A Delicate Balance: Principles and Practices Of Promising Arts And Humanities Programs
"We are desperate to maintain relationships with parents," acknowledges Carol Ochs. "Nothing makes kids feel better than the parents showing up for the show and being there. So we try to be as communicative as possible in terms of everything that we're doing."
Reale points out, "Most of the kids who we work with have remarkable, hard-working, decent parents-folks trying to do the best for their families and themselves. Getting to know the parents is part of the job. As your relationship with a child deepens, you can work together with a parent to help the child through difficult stretches. When a kid exhibits behavior that is difficult to understand, ask his or her parents to shed light. They usually have the answers....Above all, the parents must be treated with respect."6
Even so, creating an independent relationship is important, particularly with older children. For many adolescents, parents are "part of the problem." And sometimes youth are more willing to talk about important issues with caring adults outside of their
families.
For some programs, however, the distinction between being a parent and being a child has vanished. Programs for one are often for the other, as exemplified by the Vermont Council on the Humanities' Read With Me program for teen parents.
Many of the parents of the children who attend the Kaleidoscope Preschool Arts Enrichment Program are young themselves. These parents are required to attend five hour-long parenting seminars each semester. "The Program has provided a mentor-type relationship between parents and faculty. It has been very beneficial. We have had a number of parents who have decided to go back to school to get GEDs and to go to community college. We have been very conscious that it's important to pull the families into the whole mix," says Capanna.
Effective programs work in partnership with parents, but recognize their different relationship
with youngsters. Every program stresses the importance of parents. Acceptance and appreciation by parents is very important to young people, even children living with family difficulties. As Abe, one young person at a juvenile detention center, says, "Kids like to send stuff home. They give it to their parents and say, 'Hey, look. I did this.'"