Detailed Contents
1. The Parental Intervention Plan (PIP)
A progressive discipline code
Taking care of business
Fringe benefits
2. How To Be a Great Principal
On being visible
On keeping in touch
On zero tolerance
On student nonperformance and acting out
On accountability
3. How Principals Can Set Up a PIP
Step 1: Notify personnel
Step 2: Notify parents
Step 3: Offer an alternative
Step 4: Deal with objections
Step 5: Meet in the office first thing in the morning
Step 6: Meet again last thing in the afternoon
Step 7: Follow up
Step 8: Report to personnel
4. How Parents Can Initiate a PIP
Step 1: Make an appointment to meet with your principal face-to-face
Step 2: Smile and act excited
Step 3: Be subtle—super salesmanship isn’t necessary
Step 4: Give the principal plenty of time to consider
Step 5: Under no circumstances should you go over a principal’s head
Step 6: Ask for an update on progress
Step 7: Deal with objections
Step 8: This is an issue for the peace table, not the battlefield
5. How to Participate in a PIP
Step 1: Arrive with a positive attitude
Step 2: Don’t worry about what your child’s teachers with think
Step 3: Don’t call attention to yourself
Step 4: Watch and listen
Step 5: Communicate your insights to your principal
Step 6: Remain calm and don’t overreact at home
Step 7: Spread the word
6. A Principal’s Rules for Parenting Teens
Never do anything for a child that he can do himself
Allow her to make mistakes
Let him suffer the consequences
Restrain the impulse to overindulge
Commiserate with your child
Choose your battles wisely
Skip the lecture
Be patient
Never forget who’s really in charge
7. Questions and Answers for Principals
Why do you feel your parental intervention program works so well?
Do parents ever refuse to come to school?
What happens when a parent does refuse?
Isn’t this just an updated version of “Wait ’till your father gets home”?
Isn’t this tactic of embarrassing the kid hitting below the belt for most easily traumatized adolscents?
How do you enlist the support of your superintendent and school board members?
Don’t teachers resent the intrustion of parents in their classrooms?
But isn’t a class (or even a teacher) on its best behavior when a visitor is present?
Does that best behavior truly provide truly provide an accurate picture of what’s going on in your school?
So . . . how do you begin the plan?
What does happen?
And the parent?
What happens next?
Why?
Does this method ever fail?
8. Questions and Answers for Parents
I’ve talked myself blue in the face about the importance of education. Yet my fourteen-year-old continues to ignore me, slack off, and misbehave. And you’re trying to convince me that one visit to his school can turn his attitude around?
I think I have a bad case of school phobia left over from the tenth grade. Every time I walk into a school building, I start to sweat. Any advice?
This parental intervention experience will probably leave me bursting with insights. What if the principal doesn’t have time to meet with me at the end of the day?
I’m having trouble believing that you really visited every classroom several times each day. How large was school, and who did your paperwork?
My boss absolutely refuses to consider letting me off work to go to my child’s school, even for one day. What do I do now?
How many times will I have to do this PIP before my child changes?
I worry about embarrassing my child. I’m reluctant to put him (or her) in such a vulnerable position in front of his friends. Isn’t that cruel and unusual treatment?
Speaking of vulnerable, how will I face my friends at church or work when they hear that I had to spend the day sitting with my misbehaving twelve-year-old?
You say that one my child and I get home, I shouldn’t make any long speeches. Well, I haven’t had the chance—my son hasn’t spoken to me in four days. How much longer will the silent treatment go on?
How can I tell if my child is attending a good school?
9. Backing It Up
10. Reflections on Being Educators
Index
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Parenting Press®
