Let’s face it! We can all be a little crazy at times. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that there will be difficult, emotional or “crazy” parents to deal with in our child care industry.
I want to give you 3 strategies in this blog that will help you deal with parents who become very emotional over issues that can relate to things as perceived dangers or individual issues related to their child.
These 3 tips can help you with those emotion filled situations with parents in any early childhood education setting. Remember, being a parent is an emotional business…. all by itself!
Empathy – Right from the very beginning, set some expectations and outline how you will be handling difficult situations.
Set Expectations – Communicate with parents the potential scenarios that could take place and how you and your team will be handling them. Position yourselves as experts in the field and how you will handling the kids at every step of the way.
Be the face of your School – Being present and accessible at drop of and/or pick-up positions you as involved. Being front and center is so important as an owner/director. Remember this is a people business. When parents are comfortable and feel they can communicate with you, difficult situations immediately become easier.
I have 1 final tip that I address in my video blog above. This tip is key to helping all parties involved, slow down, take a breath and approach the situation with a clear, balanced mindset. Believe me, stating these strategies in your school policies will make dealing with difficult parents, that much easier.
As always, share with us your comments relative to this topic. If you have other tips or scenarios where you have dealt with difficult or emotional parents in your day care setting, we’d love hear from you.
