Advocating for Your Child’s Special Education Needs

Being a parent of a special needs child is not easy. Working with a new team each year is hard. It’s hard even when the only thing that changes is your general education teacher.

As a special education teacher, parents, you play a critical role part in your child’s education. Advocating is empowering and HARD. By actively participating in your child’s education and collaborating with educators and professionals, you can ensure that your child receives the support and resources they require to thrive. In this blog post, I will share 8 valuable insights and practical tips to help you become a strong advocate for your child and their needs.

Educate Yourself

Knowledge is power! Take the time to familiarize yourself with special education laws and regulations in your country or state. Understand key terms and acronyms commonly used in special education, such as Individualized Education Program (IEP), 504 Plan, and Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). Learn about different disabilities, accommodations, and instructional approaches that can support your child’s learning. Understanding these concepts will help you to communicate and collaborate with teachers and school administrators. (I’ll share more on each of these soon.)

Build Relationships

Developing strong relationships with your child’s classroom teachers, therapists, and administrators are essential. Attend parent-teacher conferences, IEP meetings, and other school events to establish open lines of communication. By fostering positive relationships, you can create a supportive network that works together to meet your child’s unique needs.

Maintain Communication

Effective communication is the cornerstone of successful advocacy. Regularly communicate with your child’s teachers to stay informed about their progress, challenges, and any emerging concerns. Share your observations, insights, and goals for your child’s education, IEP, and post-high school. Collaboration ensures consistency between home and school.

Document Everything

Maintain a record of all correspondence, meetings, evaluations, and assessments related to your child’s special education. Keep copies of IEPs, progress reports, and any relevant documentation. This documentation can help you track your child’s progress, identify patterns, and support your advocacy efforts.

Be an Active Participant in the IEP Process

The Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a vital tool for ensuring your child’s educational needs are met. Actively participate in the development and review of your child’s IEP. Share your insights, goals, and concerns, and be prepared to negotiate and collaborate with the school team to create an effective plan. Remember, you are your child’s voice during these meetings.

Know Your Child’s Rights

Familiarize yourself with your child’s rights under special education law. Take the time to read them and ask questions if you don’t understand your Parent Rights and Procedural Safeguards. Understand the services and accommodations your child is entitled to and ensure they receive them. If you encounter any challenges or obstacles, advocate for your child’s rights respectfully but assertively, seeking guidance from organizations or parent support groups if necessary. (If you are not sure where your copy is, go to your state department of education, download, and read it.)

Seek Additional Support

Don’t hesitate to seek additional support from professionals, advocacy organizations, or parent support groups. These resources can provide guidance, mentorship, and valuable insights to help you navigate the complex world of special education. Share your experiences and learn from others who have walked a similar path.

Foster a Collaborative Approach

Remember, you and the school team share a common goal—your child’s success. Approach advocacy as a collaborative effort, working together to ensure your child receives the best possible education. Maintain open lines of communication, listen to different perspectives, and find common ground to create a supportive and inclusive learning environment. Explore differentiated instruction techniques, such as varied assignments, flexible grouping, or modified assessments. Collaboratively find ways to adapt the curriculum to meet your child’s individual needs.

Advocating for your child’s special education needs is a powerful way to ensure their educational journey meets their unique abilities and challenges. By educating yourself, building relationships, maintaining communication, and actively participating in the IEP process, you can effectively advocate for your child. Remember, you are your child’s greatest advocate.

Keeping the Peace at Home

School is starting in the next few weeks. I am having various combinations of grandkids spend the final days of summer in my home. As a parent educator and teacher, I have learned a variety of effective classroom management strategies that work well at home as well as at school. Here are my top 10:

Make time for each child every day. Our children need time to talk and feel our affection for each of them. Young children love to talk right before bed and early in the day after they wake up. Teens love to talk at 10 p.m. or later when we are very tired and our listening skills are depleted.
Solve ongoing conflicts by meeting with each child to discuss their feelings and to brainstorm new ways they can relate and communicate with their family and friends.
Help your children live with the consequences of their actions. When they misbehave, have them work with you in identifying an appropriate outcome. Sometimes, children must lose a privilege for a day for acting aggressively toward a sibling. Others may need to pay or fix something they have broken.
Drive the carpools to and from school, for sports teams, and for various after-school activities. It is amazing listening to the conversations of our kids and grandkids at different developmental milestones. The most shocking was when my teenage grandson wanted to discuss his sex education workshop with me and his friends when driving them to a track meet. I was unsure of how to respond so I kept redirecting the conversation back to what they learned and how they felt about the what they learned.
Get to know your kids’ friends and their parents. It takes a village to raise children and my children’s friends spent hours at each home throughout the school year. The parents shared childcare even when the kids gave each other various viruses.
Celebrate life and various milestone events. These memorable occasions will stay with your children for years.
Take family vacations and capture with photos. Once again, these are cherished memories for life.
Engage children in completing chores around the house. Plan for weekly allowances as part of being a member of the family to help children learn how to manage money.
Model kindness in your various actions within the home and while participating in community service activities with your family.
Convene weekly family meetings to plan family outings, vacations, identify chores, and resolve ongoing conflicts.

May the final days of summer be filled with loving memories and preparations for a heathy and restful start of a new school year.

New State, New School, New Challenges

When we decided to move from California to Illinois, my first panicked thought was, “What about school for the kids?!” I felt completely overwhelmed by the idea. How would I support them in a positive way and find educational solutions for each of them? My oldest son is extroverted, very involved in extracurricular activities, and will be a sophomore in high school. He loves his charter school here in California. I currently homeschool my other two daughters under the support of a charter school. I had no clue about homeschooling laws in Illinois. My middle daughter also has an extensive IEP. How would her services transfer in a new state? I spent a few sleepless nights thinking about their unique needs. To be honest, it was less thinking and more like frantic worrying.

One Day at a Time

We are now only a few days away from our big move. At this point in our transition, we have a plan in place for the next school year and I feel more confident. Unfortunately, I don’t have a nicely packaged, “one size fits all” solution that will work for all families facing a cross-county move. I can only offer this: take deep breaths and move forward every day, even if that means taking baby steps toward a solution. Nothing about my kids’ education for next year came together all at once. I tackled one question at a time, and eventually it all came together. Eventually, I started sleeping better at night.

When to Move

First, we decided on a timeline. Since we had the luxury of choosing when we would move, we decided to wait until the end of the school year. This allowed my kids to be able to finish the year in a familiar place with their friends instead of trying to transition to something new in the middle of the year.

Different New Schools for Different Needs

Once we answered the question of when we would move, I started working on what the new school year would look like. I researched public schools, private school options, and Illinois homeschool laws. I called school districts. I talked to superintendents, principals, and special education directors. My husband and son took a spring break road trip to our new state, so he could tour his new school. I talked to a few parents with kids in local schools to get their perspective and input. One step at a time, we made a plan that worked for our family.

And now, it’s time to pack the U-Haul. Deep breaths. Once box at a time.

Summer Math Activities

Each summer my grandkids incorporate a variety of fun activities with basic math concepts. We also like to play board games that include counting money (Monopoly), matching numbers with analytical game playing strategies (Mexican Train Dominos), or learning how to strategically connect intercontinental train lines (Ticket to Ride). We spend hours completing puzzles. Over the years, my kids and grandkids used their math skills when helping with various household activities. Below are ten activities that can support math skill development:

Use math for a home project. We are in the middle of painting and fixing bathrooms. We are teaching our grandkids how to calculate the square footage of each room for painting, carpeting, and refinishing hardware floors.
Budget a trip or outing. My teenage granddaughter loves to shop. She is very astute in managing her clothes buying budget and determining how much money she will need for an activity. She loves math and is passionate about getting the most value for her money by researching and comparing prices online and at stores.
Balance checkbooks and statements. Our grandkids are learning how to manage their money with debit accounts. Their parents transfer their allowances into online debit accounts that the teenagers can use for errands and food purchases. They can also check statements throughout the month to monitor expenditures.
Encourage kids to use math when selling products or providing services. An elementary grade school grandson loves to make cookies and lemonade to sell on a busy street near his home. He must measure ingredients to prepare various cookie recipes. He must then determine how much he spent for supplies so he can identify a cost for each item that he will sell to generate a small profit. He will repay his parents for his supplies and keep the profit from the items sold.
Incorporate career explorations and internships. A middle school granddaughter started a custom stamp making business online business. She made beautiful return address stickers and artistic stickers for envelopes and scrapbooking projects. A high school grandson was able to use his increased skiing skills to teach younger children how to ski. He plans to extend his skills when working with children with special needs next season.
Use math when completing community service activities. The middle school grandson is passionate about trains. He and his grandpa volunteer for a nonprofit recreational train depot at a county park. He is learning how to support the basic maintenance of trains and is meeting the engineers who service the trains. He has memorized the commercial train whistle signals. He is also learning carpentry and uses math skills for fixing fences and various train depot repairs.
Use math for landscaping projects. The grandkids help us prepare the soil and layout when planting flowers each summer in our garden.
Design clothes. My younger granddaughters wanted to learn how to sew. We decided to create basic dresses for their Barbie dolls by measuring and cutting out two felt shapes that were bigger than their dolls. We sewed them together with yarn and then we cut out a large opening so the dresses could slip over the heads of their dolls. These handmade outfits stayed on their dolls for months.
Create mandalas. The grandkids love to watercolor. We use a spirograph or incorporate basic shape templates to design a pattern that they can watercolor for cards or for an art piece for their rooms.
Create counting collections. My grandkids are collectors. I have several hundred buttons that I have collected from four generations of family members. We count these buttons. We count coins and exchange them at the bank for larger denominations of cash. We count seashells, ants, stamps, stuffed animals, and any other cherished items. Some of the children categorize specific collections.

May you and your child treasure your own creative adventures while incorporating math into your daily lives this summer.

Moving with Kids

In a few weeks, our family will move across the country, back to my hometown. Our family has experienced the spectrum of emotions about the move: excitement, hope, anxiety, and sadness. Sometimes a few feelings all at once!

Looking Forward To Hellos As We Say Goodbye

I have always sensed the weight and importance of walking my children through this move in a healthy way, allowing time to discuss all the feelings as they surface. I felt a little lost about how to do this. I wanted my kiddos to process leaving friends and our home here but also look ahead to the new opportunities waiting for them in the Midwest.

My kids each have favorite activities that I knew they would love to continue after the move. I researched new Boy Scout troops and nearby mountain biking trails for my son. My daughter loves her inclusive Little League team, and I found the same Challenger league exists within driving distance of our house! I found a horsey summer book club for my daughter who loves horses and reading. Two-for-one win! And maybe by continuing these hobbies, they will meet new friends.

Lean on Friends for Support

A friend of mine made a similar big move a few years ago. I reached out last month for her input on a long-distance move. She suggested that we research places to explore in our new home. Since I spent my childhood there, I had plenty of suggestions. My kids have spent time every summer with my parents in my hometown, they had even more ideas. As their list grew, so did their anticipation.

My friend also advised that the kids find at least one friend in California who could become a pen-pal as they made the transition and developed new friendships. We went shopping for letter-writing supplies: creative stationery, envelopes, stickers, and stamps. They will give these pen-pal kits to their chosen friends before we leave…something to look forward to seeing in our new mailbox!

Be Mindful of Our Own Feelings

In the midst of walking through this big change with our children, it has been important for my husband and I to be mindful of our own feelings. We need to take the time to discuss and process our own emotions, too. Children are intuitive and will sometimes follow our lead as they watch us. In the end, actions do speak louder than words.

Moving day is just around the corner. I hope my kiddos will look forward to new opportunities and activities, even as we say goodbye to our life here.