Becoming a Special Education Parent

As an attorney, I have counseled numerous families through the special education process, from initial eligibility through private placement and beyond. I always remind my clients that school personnel enter the education field because they care about helping all children, including those with different learning styles and abilities, learn and grow. Now that I am also a special education parent, I still 100% know and believe this to be true. However, when you’re the parent, it is impossible to fully appreciate this perspective while remaining detached and not hanging on every word of criticism (whether it be constructive or otherwise) about your child and their behavior or learning difficulties. Every email and phone call from school leaves you with a non-stop feeling of dread that’s impossible to shake.

When my daughter started preschool, I felt all the typical mom feels, but I was also so happy that she would finally have the chance to be with other kids after 18 plus months of semi-quarantine at home with just me and her older sister (courtesy of Covid). Before 10:00 am on that first day I had already received my first phone call (of several) regarding her behavior, which was determined to be beyond the norm of a typical 3-year-old starting preschool, and ultimately resulted in a mandated early dismissal. The long email I received that night from the teacher read like a bullet point list of failures, with no suggestions on how to help my daughter improve or any indication of hope for improvement in the future. The painful realization began to sink in that this was going to be a starkly different experience compared to when my oldest entered the same classroom.

What followed was three plus months of difficult phone calls, meetings and learning how to balance advocating for my kid with accepting some hard realities. I dreaded the beginning of a new school week, already anticipating the phone calls from school, detailing my daughters new and always negative behaviors and struggles in the classroom. I took the Type A aggressive planning that had gotten me through college and law school and threw myself into running my own mini preschool at home. My oldest daughter was an unbelievable help with this, going along with my crazy schemes, including “lining up” at the bathroom to practice turn-taking and collectively holding the rope I hung from the bannister (to mimic the classroom routine of lining up) every time we left the house. She would work alongside me with her sister on letters, numbers, coloring, circle time, story time, rest time and repeatedly model and emphasize the appropriate behaviors that were necessary for “success” in preschool.

Despite all this work at home, the weekly phone calls persisted and seemed to be filled with an endless list of my little one’s failures – she won’t sit during circle time or keep her mask on, she keeps invading other kids’ personal space, she can’t sit still, she can’t identify any letters, she won’t stay on the mat during rest time, she’s disruptive to her classmates and too loud when she cries (the words “ear splitting cry” were used at one point). Even though there were quite a few legitimate issues emerging, it seemed as though every little move she made was classified as excessively wrong. I would have to pry to hear if there was anything positive to share from her day or week, desperate for some sign that she was succeeding in even one area. These positives were few and far between. At one point, the teacher told me that it was “really disappointing” to be several months into the school year and not see any progress in her behavior or learning across the board. I had no response. I felt defeated.

This was a dark period for me, mentally and emotionally. In moments of clarity, I knew that neither my daughter nor I were failing at anything. But I could not make myself believe that her additional needs were not the direct result of my own shortcomings to better prepare her for school, and by extension, the world. This backwards, destructive thinking was likely due in part to mom-shame culture, as well as my own skewed belief system that continued to demand nothing less than total success. Finally recognizing that such success looks different for every child, and that our daughter clearly had needs beyond those of a typical child her age, we requested a full battery of evaluations from the public school district to assist us in determining areas of weaknesses and services necessary to strengthen them.

Sitting in the parents’ seat at a team meeting for the first time was humbling. Previously I had only attended and/or advised a parent in preparation for a team meeting in the role of an attorney, with a black and white approach – ‘this is what the experts say this child needs, the school district needs to provide it and/or has failed to do so, additional services and/or alternative placement (in some cases) is necessary for these reasons,’ etc. When it is your own child there is nothing black and white or even gray; it’s pure, technicolor emotion. Each evaluator took time to explain their testing and findings, and I sat there, finally feeling as though my child and her specific strengths, not just her weaknesses, were being accurately depicted for the first time since she had started school. Ultimately, the team recommended a full-time placement at the public integrated preschool, where her needs could be addressed as part of the daily curriculum alongside peer models and others who shared her needs.

Emotions are strange. This placement, where trained special education professionals would work with my daughter in the specific areas she needed in order to thrive, was exactly what we and any parent would want for their struggling child. But my emotions were running on hyperdrive. I love our small parochial school, the wonderful community, high education standards and values it has instilled in my oldest daughter. I feared what the transition would mean to my little one and how she would feel coming with me every day to pick up her older sister at the school she still understood to be hers too. My oldest daughter cried when I told her about the new school, not wanting to be separated from her sister, which was a sadness we shared.

One of my oft repeated statements as a special education attorney is that while every parent wants what is best for their child, the law does not require that a public school provide what we may classify as “the best”, but rather that they ensure a child is able to make “effective progress.” We were very fortunate because the school district took the appropriate steps in recognizing my child’s needs and providing the best opportunities available for her to effectively learn, grow and succeed. Not every family is as lucky, and many spend months and even years fighting for their child to be in a placement and position to effectively learn. I am more determined than ever to continue to advocate for those families, not only so that their child can have the same opportunities to effectively learn, but also so that the parents can be spared the overwhelming feelings of sadness and guilt that often accompany witnessing your child struggle to succeed.

I am at the beginning of my special education adventure as a parent. I have a lot more to learn and new experiences awaiting us as a family that may be different than the other families we know. Despite all of this, for the first time since she entered school, I once again have hope that my girl will thrive. She is now being seen, not just for her struggles, but also for her unique strengths, love of all things dress up and loving personality. We still have a long road to travel, but because the right educators took the time to identify and support her needs, I no longer feel like we're fighting for her to succeed on our own.