PARENTS ARE SCHOOLS’ PARTNERS

AURORA L. MALLARI

Critical to students’social and emotional well-being is a strong partnership between the school and parents.

It is not enough to provide students with strategies for dealing with difficult situations they face every day. They also need a lot of support at home.

In school, there should be adequate parent participation. Parents must attend meetings where they can learn strategies to help them cope with the various stressors; and specific stress-reduction and conflict-resolution strategies at home.

Essential is the collaboration between the school and the students’parents. The latter’s involvement is one of the many ways in which schools recognize how critical the roles of parents are in the social and emotional learning of children.

Schools must also provide parents with opportunities to participate in the school’s efforts to support social and emotional learning. This reflects the importance placed on having parents as partners in doing what is best for each child.

Parents should also meet with teachers throughout the year to discuss issues related to their child’s academic and social-emotional development.

There should also be meetings about the role of parents, the role of home, and the role of school in promotion of social-emotional learning.

According to Maurice Elias, Rutgers University psychology professor and author of several books on emotional intelligence, efforts are critical to fostering emotionally intelligent youth.

He said that schools should go one step further and develop strong relationships with all members of their surrounding community.

This is essential, he said, if we are going to address the challenges that kids face in a very sophisticated society.

— oOo—

The author is Master Teacher I at Sta. Maria Elementary School, Macabebe West District