HOME-SCHOOL COMMUNICATION CONCERNING NONADJUSTING CHILDREN

Abstract

While teachers and parents have a mutual concern for the well-being of the child, their communications with each other do not always serve to promote that mutuality. This is particularly so when the child involved is experiencing behavioral or learning problems in the classroom. Such communication problems become an important concern of the mental health person who is attempting to alter the classroom and home environment of the child in order that these may facilitate his recovery. This paper will attempt to describe the nature and extent of the parent-teacher difficulties as well as to delineate the probable sequence of events that led to the communication failure. It will also report some experience with the resolution of such problems and suggest some dimensions of the psychiatrist's role in such tasks. In the course of private practice the child psychiatrist m eets many parents who express negative feelings about teachers and school and who assign responsibility for their child 's adjustment difficulties, at least in part, to the educators. Most psychiatrists are aware of the dangers of identification with the client and will recognize that projection of blame is playing a part in the parents' version of the situation. He may, however, be concerned about the role which relationship difficulties between the teacher and the child are playing in the production or aggravation of the child's difficulties. Similarly, he may be concerned about the adequacy of the curriculum with respect to the assets and handicaps of the child in question. While he may