Speaker outlines parents, teachers working together

By KATE BLAIN- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

While parents and teachers have distinct roles in the lives of children, it's important that they cooperate, and Rev. Michael Garanzini wants to show them how.

Father Garanzini, a psychology professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and author of "Child-Centered, Family-Sensitive Schools: An Educator's Guide to Family Dynamics," will be the keynote speaker at the Albany diocesan Catholic school teachers' convention, Oct. 13 at the Empire State Plaza in Albany.

The event gathers educators from throughout the Diocese, but Father Garanzini plans a special session geared toward parents the night before his keynote address.

"One of the things schools and homes do together is provide structural or developmental needs for kids," he explained. "The extent to which the home and school cooperate is the extent to which neither feel they're taking on the whole burden of raising the child."

Kids' needs

The priest plans to talk to parents about basic needs that children have. He gave three examples:

1. Kids need to have structure. He noted that children enjoy learning if the structure of their days is conducive to it. "When the rules are not clear, when who's in charge is not clear, all these things become very distracting," he said. "Nothing substantial is happening. The kids are not learning."

2. Kids need to feel safe. If a child doesn't feel safe either at home, on the bus to school or in school, the child brings that anxiety into the other environments, said Father Garanzini. Parents and teachers need to work together to help children feel safe.

3. Kids need to know the schedule. The only important times in a child's day are getting up, eating and "closing down," the speaker explained; and while adults often think children adapt well to change, it's difficult for them not to know how those basic times will work.

Meeting goals

Father Garanzini noted that parents who concern themselves with children's basic needs are accomplishing the most important goals.

"There are a lot of things kids don't need that we fret about: 'Are they on the right teams? Do they have the right clothes?'" he said. "That's not as important as making sure school and home are on the same page when it comes to these things."

In his keynote address, he will give the same message to teachers using different examples. For instance, he said, a child who is able to play one parent against another at home will try to play teachers against other teachers or the principal at school. In turn, a teacher who is told by a child, "My mom says I don't have to do this," may resent the parent's intrusion into the teacher's area of authority and expertise.

"It's not very profound, but it's surprising how many parents and teachers don't understand" this, he remarked. "It's often not clear that parents and teachers understand their respective roles in a kid's life. You need to know when you've overstepped your boundaries."

Checklist

The speaker called his "basic needs" theory "a good checklist" for parents and teachers alike.

"There are so many times when people have worried if they're doing enough," he noted. "This [list] is all you need to worry about. You don't have to sit with a kid and do their homework; it's more important that the kid knows there's a rule at home around when homework is done."

For educators and parents worried about doing the best for children, Father Garanzini had a simple piece of advice: "Just worry about being `good enough.' Perfect parents and schools aren't such a good idea. It's okay for kids to see we make mistakes. The `good enough parent' is a good enough goal."

(For information on the teachers' convention, call the diocesan Catholic Schools Office at 453-6666.)

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