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Have you ever spent hours preparing for a meeting…only to walk in already exhausted?   Researching late at night.Second-guessing everything.Wondering if you missed something important.   If you have, you’re not alone. This used to be me exactly.   I was the mom up at 3am, deep in internet rabbit holes, feeling completely overwhelmed…trying to find something , anything, that would help my son.   I remember thinking, “There are billions of people in this world… how can I not fi

Parents walk into IEP meetings already carrying a lot.   I remember my son’s first IEP meeting so clearly. I didn’t know what to expect, so I tried to over-prepare. I researched, I gathered information, I did everything I thought I was supposed to do.   But what I didn’t realize was this: I didn’t actually know how to prepare.   So, I walked in with a lot of information… and in the moment, none of it felt usable.   Because when you’re sitting at that table, there’s only so mu

Have you ever walked out of a meeting knowing, deep down, you were right but somehow, you still felt dismissed? Like you said everything clearly. Calmly. Thoughtfully. And it still didn't land.   If you've felt that way, you're not alone. And more importantly-you're not wrong.   The Moment I Knew… But Wasn't Heard Back when my son was in kindergarten, we attempted a mainstream placement. For context, that meant he was in a general education classroom at our local public schoo

I remember getting the news that my son was deaf when he was four months old.   We had gone through multiple failed hearing screenings, and were finally referred to an audiologist for a diagnostic evaluation. Going into that appointment, deafness wasn’t even on my radar.   We had been told it was likely fluid in the ears. Maybe faulty equipment during the screenings. Nothing that felt alarming. Nothing that prepared me for what was coming.   So, when we sat around the table a

I still remember my son’s first IEP meeting.   At the time, I was in graduate school and didn’t know much about education systems, parental rights, or what I was even allowed to advocate for. I had done the prep work. I researched what I could, but back then there wasn’t nearly the amount of information available to parents that there is today.   So, I walked into that meeting as prepared as I could be… and practically shaking.   Not only was I very young, I was also the most

In my friend group, there were four of us, and we all had our first babies within a year of each other. I’m not exaggerating. One baby was born in December of one year, and my son was the baby of the group the following November.   In those early days, I felt completely supported.   We did playdates where the babies crawled around together while we drank our coffee and talked about the highs and lows of new motherhood. We were tired. We were figuring it out. We were doing it

Just this week, I had a mom call me. Her daughter is in elementary school. She’s been receiving speech therapy for about six years for articulation. She’s made tremendous progress. Her accuracy is high. By most measures, she’s doing really, really well.   But she’s plateaued. And now she’s resistant to going to speech. She doesn’t like being pulled from her core classes. She’s starting to feel self-conscious.   Mom wants her dismissed from speech. The school is pushing back.

I’ve sat at CSE meetings as a parent.   And I’ve sat at CSE meetings as the professional.   And what I can tell you with absolute certainty is this: it is a deeply emotional experience on both sides of the table.   One thing I hear over and over again from parents is: “I want to advocate for my child, but I don’t know how to do it in a way that I’m heard.” “I have advocated for my child, and I still didn’t feel heard.” “I don’t want to be ‘that parent.’”   Let’s talk about th

When you have a child with unique needs, navigating family dynamics can be one of the hardest parts, especially when they don’t really get it . This is even more true when your child is the first in the family to have a diagnosis, or when you’re the first one to step fully into advocacy.   Families tend to have their own rhythms. Their own traditions. Their own long-held beliefs. Sometimes there are generational views, outdated ideas, or a rigidity that makes change feel unco

People will always have opinions about your parenting. Always.   Try one thing, and someone has something to say. Try the opposite? Surprise… they still have an opinion. I learned this the hard way, in a way that was both emotional and downright awful.   When my son was about 10, we were shopping at Trader Joe’s and ran into a deaf woman. Excited to connect, we said hi. She was thrilled to meet Jacob and to see that he had two hearing parents who were signing. Everything was

The moment I realized advocacy wasn’t just something I did, but something I was constantly carrying, was when I stopped sleeping. Multiple nights a week. Every week.   My stomach was a mess. My sleep habits were completely wrecked. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling panicked, immediately diving into the internet, searching for answers, support, reassurance. Advocacy wasn’t showing up as a task anymore. It felt like survival mode.   It consumed every moment of

Parenting a child with special needs often feels like trial by fire. There’s no handbook for navigating schools, meetings, or advocating for exactly what your child needs. You gather pieces of information along the way, but it can feel overwhelming, daunting, even hopeless at times.   That’s why any small victory, any advocacy win, feels like gold. It can give you the momentum to keep going, a reminder that your efforts matter, and proof that you can make a difference in your

As a pediatric speech-language pathologist, and a mother of children with unique needs, I can say confidently that parenting can be an incredibly isolating experience. For many of us, our reality looks very different from the “typical” parenting narrative. We often carry a vision of what parenting will look like, and then our beautiful children arrive and lovingly turn that vision upside down. That shift can be joyful, disorienting, and really hard to navigate all at once. To