Key Points in Consulting with Multicultural Families, Part 2

Our guest blogger this week is Dr. David Brooks, who is semi-retired, works regularly with Interaction International, and once or twice a year with SEND International. He has been a TCK education consultant for 21 years, and a teacher and administrator for 30 years. He has lived and served in Taiwan, Europe, and former Soviet countries in Europe, Asia, and Central Asia. In his free time, he enjoys watching Seattle sports, working outside with his yard, flowers, and maintenance, and fishing. He also enjoys reading on his Kindle. You can read Part 1 of this article here.

Zeroing in on the importance and complexity of differences in expectations has a great deal to do with the dynamics of the marriage:

• The process is much more complex with two different sets of expectations. The following is from an article entitled “I Married an Alien” (http://www.imarriedanalien.com/)

Parenthood can bring out a person’s worst fears about his or her spouse.  My husband dearly loved me and treated me with a great deal of respect until the day our first child was born. On that day, he began to blow off all of my opinions, ideas, and basically thought most decisions I made about our child were very stupid and needed to be changed. Basically, he suddenly became convinced that no Western woman could be as good a mother as a girl from his country.

These fears can cause unexpected, odd behavior. When my husband realized that our child wasn’t being raised exactly as he was, he freaked out. He became controlling and demeaning. This nearly ended in divorce when my son was three. But slowly my husband began to return to normal – he saw how dedicated and loving I was, despite some cultural differences in the way I cared for our child. Now, years later, all is fine and we’re very excited about our third child who will be born in a few months!

It should be noted that in-laws, grandparents, friends and co-workers of similar backgrounds can also have these effects on shared expectations.

• The most important task is helping parents understand what are their expectations and getting them to accept commonly held, agreed upon long term expectations
• Close to importance in this process is to help them understand that agreed upon expectations are really important to the long term success of their children as well as to the parent’s ministry.

See “Cross-Cultural Marriage Mentoring” by Harold L. Arnold.

“Nevertheless, Julie and Jason’s marriage is working. They shared with me three keys to their marital health. First, they emphasized the importance of prayer – asking God’s help to prioritize His will over their own cultural reactions. Second, they talked about graciousness – prioritizing mutual nurture over the need to be right. And third, they highlighted the role of marriage mentoring – serving as accountability partners with other couples. This, particularly, intrigued me, and I longed to hear more.”

• This issue is the most difficult part of the consulting process, since their backgrounds and sometimes extended family input may work against your goals in this area
• If working with a western based agency, getting the agency to see the importance of this issue is also a key factor.  If working with a non-western based agency, getting understanding on this issue may be very difficult to attain.

Here are some ideas as to how to dialog with multi-cultural families from Harvard Family Research Project: (Click here for article link)

•  Begin with a personal exchange rather than launching into a formal progress report.
•  Allow the personal to be interspersed with the discussion of academics.
•  Show respect for the family, instead of only paying attention to the child who is the focus of the conference.
• Use indirect questions or observations rather than questions to elicit information about the child at home (e.g., “Some parents prefer to have an older child help with homework…” rather than, “Do you or someone else help the child with her homework?”)
• Discuss the student’s achievements in the context of the peer group of the classroom, suggesting how the individual student contributes to the well-being of all.
• Explain the goals and expectations of the school and help parents find ways in which they are comfortable supporting their children’s learning.
• Create a sense of common purpose and caring through the use of the pronoun “we” rather than “you” and “I.”

I am sure that for many, what is stated above is just the beginning of the process.  Others will already have a number of head-scratching stories of multi-cultural families that have provided a high degree of difficulty in the consulting process.  Helping couples see the importance and value of shared expectations is really important.  For the consultant, gaining better understanding of the multi-cultural differences at work in the educational process can aid in being really helpful.

What recommendations can you offer other consultants working with multicultural families?

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