Coping with Personality Conflicts
Helping Your
Child with a Personality Conflict with a Teacher
by: Kathleen Rosso-Gana, President / Motivational Educational Training
Center
When
you see signs that your child's personality is clashing with her teacher's,
act quickly to help your child to understand and cope with the situation.
Warning
signs could be your child's coming home angry and detailing what the
teacher does wrong each day. Another symptom might be that your child
is receiving frequent detentions or is being sent to "the office"
on a weekly, or daily basis. Make time to dig into your child's head
to discover the source of the problem.
Following
are a few ways to "re-frame" the situation and help your child to
look for solutions to cope with the challenge when she cannot change
the circumstances.
Build
a bridge of rapport with your child by sharing a time you had to work
with someone who did not like you or you did not like. Tell the
child how you coped or took the consequences for not coping.
Talk
to the child about "re-framing" the problem as an opportunity to learn
that it is not what happens to us, but how we cope with what
happens to us that truly counts. This reality of life is one
of the most important gifts we can give a child.
Tell
the child that you will team with her to help find strategies to handle
the problem and "survive" this challenge.
Celebrate
each time your child reports she coped positively with the teacher.
Count off the days on a calendar and utilize humor.
Teaching
a child to be victor over, and not fall victim to, a negative experience
in life is a way of providing them with a life skill that will enable
them to make good things come from the bad things that will inevitably
happen in their lives.
