has grown stronger as well.
To help me continue to make this a positive relationship some of the strategies that have helped me are taking that of the Third Side. This will allow me to sit back and actually listen to everything the parent is trying to say, empathize and try to understand where she is coming from before I give any type of response. Also from the beginning of this situation I should have taken into account more of the three R's i would have been more considered and put my own feeling and judgments to the side so that I Would have been able to listening and empathise with the parent more so things would not have escalated as they did. Currently I think using the WIn WIn approach will be a great way for both the parent and I to share ideas and communicate better with each other.
Has anyone experienced a situation similar to this if so what strategies would you suggest to help resolve this situation?
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2 comments:
I have been in this situation before where a parent does not believe that the child would act that way in the classroom. We have 19 classrooms in our programs with minimal resources in our communities due to being so remote. Since there were a lot of classrooms expriencing the same situations our Director at the time gather a group of parents and formed a committee how how the program should deal with the behaviors. A new policy and procedure was created. I think that the best part of the policy is that the parent was held accountable. After three incidents the parent was required to attend school with the child until a meeting and plan of action was put in place. Typically part of the plan required the parent to be with the child for part of the day. We found that when the parent attending it allowed the parent to see the child in a whole new light and really allowed the parent to be the child's first teacher. We also found that when the plan included the parent attending and the plan was consistent the behavior was non exisitent within two weeks.
Chawanda,
This situation it kind of like the Scenario 1 in our Application this week! As a former Director of a Preschool, I think that whenever a parent is having a conflict with a teacher, the director need to get involved. Malinda mentioned policies and that is why they are created. The teacher has so much to do in an average day - I say involve the director.
Maria
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