Today's Musings

I posted some links to this blog at support groups to which I belong. I am encouraged to hear that many have not had to fight to get their children appropriate placement and/or supports. And some actually took offense to the tone of the blog stating it was too harsh.

I did look at the tone and agreed that there was some terminology that could lead a parent to believe the information was absolute. It is not. However, as an incorrigible "Pollyanna" (I still play the "glad game" many days), I was unprepared for any controversy when we entered into the school system.

In our case, we fought all summer long to even get our child into the districts special education system even though he was in "Early Intervention Preschool" at the time. But even then, I believed what I was told...all oversight, misunderstandings, etc. and went into the first IEP meeting extremely open minded.

The IEP meeting went better than we could have ever imagined. Everything we asked for was acceptable by the school. It was almost "too" easy. And thereafter is where it all went terribly wrong.

I won't delve into the details of our specific problems. You can probably get a pretty good idea based on the "things I've learned" list. But I will say that I was oblivious to many things that had I known I would have been better prepared for.

I guess I've learned to mix my "Pollyanna" optimism with a little lemon these days. Sort of makes a nice lemonade :-)

In any case, this blog did not intend to pit you against the school districts. Nor did it intend to give you a pre-public school ulcer. It's just things many of us parents have learned the hard way and hope to help others walk into the process much more knowlegeable and less naive than we.