Developing Relationships with Families

UNDERSTANDING THE REALITIES OF FAMILY LIFE

 

Parent Participation

LEP students, as well as others, whose parents participate to some degree in their education show higher achievement and are less likely to drop out of school (Hart, 1988). Soliciting parental participation is not easy. Many parents are as limited in English proficiency as their children, frequently more so, and manifest culture-based as well as socioeconomic reasons for nonparticipation (Wedel & Cornell, 1991).

Often, the only contact schools make with parents of LEP students is to report delinquent behavior (Wedel & Cornell, 1991). Parents are as sensitive to rejection as are their children and often fear encounters with teachers or other school personnel or with Anglo U.S. parents at parent organization meetings or similar functions (Wedel & Cornell, 1991). Nevertheless, one can initiate and promote positive communication with parents, perhaps recruiting the help of a translator, and can demonstrate friendliness and a genuine interest in the children.

As a beginning, send home some of the student's good schoolwork along with a few words of praise. Again, a translator may be helpful. Through this simple act, parents can see the school as a place where their child can be successful and the teacher as a person who recognizes that people of their culture can accomplish good things. Self-esteem and family ties benefit. The student begins to form a positive identity with the school and to perceive it as a place to gain recognition and acceptance, perhaps thereby making gangs, promiscuous sexual encounters, drugs, and similar avenues for acceptance and recognition no longer necessary (Reyes & Jason, 1993).

Home

Back