The US Surgeon General’s Concern for Stressed Parents
You’ve heard the US Surgeon General’s recent public health concern regarding stressed parents and their need for support. Subsequently, many school administrations called for schools and communities to respond.
For teachers, this can feel like adding more to an already overloaded plate of dealing with classrooms, getting through their annual curricula, and assisting individual students. And, if teachers do nothing, guilt could add to their own stress.
A Desire to Help Stressed Parents
Teachers know they have good access to students’ parents and would like to help. Plus, supporting students’ parents builds stronger relationships, not only with the parents but also with students and the broader community. To support stressed parents, teachers need something easy to implement, as well as worthwhile.
A Simple and Supportive Parent Resource
The Five Basics Pamphlet is a downloadable PDF that helps stressed parents of teenagers. The “…Pamphlet” contains the five actions parents can take to reduce the stress often felt when living with teens. It is based on evidence MIT researchers found that helps with parenting adolescents.
The Five Basics have compressed parenting strategies into five areas – connecting, observing, modeling, guiding, and advocating – while offering many doable “how-to” examples for each.
Do Your Duty…Check!
The Five Basics is a way for teachers and others to step up, heed the Surgeon General’s call, and support stressed parents. By either emailing the user-friendly PDF to parents or downloading it and handing it out, the pamphlet does the work for teachers making it easy to help. And, even if, parents don’t ‘read and heed’, teachers can practice the Five Basics on their own, using them in their classrooms and giving teen students the adult direction and support they need to succeed.
With the Five Basics Pamphlet, teachers gain:
- Respect and appreciation from parents
- Respect from students who find they enjoy coming to class
- Stronger classroom and school communities and
- Confidence in knowing they answered the Surgeon General’s call to support stressed parents
As a teacher or homeschooler, I would love to hear more about what your needs are. Let me know in the Comments section or email me at alis@awsstudios.art