Episode 72 – Part 1: Advocating for Your Child with Confidence – Julie Cole, Jolee Hibbard, Alexa Chilcutt

Jill Stowell: Welcome to the LD Expert Podcast, your place for answers and solutions for dyslexia and learning differences. The Language of Advocacy: Speak for Your Child with Confidence is a truly outstanding workbook for parents who are working with the school to get help for their children and we are so privileged today to have all three of the authors of this book with us.

These women have been where you are as a parent of a special needs child sitting in IEP meetings and experiencing all the emotions and challenges that go with that. So, they bring both their personal and professional experience into this conversation.

I know that you are going to love this discussion and I think it’s going to be one that you’re going to want to refer back to over and over and share with other parents of neurodiverse children and young adults.

Jill Stowell: I’m your host Jill Stowell, Founder and Executive Director of Stowell Learning Centers and author of Take the Stone Out of the Shoe: A Must-Have Guide to Understanding, Supporting and Correcting Dyslexia, Learning and Attention Challenges.

Our guests today are Dr. Jolee Hibbard, Dr. Alexa Chilcutt and Julie Cole. Jolee is a clinical psychologist. Alexa is a certified executive coach and Julie has been a teacher, school administrator and parent advocate. All three are moms of children with special needs. So, we have a lot of professional and real-life expertise here. So, let’s jump right into our conversation.

Welcome Julie, Alexa and Jolee. I am just so grateful to have you on the podcast. I think what you have to share with our listeners is so practical and relatable, like a lifeline really in navigating the IEP process.

When I read your book The Language of Advocacy, I thought it was brilliant because it takes this hard journey of advocating and getting help for your child and gives parents perspective and tools that they need in a way that is easy to follow and doesn’t add to the overwhelm that parents already feel. 

It's unintimidating and easy to hold, which I love. Easy to read and just packed with exactly the right information. So, thank you for that. This is really, really needed. I would love to have each of you introduce yourselves and tell us your story and why this topic is so important to you. So Jolee, let’s start with you.

Dr. Jolee Hibbard: Thank you. So glad to be here, Jill. We are excited to have the opportunity to share our message with your audience today. First of all, before I begin, I just want to say that it’s important to note that the information that we’re sharing here is not intended to treat, diagnose, prevent or cure any kind of mental health issue and it’s always important to speak with your own healthcare provider about any issues that you or your child are experiencing.

But with that being said, let me tell you just very quickly what our goal is here. Our goal in creating this workbook was to provide tools for parents to best communicate their children’s needs to professionals, helping professionals, be that clinicians or school administrators or teachers.

I am the mother of twins. They’re 16 years old now and both of my children have IEPs and from the time that my kids were really small, I noticed that there were differences in the way that my children were reacting to the world and reacting with the world.

I went on a vision quest to being out there and to best understand how I could support my children and that included going to parenting classes, joining online groups, taking my kids to therapy, having my children assessed, going to my own therapy. Ultimately, I decided to become a clinical psychologist because of what I discovered in the process and how I knew that it was difficult to get the help that we needed. I wanted to help my family and other families like mine.

So, that was really the genesis of me becoming a clinical psychologist but what I noticed was in my process of trying to help my loved ones, my children, a lot of times I was getting feedback. I was getting feedback about parenting. I was getting feedback about my kid’s behavior. I was getting feedback from the school. I was getting feedback from the teachers. I was getting feedback from the healthcare providers. I was getting feedback from neighbors about things that were happening with my kids.

What I noticed was I was becoming more and more sensitive to the feedback that we were receiving and ultimately, I became kind of emotionally reactive and I knew that I needed to do something different because I was inadvertently pushing away the very people, the helping professionals that I needed to assist my children. Luckily, I am related to Dr. Alexa Chilcutt and she is a communications expert. She has her PhD and she and I started talking, started talking about how I could better communicate to be able to help advocate for my kids and that was the genesis behind this workbook that you see today.

It is the culmination of the things that I’ve learned and pulling together Alexa along with Julie who is an excellent IEP advocate to be able to provide kind of a beginning-to-end guide to help parents help their children through the IEP process.

Jill Stowell: And it’s obviously so, so needed. So, Alexa, can you kind of pick up the story there? Tell us a little bit about you and your journey.

Dr. Alexa Chilcutt: Sure. I have two grown adult children now. So, I started a little earlier than Jolee and Julie. My children are now 30 and 32 but my daughter, when she was younger, was – she was acting out even in preschool and it was because she was bored. 

That led me as a very young mother, I was in my 20s, in a crucial spot of trying to figure out what was going on with her and what she needed. I was really looking for answers, right? Because I mean she was just three, four years old but she would come home from preschool and act out in almost kind of physical violent ways.

I ended up finding someone to give her an IQ test at a university that they did not want to do but I just said, “I need help and anything that you can tell me.” What she really needed was to be advocated for, to be challenged in school and I went through lots of different hoops to do that. But once I got her into a space where she was in a class in second grade where she was being challenged and the type of school that was going to challenge her, that was teaching a second language, I mean anything, that really allowed me to see that so much of her behavior had just been frustration. 

But it was a challenge with this specific child all of her life to keep her engaged, to keep her in programs that were going to be challenging and I had my own struggles of figuring out how to communicate with educators, how to communicate in a way that they understood I wasn’t trying to ask for anything undeserved or not necessary. But that I was trying to do something beneficial for her while at the same time placing her in a position that would really suit her needs and of course make her a welcome contribution to any class.

So, she had a wonderful school experience but it did take me really having to think proactively about every step along the way, the schools that she needed to be in, the classes, the type of assignments, the activities outside of school, summer camps and so I understand from a different kind of lens and perspective and obviously years and years ago. But how important it is to be able to recognize your child’s needs and to come alongside educators in a way that is non-threatening but is thinking common ground.

You know, how are we both trying to create a solution and really make what’s best for the child but also a great solution in the classroom? So that was kind of – as I said, I was a younger parent, learning along the way. I returned to school later on, got a PhD in communication information sciences and I currently teach executive education at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and at Texas Christian University.

Also, as you stated, I’m an executive coach and I love working with professionals. When Jolee came along as now basically my niece and nephew, are kind of working through their own process of school and growing and learning, we had these conversations and came to realize that the same exact skills that I teach to executives are skills that any parent can utilize and it’s not rocket science but it does take intention and strategy and really getting out ahead of things because when we are talking about our children, as Jolee said, we become very emotional obviously and can communicate from a reactive place.

So, the main point of the communication aspect and the portion of this book is recognizing the goals of communication and how also to be strategic in that communication, getting out ahead of it, so that you’re never really caught flatfooted, flatfooted or from an emotional reactive space. Then you’re not communicating what you need in a positive way that creates connection with that other individual that you’re trying to work with.

Jill Stowell: Well, we definitely want to dig into that a little bit more in just a minute because that’s going to be a huge tool for parents as they get help for their kids. So, Julie, tell us about your story and your passion for this.

Julie Cole: Thank you. Thank you Jill for being here. It’s an incredible opportunity to be able to share with other parents kind of where we have come from, how we got here and most importantly how they can utilize information to help their own children. I am a mom of four boys. I have one who is grown and off and living his best adult life. My other three are triplets, two of which have had active IEPs since they were three. So, they are now 13 and in seventh grade and we have been knee-deep in this IEP journey for 10 years now and as my background as you indicated, I started out teaching before I had my boys and went back to school, got my master’s in administration, served as a vice principal for discipline and then also curriculum and instruction. Those were my two areas of expertise.

Once we knew we were pregnant and having these boys, it was time to focus on that. I stepped down from teaching and had my boys. Once we entered the IEP world, I thought, “OK, I can do this. I have a background in education and teaching. How hard can it be?” I’ve never been more overwhelmed in my life. Infant triplets, which is overwhelming as the IEP process.

So, what really catapulted me into this journey was I want to share with other parents what I wish I had going in because even with my background in education going in, I was still completely overwhelmed with the language, the acronyms, the timelines. There’s so much to absorb and I had two of them going through it at the same time, which was a lot.

My first experience was they decided to have the boys’ IEPs together, back-to-back, and which I thought, OK, there’s no harm in that. There is. It’s too much but understanding that they were copying and pasting some of the goals and didn’t even proofread the document to change the names. 

So, from that moment on, from their very first IEP, I realized it was my responsibility to dive through that document with a fine-toothed comb because everyone who is on your IEP team brings their expertise to the table and you as the parent are experts at your kid, at your own child, so that’s what you bring to the table. But you have to look at that entire document and I’m sure we will dive into more of that but my heart and my passion is to provide parents with what I wish that I had had going into this, to give them the confidence, the verbiage, the timelines, the templates to write letters, to get the attention of the educators who you can tell, look, my child is not getting what they need.

But in order to get action, there are certain steps to follow and I want every parent to be armed with that. I love what I do. I sit in IEPs three, four times a week. My ultimate goal is to equip those parents to sit in there on their own and advocate for their kids.

Jill Stowell: Well, that is incredible because it is, oh, a big overwhelming process or it certainly can be. So, I would like to kind of dig into the emotional piece of this. I feel like that’s probably the first place to start for parents. So Jolee, that’s kind of your niche. Do you want to kick us off here with that?

Dr. Jolee Hibbard: Yeah, I would be happy to. So, what I discovered with myself related to my own experience with my children was that the more that I got feedback as I was saying earlier from professionals or from school administrators or from neighbors or from teachers, I found myself becoming more and more sensitive. The more sensitive I was, the more emotionally-reactive I became.

Really what I discovered is – a lot of it was in chatting with Alexa and doing my own processing of what was going on. But what I really discovered was there was a gap between what I really wanted to communicate to the helping professionals and what they were perceiving that I was saying. I thought, OK, well, what’s getting in my way? What’s getting in the way here?

Really what it came down to and I began to dig in and do some research, parents of kids that struggle can have vicarious experiences. OK? And so, what I mean when I say that is that parents feel as though their children are extensions of themselves and there’s research to back this up. That parents will have the same kind of neural responses as if they have gotten some sort of feedback about themselves when they get feedback about their kids.

So, it doesn’t just end with feedback though. It also extends to other important things like the fact that some parents, when they have kids that act out inappropriately or what is perceived as outside the norm, they can end up feeling shameful and this type of vicarious shame is different than guilt. So, guilt is you’ve done something wrong. You can fix it. There’s a fix. Shame is I’ve done something wrong and I’m inherently broken. There’s something wrong with me and I can’t necessarily fix it.

When people feel that way, when parents feel that way, they do one of two things and I’m certain that Julie can speak to this and probably you can as well Jill, that people will either hide and not address an issue. They will ignore that there’s a problem going on or they will come out swinging. They’re upset. They’re in an IEP meeting. They’re talking to you Jill about services and they are angry. 

So, neither of those are helpful towards moving towards building a consensus and getting the support that you need for your kids. Another thing that’s really important to address here is the stigma, the stigma that ends up happening and there’s vicarious stigma and there’s research on that. Stigma is basically a negative label that’s based on prejudice and discrimination and there’s a lot of history with parents, especially mothers of kids that struggle, bringing them into the mental healthcare setting and being judged for the problems that their children have.

It has gotten vastly better over the years but in times past, mothers were blamed for schizophrenia for example. There was something called a “schizophregenic mother” and she was the reason why her child had schizophrenia. They now know so much more and that kind of blame doesn’t happen but there is this hangover within the medical profession. So, it’s important to recognize that part of what is getting in the way are all of these types of vicarious experiences that we can have as parents of kids that struggle.

But additionally, we need to keep in mind too that there’s research that parents of kids with chronic illnesses and that’s not limited to just mental health, parents of kids with chronic illnesses can experience trauma symptoms. So research on the autism community in particular has basically shown that some parents, not all, but some parents can actually have PTSD symptoms. OK? So, PTSD causes depression, anxiety and heightened reactions.

Here's the problem with the heightened reactions. So, this is what we need to be aware of is that when you become upset, when you’re triggered, your thinking brain which is really your prefrontal cortex where you think, plan, strategize and organize, it goes more offline and the emotional brain – so that’s the lower brain centers, right? So, where emotion is housed and where our more automatic or autonomic functions in our body. Those aspects of the brain, those more primitive aspects of the brain actually take over, which goes a long way to describing why parents, when they are upset and triggered, they are saying things that maybe they don’t necessarily – what they would say if they were calm and centered in the moment.

So, if you think that you might be experiencing some sort of trauma symptoms, this is a great opportunity for you to reach out to your mental health provider and to get assistance so that you can best assist your child.

In my practice, I do two things. I provide assessment for children and adults but I also provide therapy and the therapy that I use really centers around something called “acceptance and commitment therapy” and it really focuses on three main things and these are the things that are important for parents to know. One, you want to be present and being present means being present with your child, being more mindful, but it also means being present with yourself and validating your own experience.

You have an emotion. That’s OK. It’s OK that you don’t feel happy. Maybe you’re angry. When you’re able to validate that experience, it goes a long way towards you being able to act in the ways that you want. Between a stimulus and a response, there can be a space and what we want to do is increase that space so that you can determine the way that you want to react.

The other thing that’s important is to be present. So be present. We talked about to open up and to do what you think that really matters. When I say open up, I mean learning more coping skills, right? Opening up to new information, opening up to new relationships, connecting to other people that have similar experiences, connecting to healthcare providers that can help you in this journey. Helping yourself to connect to people like Julie who have great information about the IEP process and you Jill who have a wealth of information about being able to assist kids with specific learning disabilities.

So that step where you can open up is really important and lastly, the step of doing what matters counts. So even though you may feel reactive, being able to take that pause, take that breath, validate the way you feel but then move in the direction of what your north star is. So, your north star might be to help your kids get the treatment that they need for their learning disability or it might be that you need to get that IEP done. Being able to remember how to do what matters is important. I hope that answered your question, Jill.

Jill Stowell: Oh, wow. That was worth the whole podcast. Yeah. Our emotions can definitely get in the way of our best rational thinking and of course there is nothing that we’re more emotionally tied to than our kids. I think truly – I don’t know. It probably isn’t just moms. It’s probably all people but moms, I think we have a tendency to kind of beat ourselves up for those emotions and just recognizing this is how I’m feeling and it’s OK for me to get help. I don’t have to do this all myself and then focusing on what’s really important because it certainly is easy to just have our thoughts take us down a rabbit hole and that’s really hard to get out of. So, thank you for all of that too. Before we go on and kind of explore how we communicate our child’s needs, do Alexa or Julie, do you have comments about this emotional piece? Do you want to chime in?

Dr. Alexa Chilcutt: Well, and I will just say I’m sure Julie does as well. But to Jolee’s points about the shame and the PTSD, I mean I’m sure all parents can identify with that and recognize that. Her later point was we have to also invest in ourselves especially as mothers. So outwardly focused on trying to give our child or children what they need and ensuring that and we can become so exhausted and rundown and emotionally burdened that we don’t think about investing in care for ourselves, investing in therapy for ourselves, investing in just the idea of recognizing it’s OK that I feel this way and it’s normal. I think goes a long way to helping parents recognize that OK, it’s normal. I’m going through this. Other people go through this. What tools can I learn that can make this easier? As Jolee said, what relationships do I need to bring alongside me that are going to help me get this through, that your children are not the only ones that need support?

Jill Stowell: Right, right. And one of the things – we started this podcast back at the beginning of the pandemic and really it was to support parents and it has kind of evolved but really we want parents to know they are not alone. So not only providing tools but when things are happening to you, somehow you feel like you’re the only one and it really is important to know that you are not the only one. There are so many parents going through similar kinds of things and you are such a critical point person for your child that you’ve got to put your oxygen mask on first. You got to take care of you. So …

Julie Cole: Absolutely. Just one thing I would love to add here is what Jolee said about putting space between the stimulus and the reactive part is so crucial because you sit in this IEP meeting and you see on paper your child’s deficiencies and you know it in the back of your head. You know it in your mommy gut but seeing it in black and white increases those emotions and you want to come out both barrels because what’s – whose fault is it that this is happening? And those are the emotions parents feel. It’s so important to acknowledge taking that space and understanding your rights as parents to have that space, to marinate, to process, before you make a decision and sign that document. It’s such a crucial part for sure.

Jill Stowell: Absolutely and I hope you will say that again and again as we talk about the IEP because I know there’s a lot of pressure around that and we do need the space to process, just like our kids do. So, the more that parents can effectively communicate what they need to communicate without being hijacked by their emotions in the moment, the more productive and valuable the meeting time with parents and teachers or the IEP team can be.

So, Alexa, can you give us a little insight about some communication strategies that will help parents to feel confident about crafting their message to the school or the IEP team?

Dr. Alexa Chilcutt: I will be happy to give some strategies. There are no perfect communicators. Communication is a skill that as we grow as adults and hopefully increase in emotional intelligence and self-awareness, we’re continuing to build those skills all the time and communication is situational.

So, it’s about what the situation is, what the topic is, who our audience is, what we’re trying to accomplish through that communication and a lot of what gets in our way as Jolee mentioned is those kind of emotions in the background.

So, in my section of the workbook, it really begins with a self-assessment of what are our communication strengths and what are some areas that we would like to work on because communication is so rich. Everything that we do is around communication and thinking about verbal, it’s the message that you craft, whether that is a verbal message, on the phone or face to face or it’s an email.

So, it’s the content of the message but it’s the delivery of the message. It is how we choose to deliver the message whether – is it a text or an email when it really should be a phone call or a meeting? Is it strategic? If it’s face to face or over the phone, are we really aware of our body language, our tone of voice? Once again, our emotions can really hijack that and get in our way. 

So, the tools around communication are just being intentional and strategic and getting out ahead of it. So, if you know that you’re going to have a meeting with someone that there’s kind of a topic that you’re going to have to get around and create a plan or at least create some common ground, get on the same page about what’s going on. What’s going on in the classroom? What’s going on with my child? Where do I want that to go?

Then instead of waiting until you get in that meeting, taking time out as Julie said, taking that pause, taking that time out and being strategic. So, asking yourself the questions and this is the portion of the workbook where it starts with an assessment of yourself, just for you to recognize all the different aspects of communication and how we communicate.

Then the goals of communication. Creating shared meaning. You know what you mean. But does the other person know what you mean? The educator may know what they’re talking about but they’re not really thinking about your knowledge or limited knowledge about the topic or the process.

You may know exactly what you mean when you’re speaking about your child or children but they’re coming at it from a different angle. So how do we create that shared meaning? How do we express understanding? Instead of showing the frustration, how are we talking about the frustration or the eagerness to find a solution? Whatever that meaning behind the message is and then the third goal which is really the most crucial goal of communication is to convey value and respect.

The moment you feel disrespected, you do not hear the message anymore and the moment that that person that you’re communicating to doesn’t feel respected because you’re coming in kind of hot, right? They’re shutting down and they’re just going to push their perspective back on you.

So how do we communicate value and respect? Because at the heart of all communication, it’s about relationships and it’s about building trust and rapport with that person and getting them to see you as someone that wants to come alongside them and not against them. That’s really what we’re trying to do.

Then in the next portion of the workbook about communication, it’s a set of strategic questions. So, before you go into that interaction, that conversation, ask yourself. And we actually – I mean I pulled my workbook up here. We actually give parents space to write it out, right? And this is why it’s a workbook because we ask the questions and then we – I know it’s hard to see. But we want you to write down the answers so that you’re strategizing before you go in that meeting.

So, ask yourself, “What is the purpose of this conversation?” At the end of the conversation, what is my desired outcome? What do I really want out of it? Because if we can’t think about that desired outcome and really fix that as the point, our north star, then we can get really side railed throughout that. So writing out at the end of this conversation, at the end of this meeting my best outcome would be this. 

Doing a little audience analysis about that person on the frontend. What do they know about my child? What is their perspective? How can I create common ground with this person? And really thinking through what is the best way to deliver, to craft, to deliver that message. So that’s really a large portion of what we’re doing in this workbook is asking the questions ahead of time, laying out a game plan and then being able to kind of execute that. 

Jill Stowell: And really that – when you’re doing that in advance, now you’re doing it. You’re able to do it more objectively and it’s setting you up for being able to share your message without so much emotional overlay. There was something that you said that just really resonated with me, that you said something about instead of reacting to the frustration or acting with frustration, talk about the emotion. 

I am frustrated because I don’t understand this piece. Can you help me here? It’s totally different than attacking someone out of frustration. So being able to recognize that and talk about it and certainly having a picture in your mind of the outcome that you’re looking for is going to really help you stay on target as you go through this.

Dr. Alexa Chilcutt: Yeah, exactly and one of the other tools that we do is an incredibly simple message strategy and it’s called a contrast message to open up sometimes with a contrasting message. So, to say, “All right, what is that individual thinking that I’m trying to do? I mean from a negative perspective and how do I disarm that?” 

So, coming in directly and saying listen, my goal is not to have a contentious meeting. My goal is not to ask for something that I think is above and beyond what is kind of normal protocol. But really my goal is for us to be on the same page, for us to find a solution that works. 

So, starting out with my goal is not to, then tells them automatically, right? OK. This is not my perspective I’m coming from. This is my goal. My goal is to walk away from this meeting really having a plan that we both feel good about. That you feel like you can provide and I believe will really help my child.

So simple statements like that. If parents can work through these ahead of time, then as Jolee said, they’re actually walking into the meeting feeling a little more confident and they’re operating from that logical place in the brain and because they’re thinking about, OK, I’ve already formulated a plan. I’ve already formulated some messaging around this. I feel good about that. Then they’re walking and thinking in a more logical way and not worrying about which direction things are going to come at them from.

So, they’re more in control and the more in control we feel, the more confident we are and it allows you to kind of lead with that meaning instead of feeling like you’re always just in a responsive mode.

Jill Stowell: And it allows you then to come into the meetings starting with some common ground with the team because teachers and school personnel, they’re pretty invested as well. It might be invested in their processes or invested in other pieces and certainly in the children as well. But there can be high emotions on both sides sometimes. So, I love that coming in and just setting the stage and giving you both some really good common ground to start with. Yeah.

Dr. Alexa Chilcutt: Yeah. 

Julie Cole: Something Alexa said that …

Jill Stowell: Go ahead.

Julie Cole: I’ve had so much success using Alexa’s strategy of my goal is not to tell the team how to do their job because the moment the team perceives that they’re being attacked and being told what to do from a mom who’s not in the field, it’s like Alexa said, the moment they feel disrespected, they’re done. They’re done hearing you. They’re done listening and they’re done being a team member and that teamwork has been fractured and it takes a lot to bring that back.

The other thing that Alexa said that completely resonated is finding that north star. Going into that meeting, knowing what your endgame is and making sure that that conversation stays on track. For my Matthew, his endgame is a high school diploma and his hyperlexia won’t get in the way of him having that high school diploma and achieving that.

So, in every meeting we walk into, they know me by now. But with every new team member, what are we doing to make sure he’s on that track? Are the goals in line? Are the assessments that we’re doing in line to make sure he’s able to do that? Knowing that end game is crucial and that north star. That was very well-said. Amazing.

Jill Stowell: Yeah. And I think also that allows the whole team to make better, more targeted goals that are really going to get you where you want to be. So that’s huge. Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr. Alexa Chilcutt: And I will just say one last thing and kind of bringing back from the beginning of this Jill is that what I like also about Jolee asking me to do this is that we are not talking down to parents. I mean once again this is exactly what I’m teaching at Johns Hopkins for executive education. I mean we’re teaching the same exact principles to professionals who are mid to senior level leaders because communication is so important to them creating team unity, buy-in, project success, stakeholder relations. So, this is exactly what I teach but we’re just applying it in a very everyday way. So, I just want parents to understand that these are skills that are proven on a very high level but they can apply them where they are.

Jill Stowell: Absolutely. I mean as you said, life is pretty much about communication and relationships and so this applies everywhere. Yeah.

So, we have covered a lot here and I would like to just do a little recap of kind of what we’ve been talking about so far. Our kids are our emotional trigger point. So, if we want to help others understand and want to get them onboard with helping, we have to be really aware of our own emotions and have tools for keeping them in check as we enter the meetings with the school or situations that come up that might involve other parents. We need to actually really have grace for ourselves and acknowledge where we are and take care of ourselves. It’s OK to take care of ourselves even though a tremendous amount of our energy goes into caring and strategizing for our children.

Dr. Jolee Hibbard: Jill, can I say something really quick? Because you just brought up a really important point. You were talking about grace and I would say compassion, which is virtually the same thing as grace. But what we’re looking for is to be able to extend compassion to ourselves, so that then we’re able to umbrella that out, right? To not only our kids but also to the people that are helping us, right?

So really what we’re trying to do here more than anything else is to develop what I like to call compassionate curiosity in others and what that means is the ability to help people be compassionate while they are innately curious. We are all curious creatures and we are busy making up our own thoughts and ideas about why someone else does something that they do.

We have really good reasons and we can give a whole list of why we do what we do. But when it comes to other people, we tend to have more black and white thinking about why they might have done what they have done.

What we’re hoping to be able to do through the way that we’re communicating is to create some compassion for our child in these helping professionals. It is definitely something that is an inside job and it starts with you as the parent, right?

Your ability to have compassion for yourself, your child and how you extend that to other people is really important here.

Jill Stowell: Yeah, absolutely. I love that term and we use that as well at our centers, compassionate curiosity. Honestly as a person in a helping profession, I know that all of us on the educator side of things, we actually want kids to be successful. We want parents to feel good and I love what you said about we’re very – we can be very clear about why we do things but not necessarily understand or be as clear about why other people do. So, I love that idea of compassionate curiosity extended to the others on the team and certainly extended to our children as we explore what they really need to solve whatever the problem is. 

So, we also really talked about as we go into meetings how relationship is the key. Empathy is always the door to the best communication and so from the beginning of the meeting, I liked your statement. I think you have a word for it and I don’t remember exactly what it was but coming in and saying, “I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job,” or whatever. Just sort of disarming and really bringing awareness to what our end goal is as we work together.

Jolee, Alexa and Julie, I am going to speak for myself and our listeners. We are so grateful for your passion and desire to use your personal experience and your professional expertise to empower parents in their journey with their children and the schools. 

We are going to continue this conversation on our next episode because it is just so important. We will be taking an in-depth look at the IEP process with Julie Cole and how to have a truly effective IEP meeting. Julie will dig into how to prepare for your IEP meeting, what to do, what not to do and empower you with tools that she wished she had from the very beginning when she started to navigate that system of getting school-based support. I want to encourage you to pick up a copy of The Language of Advocacy as a gift for yourself. Please share this episode with other parents and be sure to tune in for part two next week.

At Stowell Learning Centers, we help children and adults eliminate struggles associated with dyslexia and learning differences. We want to make this journey easier for you. Connect with us on social media and on our website StowellCenter.com for information and free resources. If you found this episode valuable, please like, share and subscribe. The struggles associated with dyslexia and other learning disabilities can be eliminated. Let’s change the narrative together.