Teachers All Over The Country Are Sharing This 'Handle With Care' Handout

[hollydolly]

'' We've all had stressful mornings, evenings, and weekends. Kids definitely feel that stress and it's a good idea to communicate with the child's teacher if a student might require extra time, help, or patience.


Fourth grade teacher Rachel Harder said she doesn't need the details, she only needs to know to "handle with care."


She came up with the idea after attending a trauma conference a few years ago.


"There was a discussion how police stations across the country have started partnering with schools so that when they have encounters with families in the evenings or on weekends, the police will contact the school - either counselor or administrator - and let them know to handle a student with care since they had encounters with police beforehand," Harder told Fox News. "We loved this idea and figured there had to be a way to make this work within our own classroom community."


So, Harder offers parents the opportunity to text her with the words "handle with care" if it's been a particularly rough evening or morning.


"I don't need to know details but parents like that – they know I'm keeping an extra eye on them," Harder said. "I also usually text back and let them know how the morning is going."

 

[oldman]

I have mixed feelings about this procedure. It seems to me that in today’s society children are already being pandered. If a child is young, maybe 10 or under, I may agree with this, but isn’t it better to use those types of incidents as a teaching experience? If you know that a child had a bad night before because he/she had an intervention with cops or maybe got into trouble with mom or dad, why make believe it didn’t happen and tip-toe around the child? Why not sit down and have a conversation about the bad” episode?” JMT

Or, am I missing the point?

 

[hollydolly]

I have mixed feelings about this procedure. It seems to me that in today’s society children are already being pandered. If a child is young, maybe 10 or under, I may agree with this, but isn’t it better to use those types of incidents as a teaching experience? If you know that a child had a bad night before because he/she had an intervention with cops or maybe got into trouble with mom or dad, why make believe it didn’t happen and tip-toe around the child? Why not sit down and have a conversation about the bad” episode?” JMT

Or, am I missing the point?

I understand the point you're making OM... and I agree that children of today are very much more mollycoddled than ever before.. however, having grown up in an extremely dysfunctional family, where abuse was regularly carried out in front of us kids and on us kids even more regularly.. certainly most days for the slightest infringement , we'd often go to school next day with hidden bruises, either physically or mentally.. and perhaps due to that.. be belligerent, or upset in some way in class, then be beaten with a belt by a teacher..or screamed at because they had no idea why we were acting up.. nor did we come to that ... we were mentally and physically beaten down.. but we thought it happened to everyone, so we never spoke about it...

if my mum or a neighbour who heard our screams at night or weekends could have just text a teacher to say ''handle with care'', and they followed that instruction .. then we might have felt someone actually did care about us...

This teacher says no questions will be asked.. and that's a good thing..unless the child wants to speak, but it means the teacher knows the child is fragile for a reason.. and just some friendly words from your teacher.. or at least not to be shouted at in class , as well as having all the hurt at home... would and will make a huge difference to kids who are growing up in situations such as my siblings and me , and I feel that wise teachers will come to know parents are using this to their own advantage

 

[Remy]

I don't know. So many will fall through the cracks and will never be known about. I can remember leaving that house from my mother's rages, being bullied in school and then returning to that nightmare. No one knew. No one cared.

We'll never be able to help all. I never told anyone. Not even my oldest brother who was 11 years older then me. I just internalized it all.

I think it's good for people to do what they can but they have to acknowledge they will never help everyone.

 

[hollydolly]

I don't know. So many will fall through the cracks and will never be known about. I can remember leaving that house from my mother's rages, being bullied in school and then returning to that nightmare. No one knew. No one cared.

We'll never be able to help all. I never told anyone. Not even my oldest brother who was 11 years older then me. I just internalized it all.

I think it's good for people to do what they can but they have to acknowledge they will never help everyone.

so sorry you went through that too (((remy))) ...but no, not everyone can be helped and not all parents or guardians will text the teacher, but even if one little soul who is hurting for whatever reason, gets to feel a little better then the deed is a good one..

 

[Remy]

so sorry you went through that too (((remy))) ...but no, not everyone can be helped and not all parents or guardians will text the teacher, but even if one little soul who is hurting for whatever reason, gets to feel a little better than the deed is a good one..

I agree. People do who come up with these plans still need to realize it's not the end all of helping. But yes, if one can be helped or a few, they matter.

 

[SmoothSeas]

This popped up on my FaceBook feed and I felt compelled to share with a few FB friends who are elementary school teachers, who then shared it with co-workers, who then, hopefully, passed it on...