'OM' My, It’s IEP Season by Lori Miller Fox

If life’s a journey, then the school years are the longest collection of toll roads. And as our day to ante up gets closer, I decided to take a calmer, gentler, more centered approach toward our child’s IEP and use meditation techniques and a zen state of mind to help get through it harmoniously. Here are just a few of my affirmations.

I will live in the moment, starting tomorrow.

I will do a better job of giving up my need for perfection.

I will look at my experiences with the school district as an opportunity for growth -- the kind of growth that needs to be removed.

I will no longer throw judgment at school people -- or raw eggs or rotten tomatoes, or large heavy objects.

I will give up my disagreements with the school to a higher power -- my special education attorney

I will not look to the school to heal my child, I will just look to them to stop harming him.

Every time I am angry with the school, I will breathe, and breathe, and keep breathing until I hyperventilate and pass out.

I will ask the Universe for guidance for my child, because heaven knows, the school guidance counselor has nothing to offer.

I will accept the things I can not change, and change the teachers I can.

When I become enraged, I will sit quietly and repeat my mantra “due process, due process, due process...”

I will accept my challenges in life as a gift from the Universe, that I would gladly regift to my child’s IEP team at Christmas.

I will graciously accept my child’s school district as karmic payback from something terrible I must have done in a past life.

I will look to Mother Nature for peace and understanding of the school district, although being a mother herself, she would probably side with me.

I will listen to the school’s position with love in my heart, grace in my soul, and a special education attorney at my side.

I will proudly acknowledge that my child is the real teacher in this world, and that the school staff who do not recognize this, are the failing students.

Comments

Lori-Can you make up a joke about why my son's IEP goals had a different name on them? Oh, wait, the principal already did, it was a collating error of course.

[Cyn]

Lori,

Always one to make me smile. Thanks for lifting my spirits.

Cyn

[Frederick Ketchum]

Dear Lori,
I am sorry to say that I am so glad you are having difficulties with the IEP process. I am a special education teacher who is currently appalled at the lack of professionalsim in my field reagarding: 1) a thorough understanding of what is happening with the child; 2) a thoughtful plan to get from point A to point B in language that has some meaning and usefulness. Most of the truly needy kids I work with have been terribly negleted by the school--no real WILL to provide services that work; very little time spent on researching programs that might be helpful; slim imagination; a kind of second rate intellect plying it's trade.

I would like to know more of what you have been through, would like to know if I can be any assistance, and if there are others as dumbfounded by the third rate system we have in place as I am.

[Karen]

Thanks for the laugh! We are in the middle of fighting with our district on placement for our son who is deaf. I'm hoping to work this out without going to due process.

[Kelly Lenihan]

At first I thought you were a teacher, and reading further now see you must be a parent. I share your spirit and take my jobs and decisions seriously. I am a born and bred special education teacher and an advocate for all who cross my path. I love and support parent input. I wish there were more where I am at. Your child is lucky. Thank You