Supporting Families

“Increased empathy improves life for all of us.” Carol Garhart

With divorce comes a great deal of pain, grief and feelings of loss. Some compare it with experiencing a death. It's a transition when children needs as much warmth, support, consistency as possible and when most home caregivers are the least equipped to provide that. You may witness adults making many wrong decisions and not showing up as their best. People are hurting and as educators, we know that "if the parents are functioning well, the child is more likely to do well" (Lee & Bax, 2000). Therefore, our interventions cannot only focused on what we can do for our students but what we can do for their families.

Family Communication

Family involvement is indispensable to a child's success at school. Unfortunately, while families go through the logistical and emotional struggle of a divorce, that can fall to the bottom of their priority list (Steinberg et al., 2009).

Communicating with families is essential to their involvement and we, as educators must set the tone. Systematic and transparent information about issues, “two-way exchanges of ideas and opinions promoted, confidence, trust, respect and esteem” are the goals for a caregiver-teacher relationship (Steinberg et al., 2009).

Best scenario, you'll have families come to you for guidance even before changes begin. However, some may not let the school know and you'll find out from the student. In this case, you will need to initiate the conversation and that requires tact and sensitivity.

A few things to keep in mind :

  • Face to Face or Phone Calls provide facial and verbal cues which can help avoid misinterpretation;

  • Computer-Mediated Communication require “netiquette” knowledge as facial and verbal cues are absent. Ask your school for training! (Bordalba & Bochaca, 2019)

  • Attentive/Active Listening : “The goals in active listening are to develop a clear understanding of the speaker’s concern and also to clearly communicate the helper’s interest in the speaker’s message.” (Symeou et al., 2012)

Family Resources

Two things to keep in mind when providing resources to families:

  • Less is more. They are already overwhelmed. You want to make the act of getting informed seem feasible.

  • Check your sources. The more science based your resources are, the better and the most likely families will trust them.

Here are a few options I selected. I chose the following because I trust the source but also because multiple medias were involved and I thought overwhelming parents would appreciate the option to watch a video or listen to an audio track instead of reading an article. This is also inclusive of different abilities.

Family Inclusion

  • Include all caregivers, “it may be the law”! (Steinberg et al., 2009)

  • Model “other” caregiver inclusion :

    • “Does Susie have another parent who doesn’t live in your home? We believe it’s important for all parents to be involved in what we do in the classroom. What is the best way for me to contact them?”

    • If homework is sent home, instructions should emphasize “the importance of this occurring in all households.” (Steinberg et al., 2009)

  • Multiply medias : snail mail, duplicates of reports, notes, grades…

  • Put multiple slots for conference sign-ups for families with separate caregivers.

“By increasing both parents’ accessibility to you and your classroom, you reduce the likelihood that your student is going to fall through the cracks of the parents’ divided attention.” (Steinberg et al., 2009)

References :

Bordalba, M. M., & Bochaca, J. G. (2019). Digital media for family-school communication? Parents’ and teachers’ beliefs. Computers & Education, 132(1), 44–62.

Child Mind Institute, R. (2023). How to Tell Kids You’re Getting a Divorce. Child Mind Institute. https://childmind.org/article/how-to-tell-kids-about-a-divorce/

Lee, C. M., & Bax, K. A. (2000). Children’s reactions to parental separation and divorce. Paediatrics & Child Health, 5(4), 217. https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/5.4.217

Steinberg, B., Olesen, N., Datz, D., Jacobson, J., Kauffman, N., Kruzick, H. E., Probber, S., & Rick, G. (2009). INTERACTING WITH SEPARATING, DIVORCING, NEVER- MARRIED PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN.

University of Delaware. (n.d.). DIVORCE: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS. University of Delaware.