Ever feel like the connection between home, school, and the community is constantly buffering?
These “connections” can be challenging…particularly given time constraints, language barriers, and various personalities.
At the same time, we all know and tend to agree that it is important to have strong connections to best support children’s growth and development.
To create strong connections, many schools, childcare centers, and other educational agencies implement communication plans to keep everyone informed. These efforts can include quarterly report cards, notebooks that go back and forth between settings, agency or district newsletters, conferences, and more recently, e-updates regarding a child’s behavior.
As it relates to this latest trend (i.e., text messages and/or emails sent to families or folders/papers with children’s behavior status indicated), which seem like a quick and convenient way to keep others in the “loop” regarding the child’s day, have we considered the collateral damage they can cause?
As with our concerns regarding public displays of children’s behavioral performance in classrooms, we have concerns with systems that allow teachers to share (in real time) how the child is performing.
Now, don’t get us wrong, we don’t have anything against technology, or the use of technology to centralize information, share information, and enhance collaboration. What we question…is the value of “publicly” announcing where a child’s clip is on a color chart or the color of the card they had at the end of the day.
Does it tell parents and caregivers much more than whether or not the child was compliant? Does it tell parents and caregivers anything about the child’s learning, successes, need for support? And, does it clearly share the why behind the rating or what should be done as a next step?
From the parent or caregiver perspective, there can be a lot of anxiety around these regular reports. Even though this is not the intention, it can feel like educators care more about compliance than teaching. And from the educator’s perspective, it can feel like parents or caregivers aren’t taking behavioral issues seriously or doing the “right” things at home.
In our opinion, what is needed is a “reboot” of the connection and communication between the school, home, and community…and real time behavior status updates aren’t the answers.
To support young children in learning how to self-regulate (and, therefore, to be ready for learning), adults in home, school, and community contexts must get on the same page. Many educators use publicly-displayed behavior systems as a means to this end; but as noted above, there are unintended consequences that can take the home/school connection “offline.”
Educators and caregivers need solutions (aka replacement behaviors) for communicating consistent expectations and feedback across the child’s daily routines and activities.
COMMUNICATING CONSISTENT EXPECTATIONS
Educators and caregivers at home, at school, and in the community should communicate the expectations they have for children in a clear and straightforward manner to both children AND adults across children’s lives. Expectations should be similar across all contexts. This requires ongoing communication among adults to ensure expectations are being described to children in a meaningful and consistent manner.
In other words, caregivers should be familiar with expectations in the school and community while educators should be familiar with the expectations caregivers have at home and in the community contexts in which the child participates. This way, there is no inadvertent miscommunication. It also helps children know that the adults in their lives, across places and situations, communicate what is going on in each environment with one another.
TAKE ACTION: At the beginning of the year, educators can share classroom/school expectations with caregivers who in turn can share home/community expectations with educators. Ideally, educators and caregivers “sort” these expectations into themes that apply across settings (and across larger groups of children). For example, “be respectful” applies to how children speak to teachers and peers in school as well as siblings and parents at home, while “follow-through” applies to completing assignments and homework from school as well as cleaning up after themselves at home. Identifying key themes (preferably in the form of words or phrases, or perhaps even as a visual reminder) can help both educators and caregivers to explain expectations in a way that the child can apply across people, places, and situations. Displaying these key thematic expectations in a place where children can see them in the home and the school can support children in making the connection between expectations across different environments.
COMMUNICATING CONSISTENT FEEDBACK
We already know targeted, specific, and timely feedback is critical; but it is equally important to ensure that the nature of feedback that children receive is similar across people, places, and situations. Feedback between adults is just as necessary.
In other words, it is important that adults are providing children with a consistent message. The type of feedback that a child receives when he/she does not meet consistent expectations should be as similar as possible across people routines, and activities. This means that adults in home, school, and community contexts need to communicate with one another to ensure that the nature of the feedback they provide is both intentional and consistent.
TAKE ACTION: The key to consistent feedback, both individually and across adults, is to be intentional. Using an instructional sequence can help, both caregivers and educators, to consider what they want to teach children through the expectations that they have, as well as to plan for the type of feedback that they plan to provide depending on how children respond to expectations. The sequence consists of five steps, and prompts educators and caregivers alike to become more intentional.
It is equally important adults share what is happening in the home and school with one another. One method to keep one another up to date includes using a daily journal where the caregiver fills out a sheet (or electronic form) describing how the child slept and ate, as well as any other pertinent information; and the educator in return shares how the child ate, what the child learned, information about the child’s emotional regulation during the day, and any other relevant information.
One last thing…children need to feel valued- even (and indeed especially) when they are feeling out of control. Adults in the child’s life should work together to ensure that their interactions with the child are positive.
TAKE ACTION: While it can be hard to keep a level head in situations where a child engages in especially challenging behavior, all adults need to take a deep breath and model self-regulation. By bringing the home/school connection back online and providing consistent expectations and feedback that seek to connect, validate, listen, and restate how children feel in relationship to their behavior and experiences, adults in the home, school, and community can support children in being ready to learn.
How reliable have the school/home connections you have been part of been? What seems to have interfered with a stable connection, and what strengthened it? Share your thoughts in the comments!