Definition Essay Family

Michael J. Fox once said “Family is not an important thing. It is everything.” is a philosophy most families live by. For most, families are people’s rock, their counselor, their support system and their life. No family is the same and that is what makes families unique. Sure, most have a crazy aunt or a creepy uncle, but deep down at the heart of the family is love. Although not everyone’s family has a healthy relationship or close bond, we all come from one. Whether it is a mom and a dad household, just mom or just dad, grandparents or friends at the end of the day there is someone to love. Because families are an important aspect to many children’s life, it is important for me to be involved with my future students creating an open relationship

Families don’t have to be a mom and a dad with children, they can be single parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and even friends. Learning about the family subsystems opened my eyes on how families can actually be different. In fact, “46% of families have two married biological parents, 34% have a single-parent family, 15% are blended families and 5% are not living with either parent.” (Martorell & Feldman 2014). These percentages are eye opening and truly display the differentiation between families. Knowing information on each student such as where they come from, who they live with and what they like to do with family and friends is crucial information to know when forming a bond with students. Students will feel at ease when teachers can relate to them by having a dog or asking how their weekend trip was. The key component to knowing this information is listening. How am I going to form connections if I don’t listen? This can be an easy task that may be forgotten. Teachers are busy, but never too busy to not take a few moments to listen to what children or families have to say. Knowing information on student’s families and lives shows students they are respected and cared for during the

That is what I thought before taking this class. Instead, it can be quite challenging for communication between families and teachers. Both have busy lives so setting up a time to meet can cause disruption in the daily schedule. I as the teacher, will have to be the one to compromise and stay late or come in early. A task like this can easily be done and shouldn’t be hard for me to accomplish. With todays technology it is much easier to communicate with families. Some may not have a car, unable to meet at school. So, Face Timing or Skyping with them can easily be done. It should be a constant reminder that this is all for the student’s best interest, and I am doing more than I should to benefit the student. Another form of communication that many teachers use is having a class website or an app where parents and teachers can communicate that way. I also want to incorporate classroom newsletters that would go home monthly. This would just be a heads up for families saying what we will be learning about, what field trips were taking, who is bringing snacks and other important information parents should know. Effective communication is essential so if something were to get mixed up, documentation can be shown. Families and teachers should always be collaborating with each other, it should never be families versus teachers. Collaboration between the family and the teacher is for the