I want to be honest about something before I go any further. Before I became a SPED parent, I thought I was a pretty damn good teacher. I was trying my best. I cared deeply about my students. But looking back now? I was okay.
Here is what I learned.
The Words We Choose Matter More Than We Think
Before my daughter entered the world of early intervention and eventually the IEP process, I thought I was a pretty good communicator. I knew how to run a meeting. I knew how to explain goals and services and present levels in a way that was clear and professional. I thought that was enough.
What I didn’t fully understand was how those words landed on the other side of the table.
When you are a parent sitting in an IEP meeting, you are not just processing information. You are listening for what people think of your child. You are scanning every sentence for signs of hope or concern. You are trying to hold yourself together while someone reads a list of things your child cannot do yet.
Now that I have sat in that chair, I am acutely aware of how I frame every single thing I say in a meeting. I lead with strengths — always. I make sure my strengths section of every IEP is as flushed out as it can possibly be. I think about every positive thing I can say about a student and I make sure those things are documented, spoken out loud, and heard. Because I know now what it feels like to desperately need to hear that someone sees the good in your child.
I Try to Remember What Parents Are Actually Feeling
There is a version of IEP meetings where the teacher or case manager is so focused on getting through the document that the parent sitting across the table becomes almost secondary to the process. I have been guilty of this. Most of us have.
But I know now what that parent is carrying into the room. I know they may have barely slept the night before. I know they might have cried in the car on the way there. I know they are terrified and hopeful and exhausted and fierce all at the same time. I know, because I have been that parent.
That knowledge has slowed me down in the best possible way. It has made me more intentional about checking in, making eye contact, and remembering that the document on the table is not just a legal requirement — it is someone’s child. It is someone’s whole world sitting in a manila folder.
Only Hearing the Hard Things Is Its Own Kind of Hurt
One of the most painful parts of being a special education parent is that so much of the communication you receive from school is problem-focused. Your child had a hard day. Your child struggled with this. Your child needs more support with that.
I understand why it happens. Teachers are busy. Caseloads are overwhelming. There is always more to do than there is time. But I also know firsthand how isolating it feels to only hear from your child’s school when something has gone wrong.
It changes the way you answer the phone. It changes the way you read a notification. Every ping from the school app starts to feel like bracing for impact.
Knowing that has made me more intentional about positive communication. I am not perfect at it — I will be honest about that. I still don’t think I reach out to families as often as I should. But I make it a priority to have several positive interactions with every family before I ever have to share something hard. A quick note home about something funny a student said. A message about a skill they just mastered. A reminder that I see them, that I celebrate them, that their child is known and loved in my classroom.
It costs so little to send. It means everything to receive.
Stepping Into the Shoes
The through line in all of this is empathy — not the theoretical kind you learn about in a college course, but the lived, felt, bone-deep kind that only comes from experience.
I can now step into a parent’s shoes during an IEP meeting in a way I simply could not before. When I present a goal, I ask myself: how would I feel hearing this about my daughter? When I describe a service, I ask: would I feel like this was enough? When I open a meeting, I ask: what does this family need to feel today?
I do not always get it right. But I ask the questions now. And asking them has changed everything about how I show up for the families I serve.
Parents Are Not the Enemy
This one is hard to admit, but I am going to say it anyway because I think a lot of teachers need to hear it — and because I needed to learn it myself.
I used to get irritated by “that parent.” You know the one. The parent who emails constantly, who pushes back in every meeting, who always seems to want more than what you feel like you can give. I am not proud of that. But it was true.
I get it now. Completely and totally.
Parents are not trying to make teachers’ lives more difficult. They are not sitting at home brainstorming ways to make your job harder. They are scared. They are exhausted. They are fighting for a child they love more than anything in the world, inside a system that can feel overwhelming and adversarial even when everyone in the room has good intentions.
That realization has fundamentally changed how I respond to parents who push back. I don’t feel the irritation anymore. I feel the recognition. I see myself in them.
And it has made me want to be a different kind of parent too. I am very aware that I do not want to be the parent that teachers dread. I try to be as kind as I possibly can while still advocating fiercely for my daughter. I try to extend the same grace to her teachers that I hope parents extend to me — because we are all doing the best we can with what we have.
The Gift Inside the Hard Thing
I chose this path. We made a deliberate, intentional decision to adopt a child with special needs. We walked in knowing there would be appointments and meetings and paperwork and hard days. We chose it anyway — because she was worth choosing.
I would choose her again. One hundred times over, without hesitation.
What I did not fully anticipate was how much that choice would change me professionally. I knew it would change me as a person. I did not realize it would reach into my classroom and reshape the teacher I was becoming.
But it did. And I am a better teacher because of it. More patient. More intentional. More human in that room. On the days when this dual life feels impossibly heavy, I hold onto that — the idea that my daughter’s journey has made me better at showing up for someone else’s child.
That feels like something worth carrying.
If you liked this post, check out my last post about being a SPED parent and SPED teacher.