Discovering that your child learns differently from other children is a traumatic experience. One of a principal's most difficult tasks is to tell a mother or father, “Your child needs help.” At T.W. Morison School in Ontario, Canada, where I served as principal, parents and educators created a support group to help the families of special education students become proactive, positive, and knowledgeable. Through conversations with these concerned and caring parents, supplemented by a study of the literature (Ferguson, 2002; Fox, Wyatte, & Dunlap, 2002), the staff learned about the feelings that such parents typically experience and the kinds of support that they need.
Anger, Blame, and Frustration
Whenever a child is born, its parents have the highest hopes for that child. When we tell parents that their child has serious learning problems, they often experience a sense of loss and grief. They perceive the news as an end to their dreams of a future that includes all possibilities.
Even if the classroom teacher has already made the parents aware of problems, they often react with shock and bewilderment when we first mention “special education.” Instead of hearing us say, “She needs more support understanding letter-sound relationships,” they are thinking, “Will she ever be able to read, hold a job, have a family?”
Parents often tend to blame themselves for their child's difficulties. They think, “If only I'd been stricter, helped more with homework, turned off the TV. . . .”
Sometimes they blame the child:“This kid's just lazy.” Occasionally, although fortunately not often, the child will come to school with stories of extra hours of homework and stern parents who make him or her feel very sad.
Some parents blame teachers and the education system:He doesn't really have anything wrong. He just needs a better teacher and a better school.She is just the way I was. She'll grow out of it.We'll get more tests done. We'll ask my cousin, who's a teacher.
One of our parents told me frankly that his family went through a stage of anger and blame when his son had trouble learning to read. He remembers meetings at school when he told teachers and administrators,You should have caught it earlier. His teacher couldn't be bothered to take the time to give my son the help he needs.
Other parents have told me that the diagnosis of a learning problem sets up conflicts within the home and causes parents to find fault with each other: “You spoiled him.” “We never had anything like this on my side of the family.”
Anger without a solution can lead to depression and feelings of hopelessness. One parent told me that she experienced headaches, lack of sleep, and nervousness as a result of worries about her children.
Parents' frustration sometimes leads them to separate themselves from their friends. They feel that life is unfair. They have worked harder with their child than other parents, and yet their child is not “successful.”
We also know that many parents had the same problems in school that their children are experiencing. As we talk about the diagnosis and the supports we plan to set in place, they are sometimes thinking about their own school days. Instead of really listening, they are preoccupied with painful memories.
What Parents Need
- Meeting in person, face to face, so that you can use body language to see how the parents receive your message.
- Emphasizing the child's strengths and describing your concerns specifically.
- Being patient. Several meetings may be needed before the parent can listen and respond in a calm, constructive way. Parents may go through many emotions before reaching acceptance. They may experience these feelings every time that you adjust the child's program.
- Trying to meet with both parents so that your message does not get changed or misinterpreted as it is passed on, leading to more stress at home.
- Encouraging questions and answering them frankly.
- Remaining firm in your position that the student needs extra help.
Parents need affirmation to help them feel secure in their role. We should remind them that they are the experts on their child—the people who can best maintain a focus on their child's strengths. We need to reassure parents that they are the most important people in their child's life.
Above all, we should help parents overcome their initial feelings of helplessness. Parents who are positive, proactive, knowledgeable, and able to communicate comfortably with teachers and administrators can act as powerful advocates and make all the difference for their child in special education.
The Special Education Support Group
Parents Rick Lott and Janice Wilson and I decided to form a group in which parents of children receiving special education services could get together and talk about their children and special education issues. We called it the Special Education Support Group.
At our meetings, we typically had a professional present a talk or video on such topics as the special education identification process, advocacy, understanding learning disabilities, and teamwork in special education. The staff at T.W. Morison searched for other people with special interests, and found presenters on aggression; brain research and education; the development of speech and language and how it can affect learning; and psychoeducational resources for special-needs children outside the school system.
Presenters received no payment; they came for the joy of sharing an interest or enthusiasm. The group had no formal structure. As children and parents moved on, new parents offered to help with the program. At each meeting we took turns providing cookies and juice.
Our meetings were quite short, usually running from 7–9 p.m. Presentations never lasted more than 45 minutes, and we aimed for half an hour. Recognizing that many of our parents had problems with focus and concentration, we were careful to use lots of visuals and provide frequent breaks.
After the presentation, we had a question-and-answer session. Parents were eager to connect what they had learned to their own experiences with their children and to their children's experiences in school. Our only rule was that teachers and administrators would not discuss individual students with the group. At every meeting, parents received a short handout that gave the main points of the presentation and a phone number to call for more information.
We also welcomed teachers' attendance at our meetings, and many came. Our parents grew comfortable with the teachers in this informal setting. As they listened to educators asking questions and discussing issues, the parents realized that teachers and administrators, like themselves, are on a continuing quest for knowledge and that learning never stops.
The most significant benefit for our parents happened outside the meetings. Parents who had come to terms with their children's disabilities often shared their phone numbers and made themselves available to other parents as resources. This informal network gave parents opportunities to vent their frustrations, learn the vocabulary that they needed to articulate their concerns, find the courage to communicate assertively with the school, and learn about pro-active steps to take.
We publicized our meetings around town, and we had visitors from other schools and the Catholic School Board. When we had topics of broad interest, such as brain research, we promoted our meetings across the county and had up to 40 people in attendance. Most of our meetings were well attended, but even on nights when only a handful of people came, we felt that the meetings were worthwhile.
At the new, much bigger elementary school where I am now principal, I have not yet started a similar group. I need to get to know the parents and teachers better before I do so. But I intend to start such a group. I now know whom to talk to in order to get the parents engaged, and I have found a new group of teachers with interests and enthusiasms to share.
And I know that the effort will be worthwhile. I can look back at parents who were initially angry and defensive but became positive and knowledgeable—who developed enough confidence to take on the task of organizing our group meetings themselves. The Special Education Support Group is not a grand idea. But this simple strategy produces powerful benefits because it supports parents and thereby helps students.
