5 Things That Can Make a Huge Difference

There are many things that can make a difference for your child at the beginning of a new school year, but five stand out to me as more important than most of the others. Yes, IEPs and knowing your rights are important, but for the sake of the impending first day of school, I’ll stick with these at the moment:

1. Create a Day in the Life. I know that I mention this in almost every e-mail that I send to parents building up to a new school year, but that’s because I can’t overstate the importance of this document. When my son was in school, each year I would meet with his team of teachers the week before the school year began and go over the items on this list. I would keep it as short and sweet as I could, but I was most certain that if they didn’t know these things about my son it would be a really rough start for both him and them. It was as much for their benefit as it was for his. You can find more info on how to write one of these here.

• Develop a home note. Having daily communication with your child’s teacher or team of teachers can make or break their success in school, and at home. How else are you going to know what happened during the school day if an adult from the school doesn’t tell you? Even kids who are very capable of verbally communicating come home and tell stories from their own perspective, which may be nothing like what actually happened. For kids who cannot verbally communicate, how will you know anything at all? Home notes are for YOU, and not for the school. They are not meant to be data sheets for goal tracking. They are for you to have the information that you need to actively engage in your child’s education. If your child’s teacher has it set up where you sign it and send it back, make sure you take a picture of it and file it away. Personally, I always created my own home note. That way, I knew that the note would include the information that was important to me – and not a paper filled with stamped smiley faces :/

• Make sure your child’s clothes fit them the way that they should. I know this sounds kind of odd, but the kiss of death for a middle school student, especially a boy, is to wear clothes that are too tight. Some kids, especially those with autism, have a tendency to never want to throw things away, and that includes their favorite clothes. If you’ve got that kid, go online right now and order that same shirt or same shorts in a larger size and make the one that they currently insist on wearing, disappear. I know that there may be a lot of drama that enfolds as a result – because your child is going to know that something is different. But if you want to take steps for them to establish the best first impression that they can, unfortunately, it begins with their clothes.

• Schedules can be accommodated. If your child is extremely sensitive to busy hallways, it’s probably best, at least at the beginning of the school year, that they not change classes when the hallways are packed. This is especially evident in middle and high school. There are students who change classes 3 to 5 minutes before the bell rings. That way, they are out of the halls when the bells do ring and the students file out of their classrooms all at the same time. Changing class a few minutes early can significantly decrease anxiety, fear and a pervasive feeling of uneasiness. And it’s one of the simplest things to accommodate.

• Join your school’s advisory committee (SAC). School advisory committees come together once a month to talk about the school improvement plan and anything else that might be important to the education and culture inside of the school. This committee includes school administration, teachers, non instructional staff, and parents. There’s even a designated exceptional student education representative on this committee. All sorts of school plans are made during these meetings. By participating in SAC, I was able to find out who the best teachers were, when school boundaries might be changed, what preparations were being implemented to address standardized testing, how extra services were going to be provided for students with disabilities and where certain teachers would be placed in order to yield the highest educational results. Basically, it’s how I kept my finger on the pulse of the place I was sending my kids to for 6 hours every day.

I know that not everyone has the time that it would take to do all five of the above-mentioned tactics, so if you can just do two or three, it would be a huge benefit to your child and their education.

Wishing you and your child an incredible school year!

Warmest

Stacey