{"id":1094,"date":"2013-07-16T11:22:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T15:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/veipd.org\/earlyintervention\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2020-06-25T02:21:59","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T02:21:59","slug":"names-are-important-please-dont-call-me-mom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.veipd.org\/earlyintervention\/2013\/07\/16\/names-are-important-please-dont-call-me-mom\/","title":{"rendered":"Names are Important: Please Don&#8217;t Call Me &#8220;Mom&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The educator knocks and Malik&#8217;s mother answers the door. They introduce themselves then move out to the backyard where Malik and his sister are playing in the sandbox. The educator sits down and says &#8220;So, Mom, is this one of Malik&#8217;s favorite things to do?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wait&#8230;did you notice anything wrong with this picture?<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Using Parent&#8217;s Proper Names vs. &#8220;Mom&#8221; &#8211; Is this Important?<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1100\" src=\"http:\/\/veipd.org\/earlyintervention\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/shutterstock_97916309-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"Chalkboard: What is Your name\" width=\"203\" height=\"147\" \/><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>You might think that this is really no big deal, calling Malik&#8217;s mother &#8220;mom&#8221; instead of using her proper name. Why do we do this? Why do so many professionals\u00a0settle on &#8220;mom&#8221; or &#8220;dad&#8221; during the EI visit,\u00a0at the pediatrician&#8217;s office or the\u00a0child care center? I think it&#8217;s probably just easier than remembering the parent&#8217;s name. I think we do this, too, because that&#8217;s how we view this adult we are working with &#8211;\u00a0primarily in the role of parent or caregiver. We don&#8217;t know them well and have identified them\u00a0in this category, even though they are likely to be many more things in their real life. For others of us, it&#8217;s just plain old habit.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>A Show of Respect<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I believe that using the parent&#8217;s proper name is a show of respect. Don&#8217;t you feel better when someone you\u00a0meet remembers to use your name? It feels like it puts you and the other person on more\u00a0equal footing, like you are important enough for them to remember who, not what, you are. It&#8217;s a tactic regularly used in sales and customer service to make customers feel appreciated and to build trust. Names are important.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How Would You Like To Be Addressed?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Do you usually ask parents how they prefer to be addressed? To be painfully honest, I didn&#8217;t ask this question for many years, and just made the assumption that I would use first names to help\u00a0build a less formal relationship. It dawned on me (much too late) that not all families viewed our relationship as informal and in fact wanted to maintain boundaries that came with using Mr. or Mrs. I also realized that generational and cultural differences\u00a0affected what parents and caregivers wanted to be called &#8211; this &#8220;ah-ha&#8221; moment came when I called a grandmother by her first name and she corrected me\u00a0to call her Mrs. &#8212;. It also dawned on me that asking\u00a0caregivers how they wanted to be addressed was a simple empower\u00a0strategy because there is power in a name and they should have the right to choose what they&#8217;re called.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I&#8217;m Not Your Mom<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>One thing I didn&#8217;t do, even in my days as a young early interventionist, was call parents &#8220;mom&#8221; or &#8220;dad.&#8221; I\u00a0did use those names when I was speaking to the child, like &#8220;give it to mama&#8221; or &#8220;where&#8217;s daddy?&#8221; but I always asked the parent what the child called him\/her first. \u00a0I&#8217;ve seen interventionists fail to do this over long periods of time, for instance calling the father &#8220;Daddy&#8221; when\u00a0he&#8217;s actually\u00a0&#8220;Papa.&#8221;\u00a0Calling the\u00a0mother &#8220;mom&#8221; always felt uncomfortable to me, even before I was a parent, because this person was not my mom and actually &#8220;belonged&#8221; to someone else. Once I became a parent, I realized that being called &#8220;mom&#8221; by other people felt even weirder. I\u00a0 usually speak up and say that calling me by my first name is fine. Some\u00a0families\u00a0might not\u00a0feel comfortable\u00a0requesting this, but if we gave them the chance, they just might.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, I&#8217;ve also\u00a0heard professionals call parents\u00a0&#8220;mom&#8221; or &#8220;dad&#8221; with an undercurrent of condescension,\u00a0as if\u00a0saying\u00a0&#8220;you are just the parent, I am the expert.&#8221;\u00a0We\u00a0work hard in early intervention to build the parent-provider partnership so this is not an impression that we want to give.\u00a0Using parent&#8217;s names, whatever they want to\u00a0be called,\u00a0is just one small thing we can do to let parents know that we respect and value their role in early intervention.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Three Quick Tips:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Ask the parent how he\/she wants to be addressed.<\/li>\n<li>Make an effort to remember and use the parent&#8217;s name.<\/li>\n<li>Ask about what names the child &amp; family\u00a0use to refer to parents, grandparents, and other important people.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What are your thoughts about this? What do you call parents and why?<\/strong> Leave a comment below to share your thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The educator knocks and Malik&#8217;s mother answers the door. They introduce themselves then move out to the backyard where Malik and his sister are playing in the sandbox. The educator sits down and says &#8220;So, Mom, is this one of Malik&#8217;s favorite things to do?&#8221; Wait&#8230;did you notice anything wrong with this picture? Using Parent&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[139,10,12,14],"tags":[37,42,48,50,58,59,62,86,87,95,104,112],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-engaging-collaborating-with-families","category-intervention-visits","category-practical-strategies-for-intervention","tag-collaboration","tag-cultural-competence","tag-early-childhood","tag-early-intervention","tag-families","tag-family-centered-practices","tag-home-visits","tag-parent-professional-partnership","tag-parents","tag-relationships","tag-service-coordination-2","tag-strategies","clearfix"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Names are Important: Please Don&#039;t Call Me &quot;Mom&quot; - 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