Those annual IEP (Individualized Education Plans) meetings all parents of children with “special needs” attend are something I used to dread. Meant to ensure our children are given the supports and accommodations they need, I went to our first meeting with eager anticipation. This was where, I thought, we would be able to work with a team of people all of whom had the same goal for our child – getting and giving her the best supports and accommodations available so that she could flourish.
What quickly became apparent however was that this was when her team would write a series of bullet points describing all that was wrong with her. All the ways in which she fell short, all the ways she demonstrated how incapable she was, were described in detail, documented and added to her growing file. This was the time, once a year, when I would sit and listen to that itemization, fighting…
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