Parent Responses to Messages About Family Strengths - It"s All About Balance
A group of about 100 parents, teens, teachers, and other community members were recently exposed to the "Five Facts about Strong Families" and how they relate specifically to the academic potential of teenagers.
In brief, these five facts include the following: 1.
Strong families have a shared positive identity about themselves 2.
Strong families understand each member's unique talents and abilities 3.
Strong families are patient and kind with one another 4.
Strong families are able to find and use resources to cope with events 5.
Strong families can work together to solve problems and make decisions Several interesting and important issues were brought up by members of the audience in response to this material.
This information might well set the groundwork for discovering how to best present this type of information to similar audiences.
First, there was a lot of conversation about "how high to set the bar" in terms of parent's expectations about academic performance.
These parents wanted to flesh out how to balance the desire to see great report cards with the need to remain focused on the teenager's best unique talents and strengths (i.
e.
Fact #2).
Parents greatly appreciated the focus on strengths, and at the same time wanted more information about how to use those assets to help their sons and daughters improve their performance in school.
This is an excellent topic for further discussion with parents, especially in terms of how they already are able to strike this sort of balance in their families.
Second, and in somewhat of a related fashion, several participants reported that they thought report cards were as much a "wake up" call to parents about their level of involvement and support of their teenager's efforts in school as it is a signal about the student's own efforts and abilities.
Here, we spent a great deal of time talking about how a sense of "family teamwork" (i.
e.
Fact #5) was the key to understanding where your son or daughter's responsibilities end and where your obligations begin.
Hmmm...
this sounds like striking a balance again, doesn't it? Third, and also related to the first two issues, questions were raised by members of the audience in terms of questions about "how much is too much?" Here, much of the dialogue involved questions about helping teens to find the balance between what they are expected to do for school and any and all of the extracurricular activities in which they also want to participate.
Uh oh, there's that balance word again! In fact, balance seems to be the key to understanding much of what we have to do as family members when it comes to meeting everyone's needs during this complex developmental period.
In brief, these five facts include the following: 1.
Strong families have a shared positive identity about themselves 2.
Strong families understand each member's unique talents and abilities 3.
Strong families are patient and kind with one another 4.
Strong families are able to find and use resources to cope with events 5.
Strong families can work together to solve problems and make decisions Several interesting and important issues were brought up by members of the audience in response to this material.
This information might well set the groundwork for discovering how to best present this type of information to similar audiences.
First, there was a lot of conversation about "how high to set the bar" in terms of parent's expectations about academic performance.
These parents wanted to flesh out how to balance the desire to see great report cards with the need to remain focused on the teenager's best unique talents and strengths (i.
e.
Fact #2).
Parents greatly appreciated the focus on strengths, and at the same time wanted more information about how to use those assets to help their sons and daughters improve their performance in school.
This is an excellent topic for further discussion with parents, especially in terms of how they already are able to strike this sort of balance in their families.
Second, and in somewhat of a related fashion, several participants reported that they thought report cards were as much a "wake up" call to parents about their level of involvement and support of their teenager's efforts in school as it is a signal about the student's own efforts and abilities.
Here, we spent a great deal of time talking about how a sense of "family teamwork" (i.
e.
Fact #5) was the key to understanding where your son or daughter's responsibilities end and where your obligations begin.
Hmmm...
this sounds like striking a balance again, doesn't it? Third, and also related to the first two issues, questions were raised by members of the audience in terms of questions about "how much is too much?" Here, much of the dialogue involved questions about helping teens to find the balance between what they are expected to do for school and any and all of the extracurricular activities in which they also want to participate.
Uh oh, there's that balance word again! In fact, balance seems to be the key to understanding much of what we have to do as family members when it comes to meeting everyone's needs during this complex developmental period.
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