Topic 4: Family and Peers
I think that the two systems that I would want to work with would be the family systems approach and the peer/friend system approach. In this post, I will briefly describe why each of these systems are important.
1. The family System: I think it is incredibly important to approach the families of you classmates in times when one of your students is struggling or having issues at schools. Using Dionte as an example, the situation that we talked about in class was that due to his brother being very successful in school, and having attained an academic scholarship for his success, Dionte was feeling upset and wanted some attention, causing him to act out at school. In this case, I think it is really important to gather information from the family about this. First of all, I don't think we would have been able to get the whole story if we didn't approach the family, since the issue stems from home. Like several issues with adolescents, a lot of the time they can stem from home. It's important to make the family members aware of what is going on at school as well. Also, by taking to the family members, we could ask them whether the relationship between Dionte and his brother has been strained since the award was given, and if so, have the two of them chat it out. We could have the parents talk to Dionte's brother to help make Dionte feel better as well, since he is feeling underachieved and neglected. That way, there could be a collective effort from both the family and the teacher to try and help Dionte out. For someone like Sara, I think it is important for us to address the family members for another reason entirely. From what was discussed in class, Sara is acting carefree and accepted because her best friend and her big sister have been engaging in risky behaviours at school. I think it is important to notify the family to a) have them talk to their older daughter about the health risks and lifestyle risks that come along with taking part in this "risky" behaviour. It is also important to notify them to ensure that their daughter is not feeling pressured into engaging in these activities because of her best friend and sister's behaviours.
By talking to family members, we are addressing the people who the adolescent is generally surrounded by for a large portion of the time when not at school. Many times, they can really help students to make better decisions, and to make them feel better about themselves, and serve as great supporters in times of adversity in teens, and even older adults.
2. The Peer/Friend System: I think it is also very important to talk to the friends and peers of the students, since they also have a large input on students' lives. With regard to Dionte, having a chat with his friends to see how they have been seeing his behavioural changes could really help with getting down to what is going on with him. If we had no idea of what was causing his behaviour changes, talking to his friends could potentially help us to figuring out what is wrong. Friends are also great support systems. They definitely help with finding out what is wrong, but they can also help with solving and fixing the problem. Having supportive friends who look at the best side of him, and know how intelligent and strong Dionte is could contribute to him getting out of his aggressive behaviour, and going back to the kind classmate he was before. Friends have a big influence on adolescents, and using them to gather info, and having them be apart of figuring out a solution is incredibly important with dealing with kids at this age. For Sara's situation, having her friends and peers accept her for who she is is incredibly important. If we didn't know what the situation was with Sara, chances are her friends and peers would have been able to help the teacher narrow down the potential reasons for her drastic change in behaviour. Since we know what is going on, and since it is stemming from school, talking to her friends and peers about the negative affects of peer pressure could help with her getting back to how she was, academically, before the rumours started flying. Additionally, I think that it is important, to avoid people getting upset and avoiding her, to ensure that students will accept her for who she is, not who her best friend or who her sister is, and rather than jumping to conclusions, or ignoring her, help her to fit in by getting to know her.
Resouces:
Today's post is based off of the Topic 4 lecture slides and the pamphlet provided on eclass, Involving Parents, in addition to the class discussion. No external sources were used for today's post.