Being a parent to kids with special needs can feel stressful — but let's encourage each other to stop the judgment and the guilt, and shower our children with love.
My personal journey commenced over twenty years ago in an attempt to navigate our national broken special education system, as a novice mom. I have two sons each diagnosed with ADHD and Learning Disabilities. Both boys are characterized as twice exceptional; highly gifted and learning disabled – meaning their intellect level is over 140, but their reading and writing levels are in the 67-70 range. An average Intellect level is 100 making the discrepancy between their intellect level and learning ability quite significant. Both boys were lopsided in terms of learning.
Jonathan has severe dyslexia and Omar is challenged with depression, writing and reading deficits. When both boys were born they looked so beautiful on the outside that there was no way of seeing their internal struggles. They appeared to be such happy boys. Both my sons were beyond their years in intellect and maturity, but when I looked at my little boys; ages five and seven I could not see that. Back then I had no idea what ADHD or Learning Disabilities were.
Both boys were placed in a private school (Jonathan 5-years old and Omar 7-years old). It was the private school teacher who told me that Jonathan has some learning problems and the private school could not offer any services to address those problems. She also told me, and I quote “You are your son’s best advocate, and nobody will know your son better than you.” Little did I know how valuable those words were at that time in my life.
She recommended I transfer him to a public school. I ended up placing both my sons in a public school in the hopes of getting help for Jonathan and keeping both boys together. I thought that the public school and the teachers will have all the answers since that is their expert area – teaching children. For sure they will know how to help my Jonathan because they are in the business of “teaching” and they have the resources the private school did not.
The public school told me Jonathan needed an assessment; a psychoeducational assessment to be exact. It was supposed to test his social, emotional, behavioral, cognitive and academic domains to obtain a baseline as to where he falls in all of these areas. I agreed to everything they recommended because at that time I did not understand any of this and they are the “experts”. Jonathan was tested and the school held an Individual Education Plan (IEP) meeting. According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 an IEP is a legal contract between the schools and the student/family. Back than I did not know that an IEP was a legal contract.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 is a United States law that mandates school districts have the “affirmative obligation” to seek, identify, and asses children with any and all disabilities.
After I received a copy of Jonathan’s psychoeducational evaluation report the school invited me to an IEP meeting to review the report and see if he may qualify for special education. That first meeting was extremely intimidating because there were approximately 7-8 school district employees in that room with me. I sat there and listened to what everyone had to say about my son. It was very emotional hearing all the negative things they said. His reading ability was in the 67 range, meaning he was considered to be mentally retarded in the area of reading. He actually had dyslexia, but the school would not identify it as dyslexia. I was told he is a child who is unable to read and needs various supports.
In those days mentally retarded was an accepted term to use. Today we refer to individuals with significantly low scores as “intellectually disabled”. Now, you ask why a twice exceptional child would be considered “mentally retarded” in the reading ability area. Well, since he is highly gifted with an IQ that is off the charts that question makes sense. The issue is Jonathan was approximately six years
