Study Guide To Dealing With Difficult Parents

This Study Guide provides a variety of thought-provoking questions and activities to help you implement the concepts in the bestselling book, Dealing with Difficult Parents, 2nd Edition. For each chapter of the book, the Study Guide offers discussion questions, journal prompts, and group activities. You can work on these sections independently, in book studies, in professional learning communities (PLCs), in mentor sessions, and in professional development sessions. As you work through this Study Guide, you’ll learn how to make the book’s strategies work for you, so that you can more effectively deal with parents in all kinds of challenging situations and help them get on your side to ensure students’ success.

Communicating with parents is one of the most challenging and potentially stressful tasks that teachers face on a daily basis. Whether trying to resolve a heated argument or delivering bad news, it is essential to know how to handle difficult situations and establish positive relationships with your students’ parents. In this updated second edition of the bestselling Dealing with Difficult Parents, award-winning educators Todd Whitaker and Douglas J. Fiore help you develop a repertoire of tools and skills for comfortable and effective interaction with parents. The book’s features include: Tools to help you understand parents’ motivations and how to work with them rather than against them; Detailed scripts for dealing with even the most stubborn and volatile parents; New strategies for increasing parent involvement to foster student success; An all-new chapter on the role that social media can play in interacting with parents; and A new chapter on initiating contact with parents to build positive credibility. This must-read book will equip you with the skills you need to expertly navigate even the most challenging encounters with parents, and walk away feeling that you have made a positive and meaningful impact.

Communicating with parents is one of the most challenging and potentially stressful tasks that teachers face on a daily basis. Whether trying to resolve a heated argument or delivering bad news, it is essential to know how to handle difficult situations and establish positive relationships with your students’ parents. In this updated second edition of the bestselling Dealing with Difficult Parents, award-winning educators Todd Whitaker and Douglas J. Fiore help you develop a repertoire of tools and skills for comfortable and effective interaction with parents. The book’s features include: Tools to help you understand parents’ motivations and how to work with them rather than against them; Detailed scripts for dealing with even the most stubborn and volatile parents; New strategies for increasing parent involvement to foster student success; An all-new chapter on the role that social media can play in interacting with parents; and A new chapter on initiating contact with parents to build positive credibility. This must-read book will equip you with the skills you need to expertly navigate even the most challenging encounters with parents, and walk away feeling that you have made a positive and meaningful impact.

This new supplement to the bestselling Dealing with Difficult Parents, 2nd Edition is designed to help you with the specific challenges you face as a school leader when dealing with parents. The main book, Dealing with Difficult Parents, 2nd Edition, shows how your teachers and other educators can communicate with parents more effectively. With this new supplement, you’ll learn how you, as a leader, can--and must--support and coach teachers along the way. Topics covered include how to... Make sure your teachers understand the families they’re dealing with; Help your teachers communicate effectively with parents by being positive and proactive, so problems don’t escalate to the main office; Establish expectations for dealing with parents, so teachers understand how to be appropriate even when a parent is not; Ensure your teachers feel supported by you when they’re dealing with difficult parents; and Help teachers become more confident and empowered in challenging situations. With these practical books, you’ll be able to get parents on your side so they can become a positive force in your school’s success.

Teachers, principals, school administrators, even school support staff know that it "takes a village to educate a child". Unfortunately, educators, parents and tax payers are often on different sides of issues, and work at cross purposes. Teachers get frustrated and stressed, and parents get angry, upset, and often aggressive and hostile towards school staff, often because they care so much. In this practical and hands-on book, teachers, administrators and school staff can learn to deal with even the most difficult parents, even those who are insulting and challenging. You'll learn over 100 hands-on, practical tactics to: Take control of difficult conversations with parents Maintain your own self-control when interacting with upset, and even abusive parents and members of the community. Reduce the time and stress involved in dealing with uncooperative parents. Apply the Psychology of anger, and basic psycholinguistic elements to establish rapport and bridges when conflict happens. Apply basic principles of Jiu_Jitsu and Aidido to difficult conversations. Stop verbal abuse cold, while maintaining a professional demeanor and focusing on the welfare of the student. Handle non-verbal intimidation tactics smoothly and safely. Set limits and apply them to difficult interactions when the gentler methods of verbal self-defense fail. Ideal for teaching staff, but also school principals, school superintendents and school board officials -- anyone who deals directly with parents and community members. Included is a special chapter for principals and administrators with tactics to use to support teachers and staff in building bridges with the community, rate payers, and parents.

Written to accompany the second edition of Todd Whitaker's best-selling title, What Great Teachers Do Differently, this study guide can be used by facilitators and participants in seminars, book study groups, or other professional development events. The variety of activities and strategies in this book will help teachers engage in critical thinking, collaboration, and professional growth. Each chapter includes: Key Concepts Discussion Questions Journal Prompts Group Activities Application Strategies The Study Guide not only improves your understanding and appreciation of What Great Teachers Do Differently, but also assists professional growth for teachers and principals at the K-12 levels.

Do You Have An Aging Parent Who -- Blames you for everything that goes wrong? Cannot tolerate being alone, wants you all the time? Is obsessed with health problems, real, or imagined? Make unreasonable and/or irrational demands of you? Is hostile, negative and critical? Coping with these traits in parents is an endless high-stress battle for their children. Though there's no medical defination for "difficult" parents, you know when you have one. While it's rare for adults to change their ways late in life, you can stop the vicious merry-go-round of anger, blame, guilt and frustration. For the first time, here's a common-sense guide from professionals, with more than two decades in the field, on how to smooth communications with a challenging parent. Filled with practical tips for handling contentious behaviors and sample dialogues for some of the most troubling situations, this book addresses many hard issues, including: How to tell your parent he or she cannot live with you. How to avoid the cycle of nagging and recriminations How to prevent your parent's negativity from overwhelming you. How to deal with an impaired parent who refuses to stop driving. How to asses the risk factors in deciding whether a parent is still able to live alone.

Establish cooperative relationships with all parents—even the most difficult ones—by using the author's proven communication strategies, supported by sample forms, letters, scenarios, and vignettes.