Family Perceptions

While continuing to wonder about conversations I am now wondering how family members receive conversations about their children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  When searching for articles online I came across this one:

http://lauriestroupe.hubpages.com/hub/living-with-an-odd-child

This is an article written by a parent who has a child with ODD.  She describes multiple tough situations that she had to overcome being the parent of this child and how she was lucky it didn’t affect her marriage.  At the end of the article she mentions how relieved she was the first time someone had told her that they knew what she was going through with her child.  Following the end there is a place for people to comment and from reading the comments I have noticed that most people feel the same way.  They are happy that they are not the only ones going through situations like these and that they are able to talk to people who have a family that is similar to theirs. 

After reading this article I had my family member read it to see what her reactions were.  She agreed with most of the feelings that people were saying they had.  She felt hopeless and it was very difficult when people didn’t understand what she was going through.

I believe in order to communicate with the family the teacher needs to know information about the disability or disorder.  For a disorder like ODD the child acts normal to people who are not close to them such as, the public, but tests the people are close to them.  Only a person who knows and understands ODD will understand this making it very important for the teacher to know about information such as this and any other disorder or disability that she or he comes across.

This blog has led me to wonder if there are any articles that written by a person with ODD.  I will have to do some digging to find this.

How to Hold a Difficult Conversation

Continuing from my last blog I began wondering once again how to hold a difficult conversation with others.  I believe that this is important because there are going to be multiple times throughout a given year that a teacher will have hold a difficult conversation with a family member or vise verse.  After researching I found this website:

http://humanresources.about.com/od/interpersonalcommunicatio1/qt/feedback_com6.htm

This article contains steps to provide feedback in a difficult conversation.  The steps were actually written for employees and bosses but they hold true for teachers as well.  For example, the first step says to seek permission to provide feedback, state that you have feedback you’d like to share, and ask if it’s a good time to hold a conversation.  I believe when talked to a family its important start the conversation by telling the family something positive about their child and then expressing the need to provide feedback.  Another step that is listed is using a soft entry and not jumping right into the feedback.  This goes along with stating something positive about their child to show the parents that they can trust you and you are trying to work as a team to provide the best education for their child. 

At the bottom of the article there is a quote that really stuck out at me.  “Care enough to hold the difficult conversation.”  This stuck out at me because the article talks about how most people are uncomfortable providing feedback about an individual’s personal dress or habits, as the person receiving the feedback.  At times when a teacher is talking to a family member they may not want to hear the teacher’s feedback and it’s important for the teacher to care enough to address the issue with the parent or caregiver.

I am now wondering how family members will receive conversations about their children with ODD.  I will have to see what I can find in my research.