Reply to As parents, how should I respond if there are IEP meeti comments that DC is rude and disrespectful?

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Reply to "As parents, how should I respond if there are IEP meeti comments that DC is rude and disrespectful? "

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Did they actually use those words? I switched out of the schools this year but when I was in IEP meetings, telling a parent that their child with ASD was "rude" and "disrespectful" was not something we would have done, and a staff member coming in and saying that would have gotten the stinkeye. It[b]'s unnecessarily judgmental and confrontational and it's equally unproductive [/b]because it is well-known that social difficulties that may come off as "rude" or "disrespectful" are part and parcel of ASD and just telling the kid that does nothing to help them know what they did that came off that way, or learn a different behavior. Calling them "rude" implies that if you just tell them off, they'll fix it, and that's not what happens. If I heard that in a meeting I would question the colleague's experience. Is it stemming from rigidity? Inability to read non-verbal cues or alter the register of a message depending on the listener? "Rude" is a useless word.

I might let it go this time but push back next time if they start saying things like that again. It's unhelpful at the minimum. I'm sorry you felt like they were attacking your child; I think anyone would have felt that way, which is why they should have phrased it more thoughtfully and constructively.[/quote]

I completely disagree with you here. As parents of kids with special needs, we need people to be honest with us and not try to spare our feelings. Additionally these terms are not judgmental. They are descriptive and are a good springboard for IEP goals. Most of us are not snowflakes and we can handle the truth and we want the truth.  We want to know so that we can work on those skills that are going to make them successful in their lives. [/quote]

But I don't think "rude" is that descriptive; for a layperson, yes, but not for an IEP team of special ed experts who are supposed to understand ASD and be able to pinpoint the skills the child is not doing that make them appear rude. You can and should tell parents the behaviors their child is displaying or not displaying, which developmental expectations they aren't meeting, and how this will make their child appear and affect their interactions, but "rude" and "disrespectful" is not professional terminology, IMO. For a layperson, I would expect to hear that, but from a special ed expert who should be able to drill down to the specific deficits more, it comes off as lazy and "Your 5-year-old was meeean to meeeee waaahh." [/quote]

The team was talking to a layperson. And I would expect the team to have provided examples and have further discussions to be sure OP understood what the specific examples led to this umbrella term. But OP did not recount the entire conversation, so we don’t know what else was said. Are there other words that could have been used?  Maybe. But i just hate when people sugarcoat things instead of laying it out as it is. If you don’t clearly understand it, you can’t help your child. Your comments strike me this way - as trying to avoid being direct about the hard issues we parents are facing. IME, it leads to less thorough services. [/quote]

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