“I tell myself the night before every IEP meeting that I am not going to cry and here I am crying again.”

“My eye used to start twitching the day before meetings.”

“I don’t sleep the night before or the night after IEP meetings.”

“I am fine and then suddenly, I just want to scream at everyone in the room.” 

“I worry about what is going to happen and then I replay what actually happened.  It ruins two days.”

“I am so tired of fighting for what is best for my child but if I don’t, who will?”

Different parents. 

Different children. 

Different disabilities. 

What is it about the IEP meeting that can cause such feelings of sadness, anger, anxiety, and fatigue? 

Or are these people all crazy?

They’re not crazy.  They are normal, rational human beings who love their children and are attending meetings that focus almost entirely on the deficits of their child. They are also dealing with the complicated process of grieving (and may not know what to call it or how to talk about it) and possibly feelings of shame.  And they are doing all of this in front of an audience.

Most of us understand grief in relationship to death, but we don’t often recognize feelings of grief for things that are not physical or tangible. 

Dr. Ken Moses described the loss perfectly. “As disability bluntly shatters the dreams, parents face a complicated, draining, challenging, frightening, and consuming task. They must raise the child they have while letting go of the child they dreamed of. They must go on with their lives, cope with their child as he or she is now, let go of the lost dreams, and generate new dreams. To do all this, the parent must experience the process of grieving.”

The first task for parents is to acknowledge that the loss exists even though their child is present and alive.  This is difficult. Parents can feel shame or embarrassment when admitting that their child is not measuring up to their dreams, visions, hopes or plans. Why?  It feels wrong to have those feelings of disappointment.  It can even feel like admitting disappointment is admitting a lack of love.

It is normal for all parents to have hopes and dreams for their children.

It is normal to feel disappointment when those dreams are taken away.

These feelings are made more intense by love.

… To Be Continued