Embedded Files
Parents/Families
Parents/Families
The key to a child's educational success is a successful partnership between teachers, parents and family members. Parents are a child’s first and most important teacher. Research proves that family engagement is one of the best tools to help a student succeed in school. We have gathered here some information that can help you support your child’s education. That includes finding care for our youngest learners, determining how well a particular school performs, and learning about the standards we have set for what a student should know and be able to do to be ready to graduate and succeed in life.
Family Guides
These brochures explain the CCSS to parents/guardians, providing insights into what students will learn and highlighting progression through the grade levels. Spanish versions are available on the Sacramento County Office of Education Web site.
English Language Arts/Literacy: Grades K–2 (PDF), 3–5 (PDF), 6–8 (PDF), 9–12 (PDF)
Mathematics: Grades K–2 (PDF), 3–5 (PDF), 6–8 (PDF), 9–12 (PDF)
Transitional Kindergarten
6 things to do when your child says, “Nobody likes me!”
6 things to do when your child says, “Nobody likes me!”
Experts weigh in on how to respond when your child feels disliked, excluded, or friendless.
“Everybody hates me.” “I have no friends.” These aren’t easy things for parents to hear. Your first instinct may be to try to fix it, or assure your child that it isn’t true. When your son or daughter cries “Nobody likes me,” you know that it’s time to do something.
“As parents, what we want to say is, ‘That’s not true!’ because it’s painful for us to think that people hate our child, and it’s painful that our child thinks someone hates them. So we want to fix it; it’s a very strong impulse,” says parent coach and psychologist Erica Reischer. “But we have to hold ourselves back because if we do that, we inadvertently send the message that those feelings are bad, that maybe they can’t handle those feelings, and most importantly, it doesn’t give them the opportunity to develop coping skills.”
Instead of rushing to smooth things over when a child feels disliked, experts agree, parents should focus on teaching their child to help themselves.
“It’s very hard to sit back and just listen because we want to get on the phone and call the mother of the girl who won’t talk to our daughter anymore and say, ‘What’s going on with your daughter?’ But nobody really learns anything from that,” says Madeline Levine, author of Teach Your Children Well. When this happens, she says, “It’s an opportunity to learn about the complexities of friendship. ‘Why do you think that happened? Did you have anything to do with it? What do you think of this person as a friend now?’ Because that’s going to happen in life. You’re going to get dropped by a girlfriend, you’re going to get dropped by a boyfriend.”
Addressing “Nobody likes me.”
Addressing “Nobody likes me.”
Here are six ways to transform a painful moment into an opportunity for growth and a chance to learn a valuable life skill.
First, listen
Everyone has a bad day. A small slight can easily get blown out of proportion and lead your child to come home and declare that they haven’t a friend in the world. The first thing to do is listen, says Levine. You want to understand if there’s a bigger pattern of your child being excluded, or if this is a one-time occurrence.
“By listening you can figure out if there’s a real problem, like bullying or something missing in your child’s social skills, that needs to be attended to,” she says.Acknowledge your child’s feelings
“Starting with empathy is the most important thing. You say something like, ‘Oh sweetie, I know you feel like everyone hates you, that’s really painful,’ says Reischer.
When your child expresses to you that they’re feeling hurt or sad, validating that feeling and letting them experience it is an important practice for handling such feelings as she gets older, says Jane Nelsen, author of Positive Discipline. Have faith in your child’s ability to successfully weather the negative experiences in life, says Nelsen, and she will learn to have that same faith in herself.Ask open-ended questions
After you’ve expressed empathy, asking your child questions, such as ‘Why do you think that?’ can help kids analyze the problem and arrive at their own solutions.
“Ask a lot of questions to lead them through the thought process, so that they can own their own feeling of, ‘Oh, you know what? I don’t think that is really true. They weren’t really running away from me. There was another game and they didn’t see me.’ If they come to that conclusion on their own, they’re much more likely to believe it,” says Reicher. “Also it helps them understand how to go through that process on their own.”Assess your child’s social skills
If you suspect there’s something more to your child’s assertion that nobody likes me, do some troubleshooting, says Mormon Moms blogger Heidi Allen Hendricks. “Maybe they’re shy or obnoxious or hygiene is an issue,” she says. Talk to your child’s teacher and ask what they’ve observed about your child’s social skills and interactions with his peers. Invite another child to play. Enroll your child in an activity so that he has more opportunities to make friends. Another of Hendricks’ proactive suggestions: “I’d tell my child to look for someone else who is lonely to be their friend.”Take the opportunity to teach empathy
When Nelsen’s daughter reported being teased about her curly hair, Nelsen saw an opening to talk about the feelings of others. She asked her daughter, do you know other kids who have been teased? “She thought about it and said, ‘Yes.’ I asked, ‘What does everybody else get teased about?’ One was teased for her big teeth, another for something else, another for something else.” It was helpful, Nelsen says, for her daughter to realize she wasn’t alone in her experience of having been teased. “Then I could ask, ‘Now that you know how it feels, how do you think it feels for other people?’ It wasn’t dismissing her. It was helping her realize what other people are feeling.”Let your child lead in finding a solution to the “Nobody likes me” problem
Once you have identified what the problem is, whether it’s getting left out of an activity or someone’s hurtful words at the lunch table, ask your child what ideas they have for a solution, says Christine Carter, parenting expert and the author of Raising Happiness.
Although your child might be looking to you to make the problem go away, this is an opportunity to show her that she’s capable of finding the answers herself. Ask your child, “Can you think of anything you can do to resolve this problem now? To prevent the problem in the future?”
Podcast for Parents
Welcome to Like a Sponge, GreatSchools’ podcast for parents
Welcome to Like a Sponge, GreatSchools’ podcast for parents
In a world of educational chaos, where can you turn to help your child flourish? Join Carol Lloyd as she dives into the science and stories behind how kids thrive. From how kids become math-phobic to what's going on inside your teenager's brain, it’s the science of learning, fun and unspun.
by: GreatSchools Staff | Updated: April 13, 2022
Season 3
Season 3
In rural North Carolina, one district launched a radical experiment to rethink their traditional high school. It worked so well, they’ve become a national model.
How can high schools put student aspirations first? This Rhode Island high school swept aside the old high school model to send students out to explore the world — and even sail the high seas.
One Pennsylvania high school rebuilds its culture through an antiracist lens and one Texas teacher whose culturally responsive teaching builds on the strengths and needs of her students.
What happens when a high school realizes that their strict behavior rules are doing more harm than good? One Massachusetts charter school revamped their school culture one relationship at a time.
How can high schoolers sample the future? This public Georgia high school has perfected a pathway program that leads to college, careers, and even stardom.
One small Texas early college high school manages to do what so many high schools try but fail to do: prepare all students for actual college success.
Most high schools have been using the same old playbook for more than a century. Why haven’t they caught up with the times?
Season 2
Season 2
We want our kids to be confident learners. We tell them to “speak up in class” and “fake it till you make it.” But what about that old-fashioned virtue, humility? New research suggests it may be the key to learning.
One of the best gifts you can give your child? Raising them to be generous.
Grateful kids are happier, more engaged in school, and more satisfied with their lives. To find out why gratitude is such a game changer in our material-and-status-obsessed world, we talk to researchers, kids, and a Somalian refugee about how gratitude goes beyond niceties and changes lives.
Good news! Liar, liar has been nominated for a Webby Award for best podcast episode in the Science and Education category. Thank you for listening. Please spread the word!
Today’s kids see celebrities, business moguls, and politicians lie with impunity. Here’s how to raise an honest child in a post-truth society.
Just 40% of adults say they feel a strong sense of purpose in their lives, but research shows that a sense of purpose makes people happier, healthier, and more successful. We talked to researchers, parents and kids about how you can help your child begin a path toward a meaningful life.
Decades of research show that the ability to forgive is a life skill that helps us build our resilience. In this episode, we tackle some of the biggest misconceptions about forgiveness head on, and explain how teaching kids how to recover from everyday hurts will make them resilient to life’s bigger blows.
The secret ingredient for thriving in our fractured society? It’s feeling unconditionally loved, and the best times to make sure your kids feel it are in your toughest parenting moments. We talked with researchers, kids, and a former white supremacist about how to make sure your kids are picking up the vibe. More…
Season 1
Season 1
What’s it like to tour 12 elementary schools in search of the best one for your child? Join us as we explore one of the most complicated milestones in modern American parenting. More…
Nine out of 10 parents expect their kids to go to college. Four in 10 kids get there. Tune in to find out how parents from all backgrounds are moving heaven and earth to keep their kids college-bound. More…
Tune in as Like a Sponge explores how parents can embrace early adolescence, one of the most radical stages of brain development in the human lifespan. More…
In this episode of Like a Sponge, we take a hard look at what screens are doing to our kids’ brains — and what kind of technology role models we are. More…
Is standardized testing an irrelevant waste of class time? Or is it an essential tool for making sure kids don’t slip through the cracks? In the second episode of Like a Sponge, we delve into the hotly debated topic of standardized tests. More…
In the first episode of Like a Sponge, we explore why math fills so many Americans with fear and loathing, and what experts are doing to change the math story for your child. More…
Read Like a Detective, Write Like an Investigative Reporter.
One recent morning at Gateway High School in San Francisco, the kids in Laura D’Amato’s ninth grade humanities class were hunting for evidence.
The assignment? The class recently started a research project on social movements around the world, and that morning they were reading articles on their topic and taking notes. As D’Amato quietly circled the classroom, checking notes and answering questions, the students pored over articles, looking for evidence to support their theses. Their final papers will be three pages long, but they’re required to write six pages of notes (eight pages for honors students). “We’re in the information-gathering phase at this point,” D’Amato told the class. “We’re putting the net out and gathering as much evidence as possible.”
Parents can expect to hear the word “evidence” a lot under the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) — beginning in the earliest grades. Even very young children are expected to provide evidence to demonstrate how they know what they know. In kindergarten, for example, students may “show evidence” by pointing to pictures in a book they’re reading. In math, they may stack blocks to show that three plus three equals six. By the fourth grade, kids are asked to write argument papers with multiple reasons for their opinion, each with concrete pieces of evidence.
David Liben, who was involved in the creation of the Common Core and is now Senior Content Specialist at Student Achievement Partners, provides this simple explanation of evidence under the learning standards: “It means asking children two questions: ‘What is your evidence?’ and, ‘How did you figure that out?’ The point is to ask students to answer not just based on their thoughts or opinions, but on evidence in the text.”
One of the goals of the Common Core Standards is to teach students to read harder and deeper, and, like D’Amato’s ninth graders, to make arguments and develop their theses based on information they find in their reading. As David Coleman, one of the principal architects of the Common Core Standards, puts it, the goal is to, “Read like a detective, write like an investigative reporter.”
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