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How to Deal With Parents Who Are Angry, Troubled, Afraid, or Just Plain Crazy - Book Cover

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Bestseller!

How to Deal With Parents Who Are Angry, Troubled, Afraid, or Just Plain Crazy

Second Edition
By: Elaine K. McEwan-Adkins

Leader's Guide

The newly revised, second edition of McEwan's best-selling classic, with built-in facilitator's guide, will help you manage your most difficult audience—emotionally charged, often disgruntled, and occasionally abusive parents.

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Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-12
ISBN: 9781412904445
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2004
Page Count: 192
Publication date: December 03, 2004

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Description

Updated Edition of Bestseller!

How do you deal with high-maintenance parents who never seem happy with the job you are doing?

Emotionally charged, often disgruntled, and occasionally abusive parents--sound familiar? The second edition of Elaine McEwan's bestselling classic will help you manage your most difficult audience, adding several new features and examples that will give you the confidence and skills you need to handle such situations, including:

Over two dozen strategies-enhanced and updated-to defuse emotionally charged parents
An updated, easy-to-administer Healthy School Checklist to determine if your school's culture encourages parents or pushes them over the edge
Fifty Ways to build parental support for your school
Ten Goals-at-a-Glance to help keep your school-community relations on target
A built-in facilitator guide--ideal for book groups and staff development, including energizers, suggestions for role-playing, think-alouds, and questions for reflection and discussion

Every educator will find invaluable strategies for handling angry and unresponsive parents and the critical issues that cause misunderstandings. Following McEwan's seven steps of effective problem-solving will help with quick solutions while creating a nurturing, healthy school environment. And in today's schools and a NCLB environment, developing a supportive parent-community relationship is essential to everyone's success.

Author(s)

Elaine K. McEwan-Adkins

Elaine K. McEwan is an educational consultant with The McEwan-Adkins Group, offering professional development for educators to assist them in meeting the challenges of literacy learning in Grades Pre K-6. A former teacher, librarian, principal, and assistant superintendent for instruction in several suburban Chicago school districts, Elaine is the award-winning and best-selling author of more than three dozen books for educators. Her Corwin Press titles include Raising Reading Achievement in Middle and High Schools: Five Simple-to-Follow Strategies for Principals, Second Edition (2006), Seven Strategies of Highly Effective Readers: Using Cognitive Research to Boost K-8 Achievement (2004), Ten Traits of Highly Effective Principals: From Good to Great Performance (2003), Making Sense of Research: What’s Good, What’s Not, and How to Tell the Difference (2003), Seven Steps to Effective Instructional Leadership, Second Edition (2003), Teach Them ALL to Read: Catching the Kids Who Fall through the Cracks (2002), and Ten Traits of Highly Effective Teachers: How to Hire, Mentor, and Coach Successful Teachers (2001).

McEwan was honored by the Illinois Principals Association as an outstanding instructional leader, by the Illinois State Board of Education with an Award of Excellence in the Those Who Excel Program, and by the National Association of Elementary School Principals as the National Distinguished Principal from Illinois for 1991. She received her undergraduate degree in education from Wheaton College and advanced degrees in library science (MA) and educational administration (EdD) from Northern Illinois University.

Table of Contents

Preface

My Definition of "Crazy"

Who This Book Is For

Special Features of the Book

Overview of the Contents

Acknowledgments

About the Author

1. Why So Many Parents Are Angry, Troubled, Afraid, or Just Plain Crazy

The Parents of Today

What's Behind the Epidemic?

Summing Up and Looking Ahead

2. Defusing and Disarming Out-of-Control Parents

What Is Anger?

How to Deal With Parents Who Are Upset or Out of Control

Strategies for Dealing With Truly Troubled Parents

Using Your Enounters With Parents to Learn and Grow

Summing Up and Looking Ahead

3. Solving the Problems That Make Parents Angry, Troubled, Afraid, or Just Plain Crazy

The Pervasive Problems That Plague Us

Solving the Problems That Plague Us

Behaviors That Can Sabotage Your Good Intentions

What to Do When Nothing Works

Summing Up and Looking Ahead

4. Creating and Nurturing a Healthy School

The "Virulent Viruses"

The Dangerous Dozen

A Healthy School

The Healthy Leader

Promoting and Maintaining a Healthy School

Steps to Take if Your School Is Sick

Summing Up and Looking Ahead

5. The Proactive Approach: Fifty-Plus Ways to Build Parental Support

Fifty-Plus Suggestions to Get You Started

Summing Up and Looking Ahead

Conclusion

References

Index

Facilitator's Guide

Who Should Use This Guide?

How Is the Guide Organized?

What Materials Are Needed?

Study Modules

Module 1: Introduction

Module 2: Chapter 1. Why So Many Parents Are Angry, Troubled, Afraid, or Just Plain Crazy

Module 3: Chapter 2. Defusing and Disarming Out-of-Control Parents

Module 4: Chapter 3. Solving the Problems That Make Parents Mad

Module 5: Chapter 4. Promoting a Healthy School

Module 6: Chapter 5. Fifty-Plus Ways to Be Proactive

Module 7: Conclusion

Reviews

"This book has great potential for helping administrators not only work with parents who may have a particular problem, but also create school environments that enhance general parent-teacher-school relations. The many specific suggestions pointing to positive solutions is a major strength, and the facilitator guide is an excellent addition."

Gwen Rudney, Coordinator of Elementary Education
University of Minnesota, Morris

"Offers insight into why parents become upset, followed by strategies to defuse their anger and build their support."

Curriculum Connections, Spring 2006

Other Titles in: Communication | Conflict Resolution for Adults | Principalship

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