“Parents are the primary educators.”
This has been a guiding principle for Catholic schools since their inception. The job of Catholic schools is to support the parents’ primary role as lead educators in their homes—“to extend the franchise of families” I once heard it described.
But there’s a hitch: our families are under increasing duress. A typical middle class family is likely to have two parents working, with two or three children, one or two of whom plays a sport that requires year-round practices, games and weekend tournaments in the “off-season.” They are likely to live above their means, creating financial pressures in their home (the average credit card debt for an American family is $8,402 as of May, 2019). From middle school on up, each member of this family devotes an astonishing 10 hours and thirty-nine minutes a day to “screen time” (smartphones, computers, video games, radios, tablets and TVs.) In all their busy-ness, they have less time for shopping and cooking, which explains why they now spend more money each month on restaurants than traditional grocery stores (CRBE, 2016). Sadly, there’s nearly a 40% chance their marriage will end in divorce. If Catholic, there's a 61% chance they DON'T go to Sunday Mass (Gallup, 2018), compared to 25% in 1955. There’s very little “family time," or “Sabbath rest” occurring.
It isn’t that our culture has "lost our way." G.K. Chesterton once quipped, prophetically: “Man has always lost his way; but now, he has lost his address.“ (What’s Wrong with the World, 1910). Without strong families to nurture and sustain us, it makes sense why all the metrics about mental health in adolescents and adults are trending downward, including rates of depression, anxiety and suicide.
What then, does this mean for us as Catholic educators? How can we build on parents as our “primary “ educators if these same parents are under so much pressure? I have a few thoughts.
First, and most importantly, we cannot despair of our parents. That parents are “primary” isn’t just a philosophical premise, it’s a statement of fact, whether they’re good at parenting or not. I emphasize this point because it’s very easy for us as educators to slip into a kind of paternalism—that WE know best what’s good for their children, and well, sometimes, we have to “work-around” parents when dealing with their kids. But if we take this attitude, it’s almost certainly the demise of our schools—one, because the parents, if excluded from our decision making, will undercut us with their children back at home, rendering us ineffective, and two, if it’s clear that we’re not working with parents, they will gradually leave us, taking their tuition dollars elsewhere.
Second, we must build a culture of “us” when talking about teachers and parents, in contradistinction to “them,” the students we’re raising. I believe, as principal, I must talk about this directly with parents and teachers, reminding them that the adult relationships in a school take precedence, even over teacher-student relationships. We form a team of "masters" that together raise the "apprentices." My former principal used to say to parents: “You wouldn’t believe what teenagers tell us about you! I can only imagine what they say about us! Let us agree, then, that we'll only believe 50% of what they say about you is true, if you agree to only believe 50% of what they say about us.” His levity had a point—parents and teachers are in this together, and we need to remind each other of that.
Third, we should use the school as a means to strengthen our parents. Rather than “working around” parents, how can we make our parents more powerful? That’s a critical mind-set, I believe, for Catholic school leaders. I’ll give you a brief example: If a student has done something seriously wrong, meriting a conference with parents and a suspension, I can handle that in two different ways as a principal. I can call in both the parents and child in to the office to pronounce judgment, or I can meet with the parents first, and then invite the kid in next. If I do it the first way, more often than not the parents will view their role to be an “advocate” of their child AGAINST US. “We’re just sticking up for our child,” they'd be apt to say. But if I meet with the parents first, without the child present, we can talk for a bit about their kid. What does their child say about the incident? What do they think may have tempted him to do this? Has he had any issues like this before? What do they think is going on? Parents appreciate these questions, as it suggests we’re trying to look at the whole child with them, good and bad, before deciding what to do. And it gives me the opportunity to help the parent understand that the school's discipline isn’t for the purpose to mete out “punishment;” rather, it is aimed help the child grow into the kind of person God wants him or her to become. I then invite the parent to “speak in one voice" with me when we finally bring in the child to talk about the consequence. By doing so, I am empowering the parent to take a parental view of the matter, and yes, dramatically improving the chances that the consequence will be supported and will positively impact the child.
Fourth, I am not a big fan of using the school as a forum to invite guest speakers to talk to parents about how to become better parents. Over the years I’ve hosted child psychologists, special learning needs experts, police officers, national lecturers—but what always happens is our very best parents come to these events, and the vast majority of our parents, especially those who could most benefit, don’t. Instead, I believe we should use other standing events in the life of the school to offer parents small snippets of wisdom and perspective that help empower them—perhaps no more than 5-10 minutes— and do this as often as possible. I offer a 10 minute “advice to new parents” talk as a closing to our new parent orientation breakfast. I’ll tell a brief story at the “Meet the Teacher” PTO night. I’ll frequently include a few brief thoughts in our weekly newsletter, especially around Homecoming and Prom, sharing with them how wise parents handle their kids for such occasions. Parents generally appreciate this. I’ll make a parallel: I am not in favor of “study skills” courses, because those skills are an abstraction. Better for teachers to discuss “study skills” within the context of a course, presenting them as “practical ways to do well in this class, or the test tomorrow, etc.” I believe parents respond better to 5 minute talks or brief stories that are proximate to some event in the life of their child, than PTO meetings featuring a guest lecturer.
Finally, schools must be open to parent’s ideas, even if “we’ve tried that before.” Nothing is more oft-putting to a parent than for an administrator to say “Been there, done that.” Saying so is a not-too-subtle way of saying, “You’re naive.” I’m not suggesting that every idea is a good one, but we’d be wise not to be the sole arbiter of whether an idea is worth seriously considering. Use our boards or advisory councils to “test” ideas and offer feedback to parents who are proposing those ideas. Create structured “parent forums” as input data for strategic planning. Such "peer review" often broadens people’s thinking. I once had a parent who was VERY insistent we should start school after Labor Day and end school in mid-June, as they do in other parts of the country. I told the parent I would include that question in an upcoming parent survey I was designing, did so, and showed the parent that 85% of our families disagreed with her proposal. I knew that our parents wouldn’t like it and was tempted to kill it before even asking, but by proposing it as a survey question, she knew I had taken her idea seriously. We must take parents seriously!
