Kids need parents, not defense attorneys

I play many roles in my position as a school administrator.  I take pride in being able to provide support to students, teachers and families in a variety of ways.  The one thing you can say about being a principal is that it is never boring given that you work with so many people with different expectations.  You really have to have a large professional tool box to serve so many and still be fair to the school building as a whole.  This can be tricky but you have to lead with your values and issues tend to take care of themselves.

I love to hear people say they couldn't be a principal because of the crazy parents.  I actually like talking to my crazy parents.  This is a great opportunity to communicate the fact that we should not be working against each other.  We have the same task of developing our kids but we have differing responsibilities.  I have a large number of parents that understand this and we have become great allies.  There are those parents that take some convincing however and it usually starts when their child had found themselves in trouble.

Many times when a student is in trouble (especially if it involves a punishment), parents tend to abandon the parent role and quickly turn into defense attorneys.  There is a stark difference between a parent and a defense attorney.  Consider the following:

Parents

• Understand that their primary role is the proper development of their child.
• Respect the fact that schools staff have a relationship with their child.
• Understand the expectations of the school building and expect their child to respect them.
• Understand the role of the school staff is to uphold the school expectations to the best of their ability.

Defense Attorneys

•  Assume that every interaction is an adversarial process.
• Seek to divert responsibility away from their client (child).
• Seek to eliminate or at least reduce punishment for their client (child).
• Attempt to intimidate and distract school staff with grandstanding and big talk. 
• Expect the outcome to be in the best interest of their client (child) and not the larger community.

I will be honest, I mostly experience defense attorneys.  My parents understand their role which means that a visit to my office is not typically necessary.  They handle their child's behavior at home and convey a high value on personal responsibility.  They teach their child how to manage themselves better and prevent other problems.  They help us develop their child as teammates and trust me we appreciate it.

If you are a defense attorney please know you are hurting more than the process, you are hurting your kids.  They will follow the model set before them.  If you are combative with others, they will follow your lead.  If you make a habit of blaming others, so will they.  When you make everything about them and not about us, they will grow up selfish.  You may not think they listen to you but trust me they do.  Here's some food for thought, if you and I have trouble getting along as adults then its a pretty good chance that I am correcting a lot of your child's behavior.  They will treat school staff in whatever way you set the tone.  Please realize your influence.

Trust me, I respect the fact that I'm speaking about a small number of people and I am truly blessed to have great families at my school.  But I challenge people to imagine what it would be like for all of our families to share the values of the school house.  Can you imagine how incredible that would be.  I'm not just thinking about improved behavior, I'm talking about the entire learning environment improving because we share the same goals for our kids.  Our kids need parents, not defense attorneys.