Helicopter parents - Just4SBMs

H e l i c o p t e r pa r e n t s

Dealing with

‘helicopter parents’ Over-protective parents can sometimes exert too much influence over school policy, to the detriment of those children whose parents are less vocal. Alan Cowley demonstrates how SBMs can influence a strategy through staff training and the development of best practice in non-teaching staff which ensures that every voice is heard

A

s one of the country’s leading advocates for Parental Engagement I often have conversations with people within education who have obviously misunderstood what Parental Engagement is. They mistakenly see it as a global term to describe the multitude of relationships, communications and dealings that schools have with parents.

13

Furthermore, those who have been unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of parental complaints quite often see Parental Engagement as an extension of this, and understandably are not keen to promote any strategy that will generate further conflict and exacerbate the corrosive ‘us and them’ attitude that the behaviour of some parents engenders.

just4SBMs n ISSUE 32 Autumn 2013

In actual fact nothing could be further from the truth. Parental Engagement is all about how schools can help parents support their child’s learning in the home.

It should have nothing to do with parental complaints – although it is clear that these school/parent confrontations serve to create an atmosphere of distrust in which it becomes increasingly difficult to establish meaningful Parental

H e l i c o p t e r Pa r e n t s

Engagement. Only a fool would fail to acknowledge the damage that rude and over-demanding parents can have on not only the education of their own children but, if left unchecked, the education of other children as well.

As a regular public speaker I’ve lost count of the number of conferences and courses I’ve addressed over the years.

However, I certainly remember the first time that I was ever heckled.

It was at a Specialist Schools and Academies Trust conference at the National Motorcycle Museum.

As one of the national steering committee for their Engaging Parents in Raising Achievement Campaign, I’d been asked to give a thought-provoking key note and had chosen to speak on ‘Why schools should scrap their PTA’.

The 200 or so delegates were made up of headteachers who had been asked to bring a parent along with them; most had brought either a parent governor or the chair of their PTA.

PTAs and governing bodies are dominated by a minority of parents who are skilled communicators and networkers The argument I set out was based upon my own observations as a school leader but backed up by recent research that showed that PTAs and governing bodies are dominated by a minority of parents who are skilled communicators and networkers, usually have a higher education qualification, and a well-practiced ability for

organisation. The research by Professor Gill Crozier also looked at the impact this group of parents had on other parents within the school and found that many parents, especially those we used to classify as ‘hard-to-reach’, saw this ‘elite’ group as typifying what the school thought parents should be like, serving to underline the feeling of alienation that they already had. In effect this group inadvertently put off the very parents we need to encourage if we’re going to narrow the achievement gap.

I had just reached this stage in my presentation when, as if to underline my point, a man at the back stood up, called me arrogant, said I was talking rubbish, and asked me to leave the stage. I remember thinking “I’m being heckled. What do I do?” Naturally, over the intervening years dozens of possible ripostes illustrating my dazzling wit and sparkling repartee have come to mind, but at the time I quite simply froze; I had no idea what to do or say. However, I’m delighted to say that a split second later most of audience turned around silencing the heckler with comments that left him in no doubt that they agreed with what I was saying.

The phrase we use to describe these parents changes over time. They have been labelled ‘pushy parents’ and ‘overzealous parents,’ but more recently as ‘helicopter parents’.

The appellation referring to the way in which they appear to ‘hover’ over their child fending off all unpleasantness, an act no doubt more readily facilitated by the advent of mobile phone technology.

I’m sure you know that the overwhelming number of adults who make up the parent body of your school are perfectly reasonable and affable people.

However, many schools have

just4SBMs n ISSUE 32 Autumn 2013

a few parents who seem to be lodging complaints whenever they contact the school. It is not for me to question their motives.

Researchers however have suggested that their behaviour is motivated by a variety of factors, all of which stem from a desire to protect their child. It’s just that this desire is largely misplaced.

Sometimes, especially if they feel defensive, they resort to a bullying and over-bearing manner. Other parents know the high regard that heads have for the public image of their school and can sometimes exploit this to get their own way.

The long and short of it is, it is not unusual for a school to have a very small body of highly influential, vociferous parents who are prepared to make life uncomfortable for staff in order to get what they want. These parents exert not only a negative and unrealistic impact on their children’s life experiences, but also create an atmosphere in which home/school relationships in general can be viewed negatively by school staff. They really are doing no one any favours.

So how can you, as the school business manager, influence your school’s response to the problems that helicopter parents generate?

The strategy I’d suggest has many facets which are of equal importance. At the heart of it sits a vision backed up by a policy that delivers the desired outcomes.

Staff training is paramount, especially with the admin team who are invariably the first point of contact with a school. A level of professionalism that is capable of responding warmly to all incoming phone calls, regardless of who is making them, is vital.

All callers should feel that their call is important and their contact welcome. It should not be the job of the receptionist to comment on any problems raised but to find

14

H e l i c o p t e r Pa r e n t s

out the nature of the problem so that it can be referred to the most appropriate member of staff. If that person is not available at that moment in time, callers should be asked if they would prefer a call back or if they’d like to explain the problem in an email or letter. It is also useful to ask what the nature of the call is, so that if it does concern a problem, a note can be made to ensure that it has been responded to. It is also important that the caller should be given some indication of the probable response time.

Returning calls to parents with a complaint is rarely a pleasant task and it is understandable that staff sometimes don’t relish the idea of calling. If the member of staff returning the call feels that it could become a heated conversation it might be a good idea to have another colleague taking written notes of what is being said. However, it is unprofessional not to respond.

I was once called into a school to help improve their Parental Engagement following a failed Ofsted inspection. A common concern raised by parents in their pre-inspection questionnaire was that the office staff were slow to respond to their phone calls.

When I looked into the issue it was clear that the reception staff were passing messages on but teaching staff were not returning the calls as requested. The admin team had no way of knowing if the messages they were passing on in good faith were being addressed and, as a result, it was them who looked bad when the parent called again asking why their call hadn’t been returned. What the school needed was a policy that set down absolute limits on how long it should take to respond to phone calls, and the development of an awareness that failing to fulfil a task invariably presents a problem for colleagues. Once the policy is in place, members of staff who do

14 15

not return calls promptly or within the policy guidelines should also be spoken to by a senior member of staff.

The way that schools canvas opinion from parents is also worthy of consideration. The standard approach of sending questionnaires home actually plays into the hands of parents typified as ‘helicopter parents’.

Research shows that these parents actually have a distorted influence on school policy as they always respond to requests for input, whereas parents who are less engaged often fail to respond.

If not properly managed, this can result in the culture of a school becoming more adapted to that of the former group and less so for the latter group. It also convinces the ‘helicopter parents’ that their views are more important than those of other parents.

Returning calls to parents with a complaint is rarely a pleasant task One way of eradicating this is to use focus groups and working parties as a means of canvassing parental opinion. A small group of parents that represents a true cross-section of the school’s parent population are contacted individually, either by phone or face-to-face, and invited to take part in a one-off group that meets on just two or three occasions. As part of the set up, parents can be promised that unless they request otherwise, they will not be invited to take part in other focus groups, so they can be assured that the commitment is time limited and manageable. It also ensures that the opinion you are receiving is a

just4SBMs n ISSUE 32 Autumn 2013

true reflection of parental opinion across the school.

I believe that the maxim ‘the customer is always right’ isn’t always right. Parents who have a natural tendency to protect their children can often misread situations or get the wrong end of the stick. Some parents make a habit of doing this more frequently than others. Their concerns have to be listened to and treated seriously. If the school is inundated with the same complaint by numerous parents, action needs to be taken.

Many schools are not good at dealing with parents who present them with a string of complaints.

School policy should dictate that parental concerns are always investigated but you should retain the flexibility of having a cut-off point for complaints that are shown to be groundless.

When a parent reaches that level, they should be invited into the school for a discussion with the headteacher. That discussion should touch upon the current complaint but also reflect upon previous complaints and the need to recognise that the concerns being raised are unfounded, unrealistic and are actually having a negative impact on the school.

H e l i c o p t e r Pa r e n t s

ints SLT Discussion Po policy that:

Do we have a clear 1. s? over-protective parent ws a. allo us to identify to provide a role or er mb me ff sta a b. identifies these parents? programme for helping mbers of staff? me all by d too ers c. is und ned in how to trai n bee m tea Has our admin 2. s who wish to ent par from handle incoming calls make a complaint? ut maximum response Do we have a policy abo 3. calls and messages? times for parental phone ing information from her gat for Does our system 4. se from advantaged parents encourage tho ense of others? exp the at ds backgroun ascertain the sort of to de What efforts have we ma we 5. ers of our PTA, and do parents who are memb ticipation of par the on has t tha know what impact other parents? easy to offer information that is te bsi Does our we 6. on? jarg of oid dev is and find and understand,

There are certainly occasions where the parent requires educating about what are realistic expectations, and the extent to which children need to be exposed to negative experiences in life so that they too can learn how to cope with them.

As I’ve already mentioned, some schools exhibit a knee-jerk reaction to parental complaints and the phrase ‘helicopter parent’ is often used to refer to parents who want to shield their children from any negative experiences. I have known complaints centre around the fact that a child was upset because they didn’t get full marks in a test, or who had thought they’d been bullied, or who had been upset by the holocaust being discussed in a history lesson.

All of these complaints were thoroughly investigated, and to the satisfaction of the head teacher, all were found to be over-reactions by the various children. Someone hadn’t learnt the homework to achieve a test score they were well capable of. Another had misread the fact that one of her friends had failed to see her in a busy corridor. The history teacher had explained the nature of the holocaust lesson in the previous lesson, asking anyone who had suffered a bereavement or had lost

a family member in the holocaust, or perhaps in one of the more recent atrocities, to talk to him before the lesson.

It is important to remember that as education professionals we’re used to dealing with hundreds if not thousands of individual children over the span of our career. Many parents have experienced only one child: their own. It is very difficult to have a sense of perspective when you don’t have the benefit of the depth of experience.

Although we can use that same depth of experience to ascertain the real dangers that children face in society, when you only have the news media to inform your opinion, you can perhaps be forgiven for being over-anxious.

One way of assisting parents in coming to terms with these anxieties is to invite them into school to experience lesson content that might be deemed ‘questionable’ by parents – sex education content for example.

These sessions should always include a discussion about what is being achieved and why, so that parents leave having a fuller understanding of the issues.

School leaders should of course be happy that the content of these sessions meets the stated requirement so that any parent who insists on labouring the point can be invited for an individual discussion that does not waste other people’s time.

Any discussion that starts with the school having to explain from scratch its stance on an issue is one that presents an uphill struggle. Remember, not all information needs to be delivered face to face. The school website is always a good platform for

just4SBMs n ISSUE 32 Autumn 2013

informing parents about how the curriculum helps to ensure development of the healthy individual. An email address can be given for parents who would like more information. I can’t place enough importance on the fact that web pages designed for parents should be couched in accessible, simple English, avoiding the use of jargon, and are presented in a style that invites your target audience to actually explore the content. As a first line of defence, you can always ask if parents have read the relevant page.

Current best practice in this area actually recognises that we harm children by not exposing them to failure and by trying to limit their natural experience of sadness.

Some schools have set up ‘failure days’, others ensure that scores of 100% are impossible to achieve in tests in an attempt to demonstrate that in life, perfection is rarely attainable.

Helicopter parents can be challenging but at heart they are caring The education of any child should always be a shared experience between home and school. By and large, most parents get it right. Some need additional help.

Although it is not the role of the school to provide parents with reassurance at every turn, it is sometimes in the best interests of the pupils, and members of staff, to provide that support.

Helicopter parents can be challenging but at heart they are caring and looking after what they perceive to be the best interests of their child. n

15 16 3