Monday, March 12, 2018

5 things I Learned from a Parent Crying in my Room - Speech-Language Pathologist Style



A parent cried in my office today.  It was awful.

It's triennial season.  For a speech-language pathologist, this means tests to administer, then score, then reports to write, and then actually attend and participate in the IEP meetings.  A few weeks ago, I had an intense IEP meeting.  It consisted of a parent in my office, crying, past the end of the school day, and a language barrier.

A lot went wrong, not much went right, so I came home to reflect on how I could have improved it.

Let me share with you what I gained from this mess of a learning experience.

1. If possible, don't schedule a meeting for Friday afternoons.  If the parent has a lot to say, or is upset like in this case, it is easy for the meeting to run late and then staff members may have to leave.  It will seem like you're squeezing them in, the parent might not feel like their feelings are important or valid, and you may not speak about everything that you need to.

2.  If you expect there to be a language barrier, try to line up a staff member, who you know, to interpret.  At my school, there are many staff members who speak the language of the mom who I met with.  In hindsight, we should have requested one of them to interpret rather than using an interpreter phone service, because face to face interpreting makes it easier to convey a message with the same tone, facial expressions, and body language intended. Additionally, a staff member would have known the student being discussed on a personal level, which always adds a level of compassion to the conversation.

3.  Have a tissue box in the room.  I literally had to leave the room for about two minutes while the parent cried, trying to locate a tissue.  In the end the best I could find was a paper towel.

4.  Have resources available for situations where a parent expresses feelings of loneliness or depression - or know who to reach out to to obtain those resources as quickly as possible.  It would be helpful to have some cards pre-made that have the school psychologist or counselor's contact information on them to give out.

5.  Don't make blanket statements.  At the beginning of the meeting, before it was truly my turn to speak, I made the statement of "(student name) is doing So well lately! She has made a lot of progress!" Before I could elaborate, mom looked up hopefully and said, "(student name) is talking?!" to which I then had to say "well no, that's not exactly what I meant."  I didn't exactly set the best tone for the meeting, which didn't set up the other team members for success either.

Followup - I've invited the same parent to come in and sit with their child's team again tomorrow.  I've prepared better this time and have taken all five of my own suggestions into consideration and hopefully it goes significantly better.  Wish me luck!

PS. If you're looking for more reminders of the influence a parent can have on their child, check out this post -> What A Mother and Her Daughter Reminded Me