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Broken Dreams
reprinted from 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter
June 2005
I have spent close to 30 years participating in meetings with school personnel and families. Without a doubt, the most emotionally charged meetings are those involving children who are twice-exceptional. Seems odd in so many ways. Given the nature of the profile of a 2e student, it’s obvious that there’s so much to celebrate – their gifts and their strengths. So why is it, then, that these meetings seem to be the most contentious?
As I walk into a school meeting with a family, I often try to put myself in their shoes. Just the number of people attending the meeting can spark feelings of intimidation. The reports are complex and often share personal information about the child and family. It takes a professional, empathic, child-centered school team to help calm the nerves of family members who attend these most important meetings.
Sometimes I hear from school personnel that families come to meetings with an aggressive, emotional, and/or demanding posture. I would be lying if I said that I never initially considered some parents to be that way. Over my years of working as a special education teacher and principal, as well as in my current role as an educational consultant, I’ve learned that there are consistent triggers for those behaviors. Many parents fear for their child’s future; some feel judged by school personnel; others feel their child is not understood or even liked by peers or teachers; and all are in the throes of coming to grips with a broken dream. It’s tough to have a dream of a “perfect” child and to see that dream take a turn.
Families want to do well by their child, so they dive in and learn all they can about the diagnosed disability. Parents with twice-exceptional children have twice the homework! Too often, they’re eager to share what they’ve learned with school teams, only to leave with the sense that the team doesn’t “buy into” the fact that their child is twice-exceptional. Other times, parents feel they must minimize their child’s strengths and focus on their weaknesses to secure proper special educational services.
Parents also receive mixed messages about the support they provide for their child during homework time. “Too much” is viewed as over-protection on the parent’s part and manipulation on the part of the child. Frequently, neither is the case. Instead, the work sent home may be beyond the student’s independent capabilities; or neurological attending issues may prevent work from being completed after a long day in school. Parents who say “enough” and have their child return to school the next day with unfinished work are viewed as unsupportive.
Families with special needs children are often strapped for time, while financial resources are stretched to the maximum. Parents have to juggle work schedules around doctor and therapy appointments. Receiving calls at work to pick up their child from school because of behavioral issues (or worse yet, because the police have been called) deepens family stress and endangers parents’ careers. Zero Tolerance policies, designed to address the most serious misconduct, are now frequently used to address what historically were school discipline issues, creating a direct track into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Because many 2e students have a “hidden disability,” their behaviors are all too often decontextualized from that disability. I continue to be amazed when I hear school folks and even a few school district attorneys talk about the advantages of getting a student “involved in the [the juvenile or criminal justice] system” as a way to secure services for a family. Talk to the families who have been on the receiving end and you’ll hear differently. They have more appointments, services are fragmented, and their financial resources are tapped to a greater extent.
What a pleasure it is to work with school teams who are professional, empathetic, and child-centered. They understand the issues behind the initial aggressive, emotional, and/or demanding behaviors of parents. They do the right thing and welcome parents as equal members of the team. Blame, judgment, and control issues do not factor into the work of these teams. In addition, they understand and respect the multiple responsibilities of parents and make every effort to schedule meetings at convenient times. It’s simply amazing for me to watch the fear, stress and anxiety wash away from families when they are working with a school team who genuinely cares about their child and is creative in designing services that help the child soar with strengths while tackling areas of need. When this sort of partnership is in place, families are able to focus on the many positive attributes of their child and begin the process of rebuilding their dreams.
Wendy Handrich is the president of The Learning Curve of Wisconsin, Inc. (www.learningcurvewi.com), an educational consulting service that helps families of children with special needs and provides in-service opportunities to schools and agencies.
