How Your Parent Expertise Can Help Teachers

When my child was first diagnosed with ADHD, I was completely overwhelmed. I wasn’t sure how to help him or what resources were available. As additional diagnoses were added to the list, I decided it was time to get educated.

 Over the years, I’ve taken courses, read books, watched countless YouTube videos, joined Facebook groups and more to try to find ways to help my son thrive (or at least avoid meltdowns).

Along the way I’ve learned about Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) which is connected to autism, found an incredible Orton Gillingham tutor who reshaped my approach to literacy and learned about the stages of a meltdown and how a child needs to go through each stage in the de-escalation process.

Simply put – I’ve become a semi-expert on my son (acknowledging he’s the true expert).

This means I often (if not always) know how to motivate and support my son more than his teachers, support staff or other family members.

If you’re raising a child with a disability(s) I expect that’s the same for you. If not, it doesn’t take much to get started. YouTube offers endless videos that can help you learn about your child’s disability(s) in bite size pieces.

Armed with all this knowledge, I encourage you to share your learnings with your child’s teachers.

Lived experience

Too often when a teacher reads a child has X diagnosis, they reflect on another child they taught with the same diagnosis. While I appreciate having a frame of reference can be helpful, in some cases it actually harms the student.

We all know the saying if you’ve met one child with autism you’ve met one child with autism.

Autism is a spectrum – meaning each person and their experience is unique. Saying you’ve previously taught a child with autism is no different than saying you’ve previously taught a child with brown hair. While you may have many students with brown hair, each will have unique needs, interests and abilities.

Here’s where our lived experience comes in. We can help teachers understand the child behind the diagnosis.

For example, if you want to motivate my son to read, connect reading with YouTube. Remind him that YouTubers need to read the comments fans post. Same with learning to use a keyboard – it will help him respond to comments on his channel.

Don’t underestimate the power of your lived experience or assume teachers know your child’s strengths and interests like you do.

Learning carrots

Another area we can help is in how to motivate our child as well as the optimal learning environment (which I recognize isn’t always possible).

This year my son started at a new school, which meant a new IEP and new opportunity for growth. The first week I sat down with the teacher letting her know how my son responds to immediate rewards vs delayed rewards (like a rewards chart).

A reward doesn’t need to be complicated. It can be 5 minutes on the iPad or a break before starting the next task.

It’s equally important to know his cues that he’s getting overwhelmed or frustrated. I then gave specific examples of how to prevent in the first place (minimizing the noise level) as well as how to redirect (when it is noisy, let him go for a walk to get a break, then return when the class is quieter).  

Calming tips

I also recognize teachers are busy, with lots of students to juggle. This is where pivoting tips come in hand.

For example, when my son was younger there was always a rice bin in the classroom for him with a funnel and toys. He could freely go over and play with the rice when he needed to self-regulate (or would be gently encouraged to take a break at his rice bin).

As he gets older, he has a bean bag chair and noise cancelling headphones. He’s able to get up and sit in the chair with his headphones on when he needs quiet. Knowing this quiet space exists has actually prevented meltdowns from occurring.

These pivoting or calming techniques are lessons learned in our home (through trials and tribulations) that we’ve shared with, and have been implemented, at school.

Keep on sharing

As part of my own continual learning, I try to share valuable videos or articles with his school team. Now, this doesn’t mean I flood them with every video I find interesting. Rather, I try to share 3-6 key videos (under 10 minutes) or resources each year.

This year it was a tip sheet for educators on how to support students with PDA. It gave simple tips like saying – do you want to do 4 or 5 math questions– giving the child the choice but still getting work done.

I’ve also shared videos from How to ADHD on ADHD and friendships, ADHD and anxiety and other tidbits that might help the teacher understand and support my son and other students with ADHD.

I do this out of a place of helpfulness not bossiness. While I know many teachers would love to have countless hours to research how to support each student, this just isn’t possible. So, when I have an aha moment or find a simple and easy to understand video or article that sums up what my child is going through, I share it with his school team.  

Most times I get an email thanking me or a quick conversation in the hallway about how the information helped the teacher.

I have to stress the key is to share out of a place of wanting to help the team vs telling them what to do. It’s important to respect their role as teachers.

Conversation flow

My final piece of advice is to keep the communications channels open. If my son has had little sleep or a rough morning, I send a short email to the teacher before he heads to school. And when our dog died, I made sure everyone on his team knew not only about the death, but his connection to the dog and ways to support him (including calling home if he was too upset).

I know how quickly people make assumptions or judgements about kids with disabilities, even well-intentioned individuals. This is why I give quick heads-up emails – he skipped breakfast, he’s in a cranky mood, he and his sister got in a fight on the way to school.

These are often 1-3 sentences for minor updates.

Again, teachers have been grateful as they know his frame of mind before he walks in the door and are ready to adjust as needed. This can be the resource teacher meeting him to go for a walk before class starts, having less math questions to get through, being redirected to his bean bag chair when he’s seeming off.

As a mom, I know my child best. I’ve learned the secrets to motivate, calm or redirect him.

Instead of confining these learnings to the home, I share them with his school team. And that sharing as I go through my own education journey has made a world of difference.

I encourage you to reflect on how you can share your expertise with your child’s teachers. What learnings or insights do you have about your child? How can these be implemented at school? What resources have helped you that might help their teachers?

At the end of the day, we all want what’s best for our child. Taking a team approach is key to your child’s success.