While we have primarily provided content focused on working with children.  We have decided to widen our scope to include information and resources that will be helpful for adults.  We’re switching things up and experimenting with different types of media.  We have added this short video introducing Instagram Therapist.  In this short clip, Instagram Therapist provides some insight on ways that you can change your perspective about events that occur in life. We cannot always control what happens to us in life, but we can control how we feel about it and how much we allow it to impact us.

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It is the beginning of the school year.  For a lot of parents, this means the beginning of Individual Education Plan (IEP) and 504 Meetings.  As a parent of a child with an IEP as well as years of working as a school social worker, I have been on both sides of the IEP table.  Having done so, I can honestly say that IEPs are the WORST.  Seriously! Parents dread them.  Teachers dread them.  School administrators dread them.  They are the worst. However, they are necessary and extremely important. Since you must do it anyway, here are 7 tips to help you get through your next IEP meeting.

1.  Take a deep breath.

This might sound cliché, but IEP meetings can be an emotional rollercoaster. No matter your profession or level of educational attainment, it is never easy to go into a meeting to discuss your child’s struggles in school.  Take a deep breath, a sip of coffee, think about the glass of wine at the end of the day, or whatever else will help you relax.  When your brain is on fire you don’t respond as rationally as you could. Take a deep breath. You got this!

2. Try to go into the meeting as objectively as possible.

This can be difficult. After all, this is your child.  You love them and you are totally biased that they are the best kid ever.  However, it is important to remember that an IEP is an important legal document which details your child’s learning needs, the services the school will provide, specific goals, and how they will be measured.  The school views the meeting as a legal procedure and will act in such a manner.  Try not to be offended by their objective stance.  Going into the meeting with an objective perspective will help you obtain a better understanding of your child’s learning needs and how the school intends to address them.

3. Remember you are PART of the team.

As a parent, it often does not feel like you are actually part of the team. It usually feels like you are sitting in the classroom with Charlie Brown’s teacher, as if the school is having a meeting and you just happened to be present.  As a parent, it is difficult to engage in the process when it seems like the school is speaking another language.  Without a translator, parents can feel disengaged and unnecessary.  However, you are a crucial part of the team.  As the parent, no one knows your child better than you. You may not be able to speak about grade level standards or various interventions, but you can speak to your child’s functioning outside of the school and your concerns.

4. Come prepared.

In some instances, the school may send home documents for you to look over in advance. If so, make sure you read over those documents carefully. If there are areas that are confusing or parts that you question, mark the document with a pen and bring the marked draft to the meeting.  If the school does not send home documents for you to review, bring your own. Write down any questions, comments, or concerns you have and bring them up in the meeting.

5. Ask questions!

If you are unsure about the results of an assessment or the purpose of a goal, ask questions.  If you feel that there are areas in which you are concerned as a parent, but the school is not addressing the concern in the IEP, ask questions. It is easy to get caught up in grade level standards and academic achievement, but it is important to remember that school is about more than tests and grades.  If you have social/emotional concerns, bring those up to the school and make sure those concerns are documented the Parent Concern section of the IEP.

6. Different states do different things.

If you are a  military spouse or someone who moves frequently, you inherently become an expert in various state laws.  Think about it.  You arrive in your new state after your most recent PCS.  You have a driver’s license from one state, the plates on your car are from a different state, and the insurance for your car is from a third state. Heaven forbid you get pulled over, the cops will look at you like you are crazy!

The same goes for state laws when it relates to your child’s IEP. While federal law, IDEA, does set up parameters regarding special education in the public school system, it is up to each state to interpret and determine what that looks like in their school systems.  This means that services may look different from state to state.  It is up to each school to address the needs as listed in the IEP, but it is up to the school to determine how they will address the need. This might mean a change in minutes, service delivery, services provided, placement, and so on.  Ask questions about these changes and make sure if you at least a somewhat clear understanding.

7. Remember you are your child’s advocate!

While the IEP team may create goals and plans for the next year of your child’s life, it is your responsibility to get them all the way to adulthood.  As such, you are extremely invested in your child’s future.  We want our children to adapt and thrive in life no matter what difficulties they may have.  School is an early indicator of these abilities. Ask the school about if there are any difficulties for your child during unstructured/non-instructional times. You want to have a clear understanding of every aspect in which there is concern, not just the academic concerns. Once areas are identified, as the school how they intend to address it. You cannot address a problem if you don’t know it is a problem.

While this book was originally published over a decade ago, I am finally coming around to reading it.  This book was on a list of recommended reading for a Diagnostics class I took during my master’s degree program.  At the time, I did not have the time to devote to the text.  However, as a young clinician; I found it important to go review the message so many wise professors and professionals have shared with me over the years.

I have a particular interest in autobiographical stories of mental health conditions.  As a clinician, I believe that gaining an understanding of how a person with a condition experiences that condition can only improve my understanding of my clients and society at large.  Within this text, I was struck by the explicit description of the internal experiences of schizophrenia.  While I have read other autobiographical accounts by people with schizophrenia, this piece provided an explicit account which others did not detail.  I found it helpful in providing an explicit description of how disorganized and delusional thinking are experienced.  Additionally, it emphasized that not all psychosis is correlated to visual and/or auditory hallucinations.

The second aspect which struck me about this text was the callous indifference of the treating professionals.  Reading about mental health professionals treating clients with the same amount of stigma and disdain as others on the street is very disheartening.  You would think professionals within the field would be more understanding given their professional knowledge.  While I would like to believe that the profession has improved in the last three to four decades, I am not sure.  This can particularly be seen in the types of treatment modalities offered to patients with specific diagnoses.  In this example, the author details how crucial talk therapy had been to her overall success while recognizing that it would not be typically offered to a patient with her same diagnosis.  Are we doing our clients a disservice by only providing services indicated by their diagnosis? Understanding that mental health conditions do not present with homogenous symptoms, should we be offering homogenous treatment based on diagnosis?

Lastly, I was struck by the explicit description and experience of mental health stigma both within treatment and outside of treatment.  In the book, the author describes the several decades long battle within herself to accept her mental health condition.  While the author goes on to discuss the importance of this battle as crucial to her long term understanding of her condition, I could not help but wonder if she would have arrived at the same level of self-awareness if she had not experienced the callous treatment from her treatment team.

While I found the expressions of mental health stigma by those outside of the mental health profession to be less surprising, it emphasized how difficult it is to share mental health problems with friends, colleagues, family, and intimate partners.  As a clinician, it reminds me that we cannot always assume our clients have support systems especially for clients who require a great deal of support.

Overall, I found this book extremely beneficial towards increasing my knowledge of schizophrenia as well as the experience of a person with a mental health condition.  However; I found it most beneficial as a mirror to myself and the mental health field.  This book highlights that while me may be in the era of “trauma informed care” we may not be providing the level of care that our clients deserve.

In the wake of the most recent school shooting, I cannot help but make a connection of a diagnosis of Asperger’s disorder between the Parkland shooter and the Sandy Hook shooter.  (Granted, a sample size of two is not by any means clinically significant nor evidence of a statistical trend).  While never formally diagnosed, the Sandy Hook shooter met criteria of what would have been considered Asperger’s Disorder under the DSM IV-TR.  See this report detailing information regarding the Sandy Hook shooter.  This is not to say that all people who meet criteria of Asperger’s are psychopaths, but merely to question if there is a connection between the two.  Have we loss understanding of higher needs children with autism with the DSM-V change to the category of  Autism Spectrum Disorder?

We know that people who struggle with Asperger’s struggle with social interactions.  Having worked in the school system, I understand that those who struggle with social interaction are more likely to struggle socially and feel ostracized due to inappropriate social interactions.  Is there a connection between social isolation and school shootings?  Research studies involving psychopathy have indicated that there are observable differences in brain scans between psychopaths and neuro-typical individuals.  Is it mere coincidence or indication of a subsect with particular needs that are not being met?

Personally, as a person who is not an autism spectrum specialist, I have noticed frustration at the school level with students who do not respond to “typical” behavioral interventions.  These interventions are often not specifically designed to address the unique needs of a student with Asperger’s.  While school systems have placed a lot of time and dedicated resources towards those considered on the farther end of the Autism Spectrum Disorder; have we placed as many resources towards students who are on the closer end of the spectrum?

I recently read the book “Look Me in the Eye” by John Elder Robison.  Previous to reading this book, I had falsely assumed that those within the Autism Spectrum Disorder simply did not have a desire to engage in social interaction and our desire to pressure them towards social interaction was aversive to their nature.  After reading this book, I completely reconsidered my false assumptions.  As it was not a lack of a desire to socially engage, but merely an lack of understanding towards how to execute social interactions.  The solution relied more in explicit teaching of social interactions versus waiting for a child to understand the implicit teachings provided by the setting.

This opinion does not offer any specific policy or practical implications, but merely a questioning of current measures are addressing the current need.