Supporting Parents and Families During Meetings

Yet another sign that I am running on empty: I emailed this video to myself as a reminder and now I can't remember where it came from! If you wrote an article and highlighted this video, thank you for the inspiration! Oh, and if you find my brain, will you tell it to kindly find its way back to my head? Thanks so much! ;)

Anyway, this video is designed for parents and helps prep them for a big meeting at school. I think it's easy to forget how stressful these meetings can be for parents because we attend them all the time and, more importantly, it's not our child being academically and/or behaviorally "dissected," so to speak.

Imagine walking into a room filled with teachers and administrators...it's like an interview. You sit there, hoping you have good answers to their questions and that you understand everything that's being discussed. It's stressful, to say the least. We have to remember that parents come to these meetings as beginners most of the time; they are not sure what to expect. Our job is to help prepare them before they come to the meeting so that there can be a productive, team approach.

As school counselors, we are often in charge of scheduling meetings with parents. How do you help explain the meeting process? Any tips for other school counselors?