August 01, 2008, Home matters most, By James Olsen, Ph.D.

Many decades of research clearly demonstrate that what happens at home for the child has an overwhelming and probably determining impact on that child’s life. The home environment is central to who the child becomes as a person.

The National Education Longitudinal Study was a sample of nearly 25,000 eighth graders that looked at four main areas of parental involvement: home discussion and supervision, school communication and participation.

Of all the key factors affecting the child, home discussion was highly related to academic success in school. If a teacher tells parents that he or she is having trouble with their child, then the parent needs to follow through with the child. This may mean reprimanding—as difficult as that may be for some parents—the child. It can also mean punishment like the curtailing of rewards such as grounding. When a young child shows disdain for adults as an adolescent sometimes does, it’s simply not acceptable.

We now have a new politically correct language: schoolspeak. Instead of saying that a kid is lazy, we say, “He’s not putting forth his best effort.” Instead of saying that the child is cutting up in class and creating a lot of problems for everyone including the kids who want to learn, we say, “Sometimes John is somewhat disruptive and doesn’t follow directions.” Or when a child speaks in an unacceptable way to an adult and should be reminded that he cannot talk to adults that way, we say, “Sometimes John talks somewhat rudely to adults.” And parents often reply, “Don’t tell me how to raise my child.”

Schoolspeak is accompanied by a remarkable capacity for rationalizing a youngster’s mistakes. Late for school? Dad didn’t get you there on time. No homework? Mom served dinner too late. In a recent court case, parents argued that while it was true their child had cheated on a test, it was actually the teacher’s fault because she had left the tests on her desk! Teachers, like doctors and lawyers, now buy liability insurance! One large insurer is Forrest T. Jones, who says that the number of teachers buying liability insurance has increased 25 percent in the last five years.

Teachers now document everything with a paper trail. If they meet with a student alone, they’re sure the door is open. And when a teacher has in his class parents with a higher professional and economic status than theirs, these parents are often less respectful and more likely to tell the teacher how she ought to be teaching. The new emphasis on student’s rights means the teacher has to become something of a legal scholar to be sure of her legal standing.

Parents want to do what’s right for their kids and so does the teacher. The best relationship between the parties, I believe, is for the parent to listen carefully to what the teacher says, work with the teacher to correct behavior where it’s necessary and understand the teacher is a professional like a doctor or a lawyer. The teacher needs to be an advocate for the child, not regard the parent as an adversary and learn as much as she can about the child from the parent. If we don’t work together, we will fail together.

The Olsens have worked in the field of education for 95 collective years. They can be contacted at 154-4374 or email sml 154-4374@prodigy.net.mx.