Sunshine Phone Calls!

Do you get sunshine calls? It's good to hear the good things our kids are doing at school too!

I pick up my phone and see I've missed a call... It's the school... My mind instantly says "now what did he do?"... Check the message only to be give almost zero information. I am left feeling nervous anxious and concerned that after this week already being hard I am getting more bad news. UGH!

Since our eldest has started school there have been very few, if any, positive phone calls from the school. After a number of horrible calls in grade 2 I found myself in the principals office in tears saying I didn't know what to do. That all the negative calls were causing me stress and anxiety.

As I've written in other blog posts, we've been working with our eldest since he was in preschool to support him and any teachers to provide answers. It's been a tough 7 years of working through issues and making appointments.

The phone call yesterday led me to sending an email to the school, indicating that it's very hard for me as a parent to receive a message with zero detail. This is made worse when all I get are negative phone calls telling me all the misbehavior he's had over course of a few days.

So what am I hoping that as a parent or teacher or advocate for a child with a learning challenge you'll get from this blog post?

Please as a parent, speak up! Work as a team with your child's teacher or teachers. Make sure you can express how things such as phone calls and constant negative or challenging calls makes you feel. I kept having to say I didn't understand how in a full school day there was never anything good happening. It took me saying that a number of times for them to begin to list good things.

If you are working with outside agencies please share. The schools will do their best with the resources they have, but they need your help. Your help as a parent can be as simple as reinforcing the need to behave in class, do their homework or seeking support from experts.

As a teacher.... Please remember that your students parents are most likely trying to come to terms with their child's needs. As a parent we sometimes need time and relationship building before we can move forward. Is there something you can do to help that? Sure is and I am going to suggest it....

MAKE A SUNSHINE CALL.... A what? A sunshine call: a phone call, you might make maybe once or twice a week, telling the family something amazing their child did. It can be something as simple as "Today Samantha was able to sit for the whole story on the carpet!" or "Today Tom put his hand up during class discussion to be called upon!". These might seem like little things but trust me they are not! They are little things that warm our hearts as parents with children who are struggling. From time to time we need to be reminded that our children can and are good.

Think of it like Pavlov's Theory of behaviour can apply. If every time you see a bee or dog and get stung or bit you're going to avoid that animal and be afraid when it's near. Your brain starts sense danger because it's trained it self to avoid that stressful thing or hurtful thing. It's the same with constant negative phone calls. It becomes a trigger for being hurt. If you begin to build a safe space where it's not always negative the phone calls wont trigger that response.

The hope with this post is that teachers, parents, school board staff and administrators can begin to find ways to build positive bridges between parents and school. We as teachers and school board staff need the support of parents. As parents we need the support of teachers to help create positive outcomes. Together if we work together our outcomes are likely to be more positive all around!