Field Notes - Parents

Parents

Cathy Cocks

Working with family members at the K-12 and Higher Education levels can be challenging and frustrating. If those interactions are done well, the BTAM professional has a better chance of obtaining helpful and accurate information, and by working with and not against families, families can serve as important mitigation strategies. We can’t underestimate the importance of their role, positive or negative, with a student of concern.

A note about terminology: When referring to “parents,” I am referring to the person or persons who were a primary caregiver of a student. That could be a mother, father, aunt, uncle, sibling, guardian, etc. I also use the words “child” or “kid,” even referring to a college student because that is how a parent views them no matter their age. I also distinguish between CARE teams and Behavioral Threat Assessment (BTAM) teams. CARE teams on a college campus usually work with a wide range of students who may be having financial, academic, social, and behavioral issues. BTAM teams manage students who may or may not have started with the CARE team, but now the question is whether they pose a threat.

The other day I asked a friend who works at a college how his day was going. He replied, “Well, it’s Angry Parents Day.” If you don’t work in education, you may not be aware of this holiday. Still, you probably have your own version (Angry Customer Day, Unreasonable Employee Day, Why Does My Boss Hate Me Day, and of course the opposite of Angry Parents Day – Angry Child Day).

Angry Parents Day is a special kind of holiday. First, you don’t get the day off, and your day will likely be miserable. Second, Angry Parents Day is a pop-up holiday. It can happen at any time and isn’t limited to once a year. Sometimes, it seems like it is every day. Lastly, it’s uncanny that an energy seems to travel across the globe, so all angry parents know to call you on Angry Parents Day.

Though Angry Parents Day can happen throughout the year, the beginning of the school year is extra special with lots of extra feelings. I don’t work on a campus anymore, but I did get to experience many of these days for 30 years. Now, as a consultant, I miss out on these days, and even when I talk with parents, their anger is not directed at me. They see me a bit like a neutral country.

Let me be clear that some parents are uncooperative, unpleasant, unreasonable, and completely clueless about what is happening with their child. I don’t think that’s the majority of parents, though those types of parents take up so much energy that it feels like it. Most parents are trying their best, and they are navigating a world, especially higher education, whose inner workings can seem like a mystery. Often, their underlying feeling is fear – they are worried about their kid.

This worry can be especially strong when parents interact with CARE and BTAM teams. In this edition of Field Notes, I want to share some key points I learned from working with parents. Every parent is different, and we can’t use a broad stroke to define them.

Parents put a great deal of trust in us.

I think about the trust parents put into us, particularly at this time of year. I see small humans get on a bus, usually with a backpack twice their size, and think, “These parents are trusting schools to not only teach them, but to get them home safely.” When I worked on a campus, I watched families move their kid into the residence halls, and I felt the weight of their expectations for me to keep their kid safe, and there is only so much we can do on that front. When something horrible does happen, they trust us to handle it with compassion, care, and efficiency. We don’t talk enough about how school and campus tragedies impact the staff, because we have a job to do. But that’s for a different Field Notes (See what I just did? I moved us on, which is what we do.)

Fear is often a companion.

When CARE and BTAM teams engage with parents, we are worried about the student’s health or safety, or other people’s health and safety because of the student. Sit with that for a minute. Imagine hearing that the team thinks your kid, regardless of age, poses a threat to self or others, and that unless we can move them onto a different pathway, we’ll have to make significant decisions about their status at the institution.

Some parents may fear that any missteps they made in parenting will come to light. They may question whether they helped build the necessary skills or had the difficult conversations to prepare them for life’s challenges.

When I met with parents, I often acknowledged the fear by saying something like, “I recognize that this must be scary.” More often than not, the parents would discuss their fears. I found that I had to get through their feelings before we could move on to action items.

This may not be their first rodeo.

Though some issues will arise as new at the college level, more often they had some history that started in K-12. Though I strongly disagree with this approach, some parents would drop their kid at the residence hall doorstep and say, “Don’t call us.” They were tired. They had dealt with issues for the past 18 years and were ready for someone else to take them on. They were great at ghosting you.

A student of those parents knows their parents have checked out. The student may act indifferent or nonchalant, but they still know. It can lead to a lack of trust in us. The student may think, “They will just turn their back on me too.” These situations emphasize the importance of finding other responsible adults in the student’s life we can connect with.

On the flip side, some parents are great at the rodeo, and they can help you navigate and approach the situation. When you find parents that are honest, realistic, and caring, you feel like you won the lottery.

Related to this, K-12 and higher education need to start talking to each other. We need a way to share information without profiling or pigeonholing a student, while still giving teams a better sense of a student’s history. We don’t even have a mechanism in place to discuss trends. K-12 knows what colleges are getting in their first-year students, but no one talks about it. It’s a weird version of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Parents can be great allies.

Even if it is their first rodeo, many parents can be great allies. To do so, we have to engage early and be open. Don’t call them and then not give them any information. Listen to them, as they are the experts on their child.

Parents can be part of the problem.

It was not uncommon for a student to plead with me not to contact their parents because they would be thrown out of the house. That was rarely true, but sometimes parents were a significant part of the problem, and calling them would have likely exacerbated the issue.

Keep in mind that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) allows schools, in their professional judgment, to contact anyone who can assist when there is a health and safety concern. You are not limited to an emergency contact or a parent (The K-12 world is a little different about deciding not to contact a parent. Think of it as “contact the parent and someone else).

Teams need to identify that responsible person the student is connected to. It could be someone on campus or at home. When we use the FERPA health and safety exception, it is not to call the student out or get them in trouble; it is to engage someone who can help.

Are there times when the student truly has no one? Yes. In those situations, do you have someone who may be emerging as a connection or could start as one?

Parents want to talk to a human being.

I recently moved, which required calling many companies and governmental agencies to change addresses, internet, insurance, etc. My blood pressure would rise significantly whenever I had to go through the automated phone system. It is impossible to get a person at a cable company. Shoutout to AAA and, oddly, the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles because you can get a human right away.

What higher education tends to do, which is more infuriating than the automated system, is that some offices don’t return calls, or if they do, they hide behind policies. They don’t listen or use common sense. Part of my friend’s Angry Parents Day was because his office answers the phone. Parents call them, not because the issue is with that office, but because they can’t get anyone else to speak with them.

I have heard CARE and BTAM professionals say they will contact parents for information or to have them do something but won’t share information with the parents. Really? In what world would that be acceptable to you? We may have information that isn’t appropriate to share; however, we need to share enough to actively engage a parent. We cannot see a parent as the enemy.

We need to give grace.

I often hear professionals talk about meeting students “where they are at,” but they don’t want to give parents that same grace. To be clear, some parents are brutal, but most are trying to figure it out, and they want to do right by their kid. If we adopt an adversarial attitude or try to go toe-to-toe with a parent’s anger, the only guarantee is that the student will lose. I tend to think some parents put their anger on us because they know it’s better than taking it out on their child. I will take that anger as long as it is not verbally or physically abusive because it is not about me. It can feel personal, but it is not personal.

Finally, we need to give ourselves grace. It’s hard work that not a lot of people understand. We’re doing our best.

For those who celebrate, Happy Angry Parents Day.