Guest Post – Tips for Helping your Child with an IEP Reach Success
When you have a child with an IEP it can be a struggle. Everyday can be a struggle depending on what type of problems your child has and the reason for the IEP. Without it your child might fail, but if not used properly he may fail. Now in my opinion, failure isn’t an option which is the main reason I work so hard with my son and his school. I don’t want to see him fail because it’s heart breaking to both him and me.
I could go into detail as to why I have come to the conclusion IEP’s are important and work well, but only if you, as the parent control them. I could go into detail and tell you why my son’s 4th and 5th grade years were a waste and how that put him behind when he went to middle school, but I won’t do that because all it does it make me angry to think about it. What I want to do with this post is to help you to understand why you need to be involved and how to make it happen. When you do this, it may be hard for your child’s school to grasp at first, but you must put your foot down in order for them to know you’re series.
The first thing you must do is make sure that you attend the meeting and you have a complete understanding of what the goals are for your child. You need to make sure you ask if you don’t understand something and if they don’t go into detail about how they plan to achieve the goals, you need to ask them to clarify what they mean and how they’re going to achieve it. When you understand how things will work you’ll be able to help your child reach those goals.
The next thing you must do is make sure all teachers are involved in the meeting. It’s not going to do your child a bit of good to have an IEP if the teachers don’t follow what’s in it. If your child has the ability to have things read to him and the teachers don’t know this, he may be allowed to have that service. The teachers that need to be involved in this meeting are not only the core teachers that teach math, science, history, and English, but also the Physical Education teacher and any elective teachers he may have such as a foreign language, art, and anything else.
Depending on the time of year you’re required to have your meeting, you may have to call another one down the road. The IEP for my son is due in May each year which defeats the purpose of having his teachers involved because we don’t know who they will be in the new year. So we have to hold two meetings so the new teachers are aware of what services he receives and some tips that have helped with his education in the past. If this happens to you, then you must push the issue of having two meetings so those new teachers are informed.
When you do everything you can to help your child, the IEP he has will be more help then you could give him yourself. Stand strong and follow the tips in this post and you’ll be able to help your child have the best education possible even though he has a disability. When you see your child have success, you’ll know it was because you helped make it happen.
Corrie Petersen is happily married and has two children, one of which has a speech problem and has been on an IEP since he was two years old. She and her husband have learned through many mistakes how to handle the schools and teachers and how to make his IEP work for his best interests. Check out her mommy blog to see what the family is up to this summer.
