Here's the problem
In my daily educational observations, I found that one child in the class was significantly weaker than the other children, and he would have some strange or unfriendly behaviors, always taking other people's things and snatching toys from his younger siblings. After understanding, the child had gone to the hospital for an examination, and the medical diagnosis was developmental delay. Other parents expressed rejection, but the toddler's parents did not admit or cooperate, causing confusion for the teacher in the class. How can I make parents accept such a "special baby"?(A kindergarten teacher).
Expert opinion
Parents of ordinary young children have a variety of attitudes towards children with special needs, often showing sad eyes, resistant expressions, ......This is also a major problem for parents on the road to education. I often have in my mind the scenes of being "besieged" in the principal's room by parents: because some parents are afraid that the behavior of children with special needs will bring bad guidance or danger to their children, they are very reluctant to accept children with special needs in the kindergarten, and hope that we can persuade children with special needs to quit.
As educators, we must not only do a good job of other parents, but also protect children with special needs from harm and promote mutual support among young children.
Explore the Five Steps of Acceptance: Understanding, Recognition, Respect, Mutual Assistance, and Growth
In the face of such a problem, teachers can first make a plan, which can be roughly divided into the following aspects:
First, introduce the education methods adopted by different countries and regions for children with special needs in advance, so as to open up parents' educational horizons and expand the pattern of acceptance.
Second, take the follow-up observation and understanding, lead parents and children to activities together, so that parents can participate in observation, get close to children, and understand children, which is conducive to pre-emotional foreshadowing, and only after experiencing the difficult problems of special needs children's upbringing can other parents understand and respect special needs children and their families, which is conducive to empathy and guide parents to participate in related work.
Third, after the above process, when parents gather in the conference room again, they will become allies in dealing with educational problems, plan and overcome all difficulties together, gradually identify with integrated education, respect and accept the way children with special needs get along, which is conducive to guiding everyone to become problem discoverers, thinkers, and solvers.
At the same time, we guide ordinary children to actively become partners in the education of children with special needs, caring for them and helping them in their life and Xi. In this process, the student partner should not only patiently accompany and help his peers, but also supervise himself at all times to be a good role model. This kind of integrated education is a kind of promotion for the development of children on both sides, which can be described as a win-win situation. Over time, parents of ordinary young children will gradually accept these special needs children.
Forming an Educational Mutual Aid Society: Finding a sense of identity and belonging in the co-education of the home
In daily education, we have found that many parents of children with special needs are extremely sensitive, and they are unwilling to recognize the "specialness" of their children, let alone cooperate with kindergartens to intervene in them.
For example, we have found that Little A in the small class never plays with other children in the class, does not communicate with the teacher, does not understand the teacher's instructions, and does not take the initiative to express his needs, and his cognitive and language abilities are obviously lagging behind the children of the same age. When the head teacher kindly reminded the parents to take the child to a medical institution for evaluation, the child's mother thought that the child was normal and showed an attitude of not admitting, cooperating or even resisting. By the time of the middle class, the gap between Little A and the other children became more obvious, and the teacher once again reminded the parents: "If you don't intervene and miss the critical period, you will hurt the child!""The parents then took their children to the hospital for an assessment, which verified our observations. The child's developmental quotient is obviously low, and it needs to be trained in language cognition.
In this way, how to let parents face the reality and take the initiative to cooperate with the kindergarten to intervene in their children is a difficult problem in front of us. In general, we take the following strategies:
First, ask parents in the same situation to communicate with them. Under the advice of the teacher, his mother took him for a medical assessment since the elementary class, and has been in the hospital for cognitive language training, and the kindergarten has also implemented corresponding education for him, and the child has made significant progress in the past year. In the communication with Little B's mother, Little A's mother finally recognized her child's defects and saw the importance of timely intervention. So, Little A's mother took the initiative to consult us on how to intervene, and we finally saw the dawn of hope.
Second, special education experts are invited to the kindergarten for research and guidance. Since some parents do not agree with their children's problems, we will also invite professionals such as integrated education instructors and special education experts from the education department to observe and analyze children with special needs and discuss with parents, so as to remind parents to seize the critical period to intervene in time and give them professional family education guidance. The persuasion of professionals is often more convincing than the hard work of our ordinary teachers.
Third, establish an educational mutual aid group to carry out home co-education. In order to give parents of children with special needs a sense of identity and belonging, we have established the "Warm Education Mutual Aid Group", which includes the principal, case class teacher, resource teacher, and parents of each child with special needs in the kindergarten. Every day, the teacher will timely feedback the child's individual training, life, collective activities and other situations in the group in the group, and parents will also timely release the child's Xi at home, life, games and other small ** in the group, and the resource teacher will evaluate the ** and put forward guidance suggestions. The good atmosphere of home co-education has mobilized the enthusiasm of every parent in the group, and the effective interactive learning Xi has given parents a scientific guiding direction. In the silent education and mutual aid action, parents have learned to accept their children's shortcomings and how to scientifically integrate parenting. We have seen the progress of parents, children, and teachers.
Create an inclusive education atmosphere: child-oriented, realize "life is present".
In the process of carrying out integrated education, we adhere to the principle of child-oriented, and create an atmosphere of integrated education from the aspects of material foundation, play environment, parent-child interaction, and inclusive environment.
First, create an atmosphere of love and integration in the whole park. Advocating "openness, equality, democracy" of the home, teacher-child, child-child, teacher-teacher relationship, whether it is between children and **, or between the principal and teachers, everyone is like friends, family. Children are also "home alone", and they can truly become the little masters of the day's life games and class system, and this kind of strong love and friendship also brings a warm feeling to integrated education. For example, there is a child with autism who has been rejected and complained by multiple parents in the class. In this regard, our administrative staff communicated with the parents of the class one by one to introduce the real situation of the child in the kindergarten: the child has a number of resource teachers in the kindergarten to give personal training, and there are teachers to interact with him everywhere he goes in the kindergarten, and the teachers continue to strengthen his way of getting along with others, communicating and playing, helping him form a sense that he cannot open other people's belongings at will and cannot eat other people's things at will. With the concerted efforts of everyone, he gradually learned that "I don't take other people's things", can ask and talk, and parents no longer resist him, because he has slowly Xi "peaceful coexistence" with others.
Second, create a warm and moist play environment. Our kindergarten has created a "fun run" story park of "two fields, three districts and seven rooms", inviting parents to discuss and make suggestions together, and understand that the educational environment is precisely because of the "individual needs" to add special rooms for the integration of education functions, which fully meets the needs of "universal + individual needs", and parents have more reciprocity and gratitude for children with special needs.
Third, establish an atmosphere of social assistance of love. Some children with special needs have difficult family conditions and need sufficient care and support from the society, so we actively contacted various departments to set up an integrated education association, which provided early education service fee subsidy for 1-3-year-old low-income families in the community, provided evening care service fee subsidy for more than 10 low-income children in the kindergarten, and quietly prepared love bento boxes for malnourished children. Practical economic assistance and education services fully demonstrate the love and warmth of integrated education.
I once read this passage in the book "The Perspective of Child Care Workers" by the Japanese scholar Tsumori Marum: "We must carefully grasp the thin threads of the children's hearts, and these fine threads will one day weave the future of the world." We must recognize that every pebble thrown into the calm waters of a child's heart will ripple through the centuries. "This outlook on life and sense of mission is the driving force behind teachers' perseverance in the face of difficulties and pressure, and I am moved and moved by it. May more people join hands to reshape our work ideas, to embrace children with special needs, to let education shine with humanity in this pure paradise, and not to let any child lose the opportunity to receive education.
China Education Daily, December 17, 2023, page 2