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You are listening to Supporting Supporters, a ChangetoChill podcast. This is a free mental well-being resource offered by Allina Health. My name is Tonya Freeman. I’m a licensed psychologist and regional lead psychologist with Allina Health.       

These podcast episodes are aimed with the goal of providing quick, tangible resources and information from Allina Health mental health providers on a range of mental health topics relevant to day to day lives of the listener. We invite you to join us in any way you please, whether you sit back and kick your feet up, or as you engage in movement, your daily commute, or as you prepare for your day. However you choose to join us, we welcome you and we honor your time.      

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Hi everyone! My name is Tonya Freeman, I am an early lifespan primary care psychologist with Allina Health and I want to start by thanking you for listening to our podcast, where we are hopeful to cultivate a space to give back to you. Our teachers who are day in and day out serving our next generations in a time of so much uncertainty. Thank you again for showing up today. This podcast project is especially meaningful to me as a first-generation scholar of higher education. Without teachers who supported, motivated, and cared for me, I certainly would not be where I am today and for that I am grateful. Because of those teachers, I have become a lifelong learner and strive to find opportunities to give back and serve in unique ways.   

I value your time and feel honored you have chosen to spend a few minutes with me, for you, your students, your family, and your community as without filling your cup, it is significantly more difficult to serve others, even if serving others fills your cup. There are certainly components that drain our cups completely dry, even when we love our jobs, especially in times of so much change and uncertainty. This episode covers having difficult conversations with parents, caregivers, or families.  

About this series: In covering this series of topics I think it is important to note the focus on “collaborating” with families as opposed to communicating with families. While certainly both can be true and occur together, in this series, I take the approach of collaborating and curiosity as opposed to solely providing information. The reason for this is when we are in situations where we are providing information that may be difficult to process, accept, or even hear, it is important that there is connection to hopefully cultivate trust. In the end, this benefits the teacher, the child, and the family. There is no doubt or question that within the last several years we all as individuals in the world have been faced with increased stressors, unpredictable change, increased demand, and often limited resources. This is a point of connection for us all. As hard wired social beings, we crave to understand and be understood. Some of you may be thinking “not me, I am introverted” and that may be true, and at the same time, I would still propose that it is more desirable to have increased awareness, understand and feel understood. The same is true for our families, as they navigate these times of change. I encourage you to hold this thought as we navigate collaborating with families to engage in potentially difficult conversations. 

Topic one: what difficult conversations are you referring to?  

This topic can be generalized to many situations, academic concerns, social development, concerns for nutrition or adequate resources, mental and emotional concerns, developmental delays, suspicion of substance use, truancy, disrespect in the classroom, etc., Whatever the topic may be. I encourage you right now to think about a topic or recent situation where you noticed something potentially concerning for a student and felt anxious or maybe even angry about how that conversation may go with a family. Take 30 seconds to get an idea in mind.  

Once you have the topic or situation in mind, I want you to think about your knee jerk response. Is your inclination to avoid the conversation? E-mail the family? Question whether you have the support and resources to address the situation? Question your own suspicion? Consult with a colleague? Defer and refer to someone else to provide the information? What is your knee jerk response to addressing difficult conversations? None of these responses are wrong, by any means. Rather, they are quite natural and often dependent on our own biological, psychological, and social experiences and resources. This is important for us to tap into with regard to how we personally respond to difficult conversations and topics. 

Now, I want you to think about your ideal situation of how parents may respond. For most, an ideal outcome is for parents to understand, comply, and develop a plan. Sound farfetched? This outcome is more realistic dependent on HOW we approach the conversation. In developing today’s script, I combined educational resources, social psychology, cognitive behavioral, and systems psychology frameworks.  

Topic Two: The conversation 

In initiating the conversation, it is first important we identify the concern, either individually or consultation with a colleague (where appropriate). Once the concern is identified, asking ourselves, what is my hope? Is it to develop a plan? To see if the parents are also noticing these concerns? To gather more information? What is my hope? Knowing my concern and hope, I can then develop best course of action. In this situation let’s say that is talking with the family.  

We first want to think about how to contact the family. This may be dependent on historical communication with the family. For example, is it difficult to reach the parent by e-mail or phone? Is there an upcoming parent teacher conference? Would it be more ideal to ask for parents to come to school or schedule a virtual call? Let’s say the hope would be for a phone call. How we invite the family can go a long way. One suggestion may be to call the parents, be sure you have the right contact, and identify who you are, identify this is not an emergency but rather you are hoping for a few minutes of their time to connect and ask if now is an appropriate time or if they may have better availability at another time.  

Once the time is clear, either in the moment or a future date, thank them for their time and identify a hope to connect on recent observations and or concerns to learn if they are noticing similar concerns at home. The start of the conversation sets the tone for the call. Again, our hope is to connect and collaborate as opposed to increase defensiveness or distrust.  

You may choose to say something like “I appreciate you taking time to connect with me as I know we are all managing busy schedules. My hope is that we can discuss strengths, recent observations, any potential changes at home, and learn if you are also seeing these changes or observations.”  

 Here you may choose to start with general, positive or protective factors for the child. For example: “Sarah has typically arrived to class on time, completed her homework, and typically asks questions. She typically shows engagement in the classroom.”  

Then identify changes or observations: “however, recently, Sarah’s homework assignments have been late or incomplete, which is not typical for her. I tried to talk with Sarah about this but when I ask for her to stay after, she often leaves the class in a large group before I can get to her. I have noticed her friend group has also changed.”   

This may be a good place to pause before providing further detail and engage with the family to seek input:  

“It is really important to me to learn your perspective, have you noticed any of these changes?”  

This will provide the family an opportunity to agree or disagree and potentially share insight if this has occurred for the student before. This may also be a good place to ask if there have been any recent changes or stressors within the family. 

“Have there been any changes or stressors within the family that could potentially be contributing?”  

Connect to identify potential plans moving forward:  

“Thank you for all that you have shared with me, it truly helps me to have more context so that I can better understand the situation to help Sarah and your family.” 

You may then offer input with something such as: “I am wondering if you are aware of anything that has historically or currently helped Sarah in times of distress?”  

If the family is upset or not in agreement with you at this point, you may offer a pause, note concern, and offer a time to reconnect. As an example:   

“I understand that some of the behaviors I see may not be occurring at home. It is certainly my goal to help Sarah and your family and I will continue to monitor any changes that occur. I do hope that we can reconnect in a week or two to determine if these observations are still occurring at school and if you have noticed anything at home. If you have further questions or concerns after today’s call please do not hesitate to contact myself or the school guidance counselor for support.”  

It may be desirable here to explain to parents how your differing viewpoints are not going to be helpful to the child or the situation, however, it is often important we identify points of connection to hopefully set the tone for future engagement as opposed to potentially increasing the likelihood of closing the door and developing tension between the family and school system and putting the child in the middle.  

After the conversation  

Regardless of the outcome of the conversation, my suggestion would be to take 2-5 minutes to reflect on how you are feeling in your body, what thoughts you are noticing, and any reactions coming to surface. This may be a good time to connect with a colleague, to document the conversation, and certainly, throughout this podcast, you will see we are large advocates for taking this time to give back to yourself. Whether this be through a distress tolerance tool, cultivating an attitude of gratitude, engaging in diaphragmatic breathing, or simply reminding yourself of your why, this would be a wonderful time to connect with yourself, others, and identify a way to separate from the conversation.  

While this certainly was not a comprehensive or one size fits all approach to engaging and collaborating with families on difficult topics, my hope is you walk away thinking about what comes to mind for you with difficult conversations, how you can connect with families, and how you take care of yourself after doing so. It is my true hope that this topic cultivates curiosity around different approaches and forms of communication.  

Thank you for all you do for our students and community at large. I cherish your work and your time. See you in the next episode, Dr. Freeman.  

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On behalf of Allina Health and Change to Chill, we thank you for taking the time to listen to our podcast. We do hope you enjoyed this episode and we hope that you join us in other episodes covering even more interesting topics with mental health providers. As always, you can find the show notes and any accompanying research and tools at the change to chill website at www.changetochill.org. In health and wellness, take care and see you next time!