What Happens When They Leave?

A senior whom I case manage came up to me and asked me a very simple and thoughtful question: “Who is my “IEP person” when I get to college?” Jasmine’s question was met with a very harsh response, as the truth was: “well… You!”.

The Truth: Jasmine is like every senior who gets learning or other support services from their school personnel (private or public). Case managers hold all the pieces together for their students by managing their IEPs. Case managers help students identify appropriate schedules for courses, create meaningful goals, monitor these goals, keep track of accommodations and make sure those accommodations are being provided. But what happens when that doesn’t exist for them after they leave high school? The simple truth: no one other than themselves.

What I Suggest: The good news: this harsh reality is something you can prepare your senior for. More general suggestions include: scaffolding the support so more responsibility falls on the student, have students run portions of their IEPs, and encourage them to ask for support directly and specifically. However, I suggest you do a bit more. Have your senior ask themselves the questions that case mangers ask themselves. Have your child put themselves in their case manager’s shoes. For example, I, as a case manager may ask “when does it make sense for me to schedule Jasmine’s extended time for the in class English essay coming up this week?”. Jasmine can ask herself the same question, but replacing “Jasmine” with “my” or “I”. Through repetition, students will learn how to ask themselves the right questions to then advocate for their needs. A sample of such questions that case managers ask each week that seniors can start asking themselves are:

• What is my load this week? 
• When should I schedule my extended time?
• What accommodations do I anticipate I’ll need?

Reply to this post if you’d like more example questions case managers ask themselves that your child can start asking themselves today.

Getting Support Services in College for Your Graduating Senior

Seniors are graduating from schools across the country, east and west, north and south. Several of these seniors are students who will need more support when they get to college. But where do they get this support? And how do they go about doing it?

Seniors with diagnosed disabilities who are headed to college in the Fall should start contacting the services at their college over the summer. Every school calls these services a different name, however most likely the name is a spin-off of “DPRC”, or the “Disabled Persons Resource Center”. While the name of this place is an obvious turn-off for any student with a disability, this place is their go to. As soon as possible, set up a meeting with a counselor there. At the meeting you will want to bring all documentation (IEPs or 504s, Psycho-educational Assessment Reports, etc.) and here is what you will want to know:

1. What support will I receive here based on my disability?
   (Most schools rank disabilities on a scale for funding and service reasons. Your child may not be eligible for services due to their disability marker.)
2. What accommodations are you able to provide me? (Colleges are usually limited in what they provide, but all do provide some basic accommodations, such as: priority registration, extended time, and shared note-taking.)
3. Where do I go to get my accommodations and will I need to request them for each class? (This is often the reality in college. Colleges want students to request the support they need for each class, each semester, for all semesters. This can be tiresome and time-consuming for students, so make sure your senior plans this into their schedule at the beginning of each semester.)
4. Will you inform my teachers I have a disability and of the accommodations I receive? (Many DPRCs keep student’s information private and believe it is a breech of privacy to inform the professor that one of their students has a disability. Knowing their procedures is important to know so your child can plan to communicate with their instructors directly about their disability. 

After meeting with the counselor, make sure you have another appointment set up about 2-3 weeks into the term. It may be helpful to check in and either add additional accommodations, problem-solve about a specific professor or class, or get support with adding or dropping classes. While this counselor will not keep tabs on your student, they are a resource and support on campus. 

Start Seeing Through Your Child's Eyes

Steph is an incredible student of mine. Her mom asked me how I know when Steph will struggle and how do I know what helps. The answer was not what mom expected. I told mom: "I can see what Steph sees". She was expecting me to say something like "Steph is like other students who I work with", or "the research says that students like Steph struggle with X which manifest itself as Y, Z, A, B, C..."

The Truth: It is actually quite a simple answer for something that takes time to learn how to do effectively. Yes, knowing the research and strategies that will support you student is a great place to start! However, it is more about seeing what your child sees. I don't mean "knowing" your daughter or son as that implies knowing their behaviors. I mean, genuinely seeing through their eyes. This is the not so simple part. It requires a recipe of strategic listening, patience, and honesty, trial and error.



Here's What I Suggest: The first step to "seeing through your child's eyes" is to listen to your child. Listen and look at what they are struggling with. Participate in a strategy I call Guided Questioning. Once you listen and ask targeted questions you are on the path to seeing through your child's eyes. If you can look at an assignment and answer the following questions, you are on the right track. Here is what Steph's mom is now able to ask herself when she see through her daughter's eyes: 

• How would Steph see this page?
• What would Steph perceive to be easy? And, difficult?
• What does this assume Steph has done/not done to be successful on this?
• What would make this look manageable (doable) to Steph?

Reply to this post if you want to see me answer these "through your child's eyes" questions about an assignment that Steph was given.

Changing Our Language: Strategy and Process Praising

We are all guilty of saying "good girl" or "you are so smart". Here you will learn a more beneficial way to praise.

Praise is a coernerstone to child development. Praising is how your child knows what they have done right and what your epectations of them are.

Praising poperly is very important. Most people's instinct is to praise based on success outcomes: good grades, behaving properly, meeting a goal, etc. I encourage all of us to limit this type of praise as much as possible, and instead praise children for streatgy and process use.

It goes a little something like this:

You say: "John, I am so proud of you for breaking that assignment up into managable pieces for yourself." (This is regardless of John's ability to complete each piece - because that was not what you praised here.)

Or, you say: "John, that was so awesome that you used the strategy of reading aloud to yourself to understand that problem more easily." (This is regardless of John's actual success on the problem.)

Or you can even say: "John, I'm really pleased with your ability to estimate 30 minutes for this assignment, and get it done in 20." (Notice: here you are praising the result/outcome, however you are doing so by rewarding the process that John took to get there.)

Praising appropriately will give your child a new perspective on your expectations. Instead of "Mom only cares when I'm right", you are transforming their thinking to "Mom loves when I try to succeed."

Changing Our Language: "Would You Be Willing?"

To continue the importance of changing our language, today I will discuss the important of the phrase "would you be willing?"

Many students I work with can be described as lacking cognitive flexibility, or having a "fixed mindset". You know, that kid whose favorite words are "no", "I can't" and "I don't want to". 

When supporting a student whose natural instinct is to think of what isn't possible, you want to make sure you are using more suggestive language in addition to choice language (see the previous post).

So, what does suggestive language look like?

Whenever you provide your child with options, choices, or suggestions follow up or begin the suggestion with "would you be willing?" It looks something like this:

Your child says: "I can't do this math. She didn't teach me any of this."

You say: "Would you be willing to have me look at the problem you're stuck on?"

Your child says: "Fine." (Of, if they refuse, provide another "would you be willing" statement or two choices.)

You say: "It looks like I can't help you learn to solve this. Would you be willing to try looking this concept up on Khan Academy?"

Your child says: "Khan is so dumb. It doesn't know how to do this."

You say: "So you're not willing to try Khan Academy. What about emailing the teacher? Would you be willing to email the teacher?"

And so on...

Asking if your child would be willing to try a strategy or solution will allow your child to evaluate their comfort level with that suggestion. By inviting the student to have choice in saying "no", the use of "no" will become less automatic. In fact, one student whom I use "would you be willing?" phrasing with all the time turned to me just last month and said: "I wish my mom and dad would ask me what I think instead of just yelling at me to do something. I feel like you want to know what I think I can do right so I can try what I want to try."

Changing Our Language: "You have a Choice. What do you Choose?"

I have noticed a lot of parents and educators surprised by the impact of the language I am using with the student's I support. To many, my language feels less directive and more suggestive. Here is one of a series of special posts on the power of language and how you can use language to support your student. 

Recently a parent told me, "I don't know how you get Ted to listen and follow through. I am so specific in what I want him to do, but still, he does nothing I say." My response was simply, "When we provide choice, Ted is now in control." Ted is a typical kid: all he wants is to be in control of his actions. I am not sure I know anyone (adult or child) who actually likes to be told what to do.

So how do you get out of the cycle of directive after directive, "do this", "don't do that", and the yelling that ensues when your expectations are not met? Simply put, all you need to do is provide choice.

Choice language goes something like this:

You say: "You have a choice." "Would you rather play for 10 more minutes on the slide? Or play 5 minutes on the slide and 5 minutes on the monkey bars? What do you choose?"

Your child says: "I want to..." (make sure it is one of your choices. If it isn't then you reiterate the choices using the exact same language as above.)

You say: "Okay, so your choice is to play for 10 more minutes on the slide before we leave."

Now, let's say your child is not coming when you call them after that 10 minutes is up, you need to use choice language again.

You say: "Remeber, your choice was...." (And, if needed provide yet another set of two choices for how you will be leaving the park."

This language allows your child to direct their own choices. Yes, you may have provided the two choices, but they made the decision!

When We Let Fallbacks Happen

You have been supporting Sonia so much in all her classes. You email the teachers every day to ask what the homework was. You are so worried about what would happen if you backed off and let her take charge of knowing what homework she has she would not succeed in her classes. Her teachers keep telling you to "let her fail to figure it out".

The Truth: There is a lot of jargon out there now-a-days about "falling forward" and "letting them fail their way to success". Honestly, this concept is misconstrued and wrongly worded. "Failing forward" implies that we are "letting" students, our kids, "fail" their way to the top. First of all, this is litterally almost impossible to achieve. And, second, is exactly not what a parent, teacher, or any person should do when working with a child. The central idea of this "let them fail" belief is that a student should learn through their mistakes and through controversy they experience and that we adults should let them have those experiences.

What I Suggest: Please, stop using phrases that use the word "fail" and implies "success". This is confusing to kids and doesn't make much sense to us adults either. Instead, I encourage you to "let fallbacks happen". This may seem like semantics, but it is much more than replacement of negatively charged verbiage. It is a mindset. We should never back away from supporting a child if we are capable of supporting their needs. However, there are those times when a child has been provided support and is actively choosing not to receive the help in one way or another or scaffolds need to be removed to release some of the control back to the student. In Sonia's case, you need to step back little-by-little. Give her one task at a time and "let fallbacks happen" as they will. And when these "fallbacks" occur, support her in understanding what has happened and how she can prevent herself from falling again (Hint! Hint! Most likely with the support of a strategy!).



Reply to this post with a situation in which you have let "fallbacks" happen with your child and have helped them experienced success by doing so.