The Principal's Handbook

Calm Leadership in Parent Conflicts
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[00:00:00] In this episode, we're talking about parent pushback and discipline and staying calm when emotions run high. That's all coming up next on the Principal's handbook.

Speaker: Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go-to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self-care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.

From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work-life balance. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority. I.

Welcome to the podcast. Today we are talking about parent pushback and discipline and staying calm when emotions run [00:01:00] high. Let me know if this sounds familiar to you.

The phone is ringing after you've just handled a discipline situation and , your secretary tells you that they have so and so on the line. It's a parent of a student that you just disciplined. And you get this feeling of dread of , ugh. I know that they're going to be upset because you've dealt with other discipline situations and that's how it's been.

Of course, you answer the phone, you have a conversation, you tell them the scenario, you tell them the consequence, and the parent is upset and. You just get this feeling like, did I handle this the correct way? Because anytime a parent pushes back or even a teacher, , it's normal to start to get defensive.

It's normal to think, did I handle this correctly? Because you start to doubt yourself a little bit, but one, I just wanna say, pushback is normal. It does not mean that you're not doing the right things. When it comes to discipline, it does not mean. [00:02:00] That you made a mistake in your discipline decision.

So I wanna start with that, and I talk about that in the principal's discipline blueprint because so often I think when we get pushback, we think that we're doing it wrong. So if you wanna learn more about that, I do have the course, the Principal's discipline blueprint. It's also part of my membership.

If you get that tier of the membership. , Which I'll put both in the show notes, but as you're talking to parents, it's really important that no matter how defensive you get, because you start to question yourself or you wanna protect yourself, that you just remember as principals, our job isn't to match the parents' energy.

It's to bring the calm, and sometimes I always say it takes like a superpower to do this because if somebody's really heightened and you have to stay calm, that can be very difficult. And so just know that if you're doing it and you're making it work, it is like a superpower

so as you're thinking about this in the parent's defensive and they're protecting their child, just remember your job isn't to match the energy. [00:03:00] It's to bring the calm. So today what I'm going to do is give you four tips when parents push back in discipline.

And so tip number one goes right along with that. It's that you bring. The calm, you set the tone to the conversation. So if the parent gets defensive with you, they're mad, they're yelling at you, and you don't set the tone. If you don't calm yourself, if you don't lower the temperature of the conversation, then you're not leading the conversation.

You have to remind yourself that you are not only the leader of the building, but you're the leader of this conversation. And so you as the leader have to set the tone. And if you're calm. It's going to help bring the level of the conversation down. So you want to, empathize with the parent. I hear you.

Let's talk this through together. Let me hear your concerns, and you just calmly listen to their concerns. Okay? You bring the calm. But your calmness even shows staff if staff are watching how to respond in these tense moments. And so what I want you to think [00:04:00] about when you're bringing the calm is how can you bring empathy to the situation?

I always talk about when having a difficult conversation. I like to balance empathy plus authority, and I think that empathy piece is so important because it changes your perspective when you can have empathy for that parent, it changes your perspective. Sometimes when I'm dealing with a difficult parent.

I just think about the things that they say to me like, I was always bullied as a kid and now my kids have been bullied since kindergarten. And just having these conversations, I start to have empathy with these parents must have had a terrible school experience. And when I take on that perspective.

It really does help me bring the calm, because I'm not taking this personally. It's not about me. It's about their bad experience of school that now they're bringing into this conversation. 'Cause everybody has an experience of school that has nothing to do with you, and so you just have to bring the calm.

You have to listen, and you have to bring the [00:05:00] energy down in the conversation when emotions are running high. So that's the first thing. Really empathize with the parent. Help yourself find strategies so that you can bring the calm. And some people are naturally better at the at this than others. If you're a naturally calm person, this is easier for you.

If you're not, if you're a high strung, high energy person, this might be a skill you have to really work on. But I want you to practice thinking about, how can I create thoughts? Because your thoughts create your emotions, which create your actions. So how can I create thoughts that are going to help me have emotions that are calm, that are not heightened, , that help me bring the calm? And that's where the empathy comes in. Like I said, if you can have those thoughts of empathy, it's really going to help you bring that calm.

So if you need to ahead of time, start thinking about thoughts that are empathetic thoughts, , have a few written down for just some families that you've worked with that might be a cause of why their emotions are so high. And then that way you're able to bring the [00:06:00] calm into that conversation.

The second thing I want you to do is you have to have boundaries. So again, it's that empathy plus authority. And when I say boundaries, if it's a hostile, aggressive conversation. You have to either deescalate it, which we'll be talking about, or you have to stop it. Okay. I've had parents before that they just go into a mode of yelling.

They're yelling threats, they're being hostile. I've had to pause and I say, listen, I want to hear your concern. I want to hear you, but I need to stop this conversation if you're not going to calm down enough that I can actually speak as well, and that we can actually come to an agreement.

I've had parents that call and then they just start attacking the teacher, and then I say something and it's a new attack, if that's happening, I've had to shut the conversation down and just end the conversation completely because that conversation was going nowhere. I was trying to deescalate it.

It wasn't working, it [00:07:00] was going nowhere. There have been conversations where the parent's yelling though and even had, , where the parents really yelling, angry, hostile, and I've been able to deescalate. So it just depends on the conversation, whether you have to stop it completely. But there's been times that I've even met with parents in person, and I'm meeting with the parent and , I'm listening to their concerns.

I'm saying what we did, and no matter what I'm saying, it's not making a difference. They're getting more heightened as we go. And I've had to say, this meeting is over. We will reconvene or I will call you later to follow up. But as of now, this meeting's over. We're no longer getting anywhere. So it's okay to have those boundaries and stop if the conversation's hostile.

The third tip I have is deescalation is your best skill. And so again, , you can stop the conversation if you need to. But if you can deescalate it, that's even better. So again, it comes from bringing that calm comes from listening to the [00:08:00] parent. Parents often calm down when they feel heard, when you start talking over them or you get defensive.

Then they start to escalate again, right? So again, you have to bring that calm, and when you bring that calm, you can usually deescalate. So keep your voice calm, to shift the energy, and then also acknowledging their emotions. I can tell you're really worried about your child. I had one parent , start to talk about her kids, and you don't like my kids,

I stopped her and I was like, we love your kids. As soon as I talked about her kids in a positive way, she started to deescalate because I think it came from that fear, right, of like, we don't like her kids, so we don't like her. And once I acknowledge that, I totally get what you're saying. We love your kids.

You have great kids. The tone just came down a little bit and then we were able to get somewhere. So really think about how can you deescalate the situation so that you're actually able to have a conversation. So again, , and this is where we have to know that [00:09:00] deescalation doesn't mean you're giving in.

It means that you're actually creating a scenario where you can have a conversation to actually come up with a solution for whatever problem is happening, and you can have a solution to the behavior or whatever conversation you're having, but you have to be able to deescalate them. And the fourth tip I have is that hard conversations. Can actually build relationships. And so if you have that mindset, the hard conversations can build good relationships with parents. It helps you think about these conversations differently. And it starts to reframe one, that feeling of calmness when you go into a situation because you're like, this is actually a moment that I can build a relationship with the parent.

But as you build those relationships, parents will start to see you as someone who cares about their child, who wants to help their child, who maintains fairness towards their child. And when handled calmly, these tough conversations build that it increases that trust with the parent so that [00:10:00] they know that you actually do want what's best for their child.

When I talk about discipline and a parent's really upset with a consequence, when I talk about how, what my goal is from the consequence is to help build accountability in their child. Because in my experience, when we can build accountability, it doesn't happen again. They usually see that as like, okay, so , she knows this, right?

She's trying to help. , For example, with younger kids, I give out lunch detentions and I've had parents who were really upset. How are you giving my first grader a lunch detention? Okay. Doesn't matter what they did, they just don't like the term lunch detention. And when I have the conversation that it's not really about the consequence.

It could be a lunch detention, it could be a timeout during this time. It doesn't matter. The idea is that they're taking time to be accountable for their actions and understanding that when you do something, there's a consequence [00:11:00] that's going to help them not do it again. In my experience, when they have a consequence like that,

they take accountability. It's not going to continue happening. And just having those conversations with parents can be really helpful. Okay. So making sure that you're using that as a chance to build connection can be really helpful when you're having a hard conversation. So just going back to those, remember that you bring the calm and the conversation.

Having boundaries is okay. You can stop a hostile or aggressive conversation. Deescalation is one of the best skills you can have, and hard conversations can actually build relationships with parents. So the next time you anticipate a parent being defensive. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to prepare and try this three step approach.

I want you to enter calmly, so decide beforehand your empathetic thoughts that you're going to have to help you have that calm presence. Then you're going to set a boundary. Know that when the conversation turns [00:12:00] hostile and if you're trying to deescalate and it's not working, that you're going to set the boundary that the conversation's over.

And then you're going to end with connection. So remind the parent that you both have the same goal that you want, what's best for that child, and here's what the goal is of the con of the consequence that you gave. So again, you wanna enter calmly, decide how you're gonna bring that calm, set a boundary, know when you have to turn the conversation off if it gets hostile, and then end with connection.

Reminding the parent that you both want what's best for their child. So again, just remember that parent pushback doesn't have to derail you. It can be super frustrating. Obviously the ideal scenario is when a parent is supportive of your consequence, everything goes well, but when they're not and there's pushback, just stay calm, have boundaries, and practice those deescalation techniques because these moments that are really hard can strengthen relationships.

[00:13:00] I think about the relationships I had with parents at my old school, because I was there for eight years. The best relationships I had were with. A lot of my behavior kids, because I called those parents all the time. I had to call them, and sometimes they were really mad at me, and sometimes I got yelled at.

But over time we build a relationship that they trusted that I really did want what was best for their kids. And it's not easy to do, I just wanna say it, it sometimes it happens the first conversation and sometimes it doesn't. But just know that you don't give up and you don't keep, , saying, , this is just a difficult parent.

It'll never get better. You don't know that. So keep working to build that relationship with that parent to deescalate, to bring the calm. Whatever you need to do. But really try to use these opportunities to build connections with parents instead of creating more of a distance from parents. And then remember to ask yourself, am I reacting to parent pushback defensively?

Am I getting defensive [00:14:00] or am I seeing it as an opportunity to build this relationship with the parent? I hope you found this podcast episode helpful. If you want more coaching and support. I do have the eight to four principal leadership hub. I give you all kinds of tools and resources.

There's two tiers of membership. There's coaching. You can ask me any question, I answer it. There's a private podcast, so join us for that if you want more support working with parents. Alright, I hope you have a great week. . Just remember as you go into this week that any difficult conversation you have with a parent is an opportunity to build that relationship.