Emotions in IEP Meetings

Tissues should be a staple for IEP meetings. 

I’d like to normalize feeling intense emotions as you sit through a meeting guided by strangers that lists off all the ways that your child is not measuring up to their classmates.

A meeting that forces parents to face just how extreme their child’s circumstances are. 

A meeting where it forces you to see just how far away from typical your life truly is.

After many years of multiple Individualized Education Plan meetings per year for my daughter, I’ve become very aquatinted with the dynamics and emotional strain you feel. 

—I tend to anticipate needing to defend my positions as I ask for services. 

I always expect there to be differing of opinions and the school committee’s attempt to provide as minimal assistance as possible. 

It constantly feels like an uphill battle because disability parents are conditioned to be lone wolves— survivors! 

Life doesn’t flow easily so why would this part? Right?

I invite you to calm your nervous system before entering the room (or the zoom call). 

Consider, “what if they’re on my side?” 

Assume you’ll achieve exactly what you expected. 

That shift in mindset will facilitate a peaceful container for dialogue with your child’s committee, which may alter the course of the whole meeting. 

Will it still be emotional?— yes. 

But perhaps we can curb the tears provoked from anger; That way, when the protective anger is warranted in the meeting, it won’t be compounded— it will be appropriate and well received .

But being defensive and angry isn’t the only emotions we are dealing with. We are juggling the grief and sadness.

I set my heart before the meeting with prayer and reflection on why this is so important and ask God to guide us. 
Calm my mind and heart rate.

I tell myself I’m not gonna cry. 

I convince myself that I need to show myself to be as strong, capable, and intelligent as possible. but the truth is, being emotional doesn’t negate any of those things!

Why do we expect to hide raw emotion when we are faced with such immense pain? 

If you would learn one thing in this journey, it’s grace for yourself. This life is difficult and you have no idea what to do yet you’re supposed to be confident in all the decisions and proactive and innovative— it’s exhausting mentally and physically!

When you cry or feel that sadness during the meeting, you are not showing a weakness, nor are you demonstrating disappointment in your child— you’re downloading a lot of heavy stuff all at once and it is overwhelming.

I truly think that tears should be not only welcomed but expected in an IEP meeting. If you’re a parent going through these meetings I want you to hear me, it sucks! You’re an amazing caregiver, parent, advocate that is in one of the most vulnerable places. The very things that we try to overcome and see with hopeful eyes is being discussed fully displayed before us. The fact that you’re there and you’re prepared and you’re willing to do whatever it takes to provide what’s best for your special-needs or disabled child means you’re already so incredible and strong. And it’s OK to feel those deep emotions.

Now I want to speak to people who work in special education. Some of you probably do this extraordinarily well with grace and humility and understanding.
There’s also people that you know who don’t do this well. Your coworkers who are absent minded and inconsiderate and downright harsh in these meetings.

I beg of you to direct these meetings in a way that honors the vulnerability of the parent and the child. If you are one of these committee members who just considers these meetings another part of your day and you’re just focused on finishing so you can beat traffic, please hear my heart when I say your work is more than that.

You have decided to participate in a job and a career that serves the weakest and the most vulnerable. You have the opportunity to see these parents and these children as being important and valuable. You should take time to look at these moms and dads in the eyes and see their hurt and anguish in their tired faces. You have the opportunity to lift just a little bit of that heavy burden that they carry by accommodating their child. They give so much trust to you as they leave their child in your hands every day, please don’t diminish what that means to a parent. Use this time as a way to reinforce that trust. No matter how aggressive or frustrating or tiresome a child is you need to realize that the parent of the child is even more aware of the situation.

And because I know there’s a whole other version of this story—there’s also families who could care less.

There’s parents who have no idea what’s going on at school and will never fight for that child. They will send them to school as fast and with as little care as possible, they may provide less at home than you do at school. Those parents may not even care to show up for the meeting or appear to be listening at all.

Those are the children that you fight for. They didn’t choose this life just like the parents didn’t either.

Will you become a child advocate?

Will you take on that role for that child?

Will you be the person that radically changes a child’s life?

I know it’s hard. I know there’s a lot of children in need. I know it probably makes things easier just to push them along with the herd and not go out of your way on their behalf. Would you please do it anyway?

Thank you for hearing my heart. I’m one of those moms who gets feisty at times. But I’m also the mom who will sob in every single meeting as I feel an overwhelming sense of pride in my daughter, fear for what her future may be like, gratitude for the accommodations she can benefit from, the weight of her suffering, the drastic differences of her school day versus others, and just how far behind academically she is from age-appropriate peers.

And. That’s. Okay!

I see you. 

I am you.