Helping parents understand

[treeholm]

I think the reason some of the parents can intimidate us is because in order to choose this profession, we have to have a certain level of warmth and caring as personality traits. Those of us with that personality find it difficult to be assertive. I teach assertiveness as part of my third-year university communications course, and it is always the students with the "listener-style" personality profile (according to the personality profile system I developed) who have the biggest problem with assertiveness. I am a "split-personality". I'm very warm with the children (and with my students) but I can be assertive (many students over the years have been shocked to see the personality change when they ask for assignment extensions and get my alter ego LOL).

I guess what I'm saying is there is nothing wrong with any of us who hate confrontation, but we do need to learn the skills necessary to prevent us from being doormats. We're just the kind of people who give and give, and there are others who are happy to take and take... but only if we let them!