I’m so glad you brought this up, Hilary, because side conversations during the assessment are so common. My suggestion would be to wait until the parent and SC are finished and just have your conversation out in the open for everyone to hear. As you can imagine, it’s probably a lot more uncomfortable for the parent to see the providers discussing something, even when you’ve said you’ll tell her later. If I was the parent, I’d be distracted and probably wouldn’t be listening very well to the SC because I’d want to know what you all were saying too. I’d recommend that you talk to your colleague and try to break the habit of having that side conversation. For the next few assessments, try it out and I bet it will go just fine…and you won’t have to feel that weirdness anymore!

I’d love to hear other ideas on how to handle this too!

Thanks for sharing this great example, Deana! Yes, there is nothing like feedback from others. Sometimes it can be a little painful to hear (or see) but if we can be open to it and to adjusting ourselves, it can make us much better service providers.

I, like Dana, am so grateful for getting this feedback. We are often unaware of the messages we convey non-verbally. I pay much more attention to my eye rolls and sighs (hopefully happen much less frequently) and am most grateful for my colleagues and family for being honest with me.