NEDA TOOLKIT for Educators
Why parent-school communications may be difficult
This information is intended to help both parents and
school staff understand each other’s perspectives
about communication and the factors that affect their
communications. Parents of children with an eating disorder (diagnosed
or undiagnosed) sometimes express frustration about
what they perceive as a lack of communication about
their child’s behavior from school teachers, coaches,
guidance counselors, and other school administrative
personnel. From the parents’ perspective, feelings
have been expressed that “my child is in school and at
school activities more waking hours a day than they are
home. Why didn’t the school staff notice something
was wrong? Why don’t they contact us about our child
to tell us what they think?”
From a teacher’s perspective, feelings have been
expressed that “eating disorders can be difficult to
spot, especially when someone may be going to great
lengths to hide the problem. Also, it’s often the case
that a given teacher sees a student less than an hour
a day in a class full of kids. So no school staff person is
seeing the child for a prolonged period, and they often
have a hard time getting a good baseline from which to
detect changes.”
It is important to keep in mind that rules vary by
state, city, and district, and to educate yourself on
your locality’s confidentiality and communication
regulations. Some schools may be bound by strict
protocols generated by state regulations about how
teachers and staff are required to channel observations
and concerns, while in many districts teachers can
and do contact parents directly about concerns they
have over a student, whether directly related to
academic performance or other behavior observed
at school. Teachers can also address issues directly
with the student. Parents are often grateful for the
communication from the teacher and open and
responsive to concern and feedback, although there
are exceptions to this.
Although a parent can request that a teacher not
disclose certain issues to the student, and students can
ask that the teacher not contact their parent, there are
few laws prohibiting or requiring this disclosure except
in cases of suspected abuse. Eating disorders can have
serious and even deadly consequences so both parents
and teachers must keep the overall well-being of the
student in the forefront of their minds as they make
decisions about what to disclose and to whom.
However, in some areas, school districts may be
required to have a “student assistance program” team
to handle student nonacademic issues. Guidance
counselors may also be involved, given the nature
of eating disorders. Some guidance counselors
may ask that a teacher be responsible for all parent
communication so that the student will continue to
share their concerns openly and honestly with the
counselor. Guidance counselors may have slightly different ethical
concerns and obligations to the student and his or
her parents than teachers do. The American School
Counselor Association’s (ASCA) position statement
on confidentiality (www.schoolcounselor.org) states
the professional responsibilities of school counselors,
emphasizing rights to privacy, defining the meaning
of confidentiality in a school setting, and describing
the role of the school counselor. The position
statement underscores that an atmosphere of trust
and confidentiality is vital to the student-counselor
relationship; a counselor’s primary obligation is to their
students, but that obligation should be balanced by
mindfulness of the family’s legal and inherent rights in
their child’s life.
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