I, personally, am much more concerned about educators who either don’t understand development or refuse to acknowledge development as a central force in the lives of young children than I am when I encounter parents who have little to no understandings of development.  I am forced to remind myself that most parents have never studied human development in any way, shape, or form.  Should we expect parents to have realistic expectations of development when professionals often do not?

There are several things to remember.  First, parents may have nothing to compare their child to.  It is possible that their interactions with their child are the only interactions they have ever had with a small child.  It is hard for us, who work and think about young children all of the time, to remember how limited some people’s experiences are.  Second, human development is not taught as a required course in high school or college, so for many people, the concepts have never even been introduced even in the smallest ways.  Third, parents only want the best for their children and sometimes this might mean that they believe that pushing them will result in better outcomes. If reading is the ultimate goal, then why not expect children to work and work and work at reading until it happens?

Rather than giving in to parental pressure, it our job, and yes, our responsibility to educate parents about development.  Hot button topics like reading may be easier to explain with a less loaded topic like bike riding.  We don’t expect children to ride 2-wheeler bicycles when they are 2 or 3, right?  Everyone is perfectly happy to let their toddler or preschooler ride tricycles and Big Wheels for a good, long while before the training wheels are taken off.  Everyone would agree that it would be crazy to put a 2 year old on a 2-wheeler bike.  Why would we expect anything different cognitively or socially?  Children get ready to be 3 by being 2.  And they get ready to be 5 by being 4.  No amount of expecting 5-year-old skills and behaviors from 3 year olds, will result in faster or better outcomes.  This is a great fallacy and one we must combat if we want what is best for the children we serve.

Difficult parents come in many shapes and sizes.  You have the “complainer,” the “judger,” the “holier-than-thou,” the “denier,” the “ignorer,” the “absentee,” the “making excuses,” and the “failure to meet up to program expectations,” parents.  It is important to remember that these descriptors are probably only one part of who these people are and how they seem to be to you.

When I was a director, there was a mom who had 4 daughters, so I watcher her interactions with her girls over many years.  This mom seemed to be very unhappy, though I had no idea why.  She walked the girls to school, pushing the 2 younger girls in a double stroller, while the older girls walked beside her.  Each day, she would pick the girls up and out of the stroller and the girls would walk into the building.  The mom never kissed them goodbye, she never even said goodbye to them.  She appeared to be completely disengaged from her role as a mom.  She also was very disengaged from the program.  She never returned phone calls, or sent in the extra required clothes.  She was “THAT MOM.”

I found myself judging her parenting, because I didn’t understand why she didn’t show her love for her girls the way I would show love for my children.  Now I know that there are all sorts of ways that we show our children we love them.  Consider these ideas- The older girls asked her not to kiss them or make a big deal when they went into school….She was in the practice of expressing her love for them in a more private way.  Culturally, it is frowned upon to shower children with open expressions of love.

It took me a long time to appreciate her situation and to find empathy and understanding for her.  As it turned out, she was depressed.  She had 4 children under 6.  They struggled with money and work.  Her marriage was in trouble and she was distracted from her day-to-day responsibilities.

We all have parental toolboxes.  Some are bigger and some are smaller.  Some are empty.  You, as the provider, need to know which parents have many tools and which parents can’t find their tools. You, as the provider, need to find it in your heart to support all parents, even the difficult ones.  They may need you the most.