It's just hard...

We had Eden's annual IEP meeting today. Overall the meeting went really well and everyone was on the same page about the direction we need to go. Which is in the grand scheme of things is so very important for the best learning environment for Eden.

Getting through IEP meetings as a parent is one of the hardest thing you have to do all year. There is usually lots of worry about what's going to happen or even what's not going to happen. Then listening to each person in the room talk about your child. First, they always start out with the child's strengths but after a few of these meetings you know what's coming next. You get to sit through and talk about your child's weaknesses, delays, and behavioral challenges in school. (For the teachers out there, I know this isn't the easy part for you guys either and depending on the parent there are different reactions to this.)

I usually try my best to make light of the situation and listen as best as I can, but most of the time inside when I hear these things I just don't know what to say, and all I want to do is offer any help I can. Once the plan is made then we go around to all the people involved and it stays on repeat until the end where we go over the final plan. Depending on the child you'll have 4 or more people doing this and if you are fortunate you know most of what is going to be said but no matter what there are always little things that you hear that stick with you.

For the most part, I've never been really surprised at a meeting and there weren't very many unexpected things said today and I'm grateful for that. It's always the little things that stick with you after those meetings. It's a pretty long car ride home by myself thinking about how things are going and this year they aren't going very well at all from what I've heard. Sure there are some things she's gaining in school like Speech and OT is progressing when she's able to go because she's had some trouble with behaviors and such. We have a plan and we have what I think are the very best teachers I've ever worked with helping Eden get the best education she can.

Eden has two "teachers" and because she has services in both regular education setting and special education settings which is actually a good thing so her plan can be a little more flexible given her changing needs. Unfortunately, her regular education teacher had a difficult time updating us on much of the classroom happenings because with all the things that have been happening she really hasn't gotten to spend too much time with her.

We don't really know how she is doing educationally because they have had a very difficult time getting her to complete much work, but if you take the amount of time she is out of the learning environment I'm guessing she's not progressing as much as she really could. They(her teachers) are trying some new strategies to get her to complete more work and try to really see if her reading trouble is from a learning issue or a behavioral issue so we can make a plan there as well.

Eden's behaviors have prevented her from making real relationships in her classroom as well (it wasn't said, but how could she if she is not there?) She has not talked about friends from school in a long time and I'm sure she'll make friends eventually because she is such a loving kid it's going to be very difficult for kids to get over the stigma of the behaviors they have seen from her.

The long ride in the car was tough for me. You sit and try to really swallow all of this and process it and it's hard...