Why We Cry in IEP Meetings [Video]

By Understood

On this first episode of “In It,” hosts Amanda Morin and Lexi Walters Wright dig in to why emotions tend to run high in IEP meetings. They talk with comedian Dena Blizzard about her (very) public reaction to a disappointing IEP meeting. They hear from other parents who have gotten emotional when discussing the needs of their kids struggling in school. And they also connect with expert Mark Griffin, PhD, about what’s at stake during these meetings.

To find a transcript for this episode and more resources, visit the episode page at Understood. https://www.understood.org/podcast/in…

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at init@understood.org.

Understood is a nonprofit and social impact organization dedicated to shaping a world where the 1 in 5 people who learn and think differently can thrive. Learn more about “In It” and all our podcasts at u.org/podcasts. Copyright © 2018 Understood for All, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:00
[Music]
0:03
hi i’m amanda morin a writer recovering
0:06
teacher and parent advocate and i’m lexi
0:08
walters wright community manager for
0:10
understood.org and we are in it
0:14
init is a podcast from understood for
0:16
parents on this show we offer support
0:18
and some practical advice for families
0:21
whose kids are struggling with reading
0:23
math focus and other learning and
0:25
attention issues
0:26
and today we’re talking about iep
0:28
meetings and how they can bring up a lot
0:31
of emotions
0:35
i’m sitting here
0:36
and the teachers are sitting here
0:38
and
0:41
we’re all trying to put all of our
0:42
feedback on the table
0:44
and find the best way to teach this one
0:46
kid
0:47
who’s different than everybody else
0:50
first up we’re going to hear from dina
0:52
blizzard dina is a comedian a mom and
0:54
the creator of the one funny mother
0:56
video series a few of those videos have
0:58
gone viral
1:00
for a fun way to spice up your easter
1:03
egg hunt try an easter wine hunt
1:09
but one of the one funny mother videos
1:11
that went viral was not funny
1:14
you may have seen it on facebook it’s
1:16
been viewed half a million times now
1:18
dina shot it from the driver’s seat of
1:20
her car she tells us she’s in the
1:22
parking lot of a cvs
1:24
i said isn’t this what we should be
1:26
doing
1:28
we should be trying
1:31
and she looked at me
1:32
and she said
1:35
i am not going to be making any changes
1:38
to her iep that is the high school’s job
1:41
and if the high school wants to make
1:42
changes because they think that that is
1:43
best and that’s what the high school can
1:45
do
1:46
and then my head exploded
1:49
amanda we’re going to talk to dina in a
1:51
minute but first
1:52
what is an iep meeting well iep stands
1:55
for individualized education program
1:58
and an iep meeting is where you as a
2:01
parent sit down with all of the
2:03
educators who are working with your
2:04
child to talk about that program which
2:07
provides all of the special education
2:09
services and other services your child
2:11
needs to be really successful in school
2:13
got it so back to dina blizzard we
2:16
wanted to talk to her about her infamous
2:18
post-iep meeting meltdown and
2:20
appropriately we reached her or
2:22
technically she reached us from her car
2:25
between errands and appointments can you
2:28
tell us a little bit about yourself sure
2:30
so uh i am the mother of three my kids
2:33
are 18 16 and 14 now and uh many many
2:37
years ago when they were very young and
2:39
i wanted to get away from them i started
2:41
doing stand up
2:43
and everything i wrote about was my kids
2:45
and my husband and uh somehow that kind
2:47
of flourished into an off-broadway show
2:49
that we wrote in um we’re off broadway
2:52
in 2016 now we travel around the country
2:55
with that show and and then in between
2:57
we started making videos uh most of the
2:59
videos are funny um but one of our other
3:01
big videos was the one you’re talking
3:03
about which is uh after an ip meeting
3:06
after my daughter and uh and it didn’t
3:08
go well yeah
3:10
and and that’s the moments that you said
3:12
like it’s not always funny right now and
3:15
it was interesting because you know up
3:17
until that point i had never gone live
3:20
upset before um but i remember thinking
3:23
why am i always crying after an imp
3:25
meeting like it was just ridiculous and
3:27
thinking i can’t be the only person
3:29
crying in the parking lot you know after
3:31
an ip meeting like i’ve done it too many
3:33
times
3:34
and that i think the very lonesome part
3:36
of you know the whole process you think
3:39
i’m the only one of course dina is not
3:42
the only one
3:43
so we put out a call to the understood
3:45
community to hear about your experiences
3:47
with getting emotional in iep meetings
3:49
here’s what you’ve shared
3:54
hi this is jennifer in seattle
3:56
yes i’ve gotten emotional at iep
3:58
meetings
3:59
it would probably be faster to ask when
4:01
i had not gotten emotional what’s tough
4:03
is how negative these meetings feel it
4:06
often seems like i am the only one in
4:07
the room who likes my kid and wants him
4:10
to succeed
4:11
and then there’s the constant focus on
4:13
what is wrong that drives me nuts i know
4:16
we can’t fix it if we don’t know what’s
4:17
broken but why don’t we ever get what
4:20
he’s achieved that often seems glossed
4:22
over at the end and then i’m being
4:24
pressured to sign and run out the door
4:27
as if i agree that my beautiful child is
4:29
broken when he is not
4:31
we recently had an iep for my son and
4:33
when the teacher was told that he had an
4:35
asd diagnosis
4:37
she said i don’t teach those kind of
4:40
kids and i don’t know how to teach those
4:42
kind of kids and isn’t there a special
4:43
classroom that he should be put in
4:46
and that made me really upset and tears
4:48
came to my eyes
4:49
it’s very humiliating to
4:51
cry at an iep
4:53
but when you hear something like that
4:55
you can see a long fight ahead and you
4:57
know that in the end
4:59
your child’s probably going to lose that
5:01
fight
5:02
[Music]
5:10
so dina will you set the scene for us so
5:12
where were you when was this and will
5:15
you describe a little bit of what
5:16
happened
5:17
sure so um so my daughter i knew in like
5:21
second or third grade that something was
5:22
kind of um going on my my older two kids
5:25
are you know we considered to be typical
5:27
learners um but very early on i could
5:29
tell that there was just something
5:30
different and um but now fast forward
5:33
had been six years she was in eighth
5:35
grade and anxiety plays a really big
5:37
role in in her journey um and i was
5:40
being told all the time that anxiety was
5:42
the problem and that there wasn’t a
5:43
learning disability and so um we had
5:46
finally gotten her anxiety under control
5:48
and
5:49
i was really then focused on trying to
5:52
get a really good read on you know does
5:55
she have a learning disability i really
5:57
think that she did but she hadn’t been
5:59
assessed in the three years and and so i
6:02
went in and i asked for a meeting and i
6:03
said you know i i really just want to
6:05
talk about
6:06
she keeps failing me
6:07
but yet she can verbally tell me what
6:10
she understands and so that was my
6:12
general question she was transitioning
6:13
to high school and i was like it was
6:15
around april and i felt like we had the
6:17
time to really
6:19
try different testing methods so that
6:20
when she got to high school we were
6:22
going to get an accurate understanding
6:24
of what she knew and so i had gone in
6:26
and i was just like let’s do this
6:27
together let’s work on it
6:29
but it wasn’t until the case manager
6:32
just put her hands on the table and i
6:34
just remember very distinct her hands
6:36
going on the table
6:37
and her saying let me be very clear
6:40
we will be making no changes to the iep
6:46
so she said i am not making any changes
6:50
to the iep
6:51
you can deal with that at the high
6:52
school
6:53
and i said
6:54
what are you talking about
6:57
we have three months left why wouldn’t
6:59
we
7:00
make changes to the iep now why wouldn’t
7:03
we try
7:05
everything
7:09
i just
7:14
i’m sorry
7:17
so dina shared that facebook live video
7:18
on a monday by thursday 100 000 people
7:23
had watched it and in that time she got
7:25
more than 3 000 comments you know
7:27
besides the comments you see on the
7:28
video you know just
7:30
thousands probably of emails private
7:32
emails of people just kind of telling
7:35
their stories and even emails from
7:36
people that i’ve seen their kids grow up
7:38
and i’ve known them for years and never
7:40
knew that their kids had any issues and
7:43
it really struck me because i thought
7:46
you know people just don’t talk about it
7:48
you know it wasn’t until i was like
7:49
having a complete breakdown that people
7:52
were reaching out and i just felt and i
7:54
still feel like you know the more that
7:56
people talk about it the more it’s not a
7:58
thing you know it it shouldn’t be that
8:00
hard um and there was a lot of actual
8:03
school districts
8:05
and training facilities for special ed
8:07
that reached out and said you know would
8:08
you mind if we use your video for
8:11
training purposes we’re training
8:13
people to work in special ed and you
8:16
know we want them to see what it looks
8:18
like on the other side
8:19
mark how many iep meetings do you think
8:21
you’ve attended in your life no hundreds
8:24
mark griffin is a psychologist a special
8:26
educator and a founding headmaster of
8:28
eagle hill school a school for kids with
8:31
learning and attention issues and over
8:32
the course of his four decades there he
8:34
attended many many iep meetings
8:38
i want to know from your experience as
8:39
an educator
8:41
why do you think these meetings tend to
8:42
be so emotional for parents
8:45
well i i think what happens to parents
8:47
even though you you get a smile and not
8:50
all the time in their you know they’re
8:51
excited about it and they’ve done their
8:53
homework
8:54
that as you go through the process
8:57
there’s just so much at stake um and
9:00
that this is the the chance that they’re
9:03
hoping is going to be the difference
9:05
between this youngster having an
9:06
opportunity over time to be successful
9:09
or having an opportunity unfortunately
9:12
not to be successful and slipping so the
9:14
cracks so i do think that there’s
9:16
there’s a sense of
9:18
fear there’s a sense that the school is
9:22
sort of viewing this from the standpoint
9:24
of what they have to do and so
9:26
unless everything happens to go very
9:28
smoothly and i have to say that of the
9:31
number and number and number of these
9:33
things that we attended there were very
9:35
few
9:36
where there wasn’t at some point some
9:39
kind of contention about the school’s
9:41
ability to provide those resources
9:44
mark says he understands why these
9:46
meetings can get so heated especially
9:48
for parents i think parents get to a
9:50
point where
9:51
um in in their own sort of need to be
9:54
sure that they are advocating as well as
9:57
they possibly can that there’s bound to
9:59
be a time during that meeting where
10:02
they are going to
10:04
feel very emotional about it i’ve seen
10:07
parents uh you know openly weeping in in
10:09
an iep meeting when they honestly feel
10:11
that they’re just not going to get what
10:13
their child needs i’ve seen parents who
10:16
threaten the school with lawsuits
10:18
they’re going to lawyer up and and and
10:20
make sure that the school will do these
10:21
things that they’re supposed to do i’ve
10:23
seen parents who’ve been very frustrated
10:26
with the entire process and and wonder
10:28
out loud whether the school really has
10:30
the best interest of their their
10:32
childhood heart and sometimes if they’re
10:34
emotionally happy it went just the way
10:36
that they wanted to and at the end of
10:38
the meeting
10:38
both of the parents are weeping because
10:41
they got what they needed or to get what
10:42
they felt that their child needed but
10:44
very rarely do they end up being stoic
10:47
kinds of very easy to get the consensus
10:49
thank you very much for this program
10:51
that’s wonderful so mark
10:53
here’s what i want to know about there’s
10:55
about 15 minutes after the iep meeting
10:58
is over yeah what do you do as an
11:00
educator and what do you wish parents
11:03
would do in like the 30 minutes after
11:05
that really high stakes really emotional
11:08
experience
11:09
to make the whole thing feel like it’s
11:11
come full circle for them
11:15
for parents uh
11:17
it it seems to make the most sense if
11:20
you can gather yourself and sort of
11:22
reflect on
11:25
what your hopes had been
11:27
when it ran into reality um when reality
11:30
moved closer to your hopes
11:32
what you ended up with as a final thing
11:35
and and then i i think that it’s it’s
11:38
always important for us as educators who
11:40
happen to have been at that meeting um
11:42
but it’s certainly most important for
11:44
parents to sort of take a deep breath
11:47
and back up and then it’s important to
11:49
remember even early on
11:51
that this is not etched in stone um that
11:54
this is the beginnings of a journey and
11:57
a process
11:59
and you need to look at the long term
12:01
and the long haul even though you’ve
12:03
just finished the very beginning part of
12:05
it
12:06
[Music]
12:13
my name is melissa i live in minneapolis
12:16
minnesota
12:17
i have an 11 year old son with adhd and
12:20
disruptive mood dysregulation disorder
12:22
he’s been on an iep since first grade
12:25
and i’ve felt every emotion on the scale
12:28
during iep meetings
12:29
at first it was anger and frustration
12:32
because
12:33
even though he was being suspended from
12:36
class and excluded from field trips
12:38
because he was considered a danger to
12:40
himself in kindergarten
12:42
we could not get an iep even started
12:45
it finally got in place in first grade
12:47
he ended up finishing third grade in the
12:49
hospital
12:51
but the the one of the positive things
12:53
that came out of that was that the
12:54
school really started to take seriously
12:56
his mental health concerns and they
12:59
switched up his iep by fifth grade and
13:01
he thrived i had iep meetings after that
13:04
where i cried because i was happy
13:07
and recently after a really tough first
13:09
month of middle school
13:11
we had an iep meeting where i cried
13:14
because they were giving me so many
13:15
examples of just how well he was able to
13:19
figure things out now they would tell us
13:21
about simple social interactions he
13:22
would have that probably every other
13:24
parent takes for granted but that he had
13:27
never pulled off successfully so hearing
13:29
about these responses he was having to
13:31
other kids was so amazing that i
13:34
couldn’t not cry at that point
13:43
so amanda you’re the parent of two kids
13:46
with learning and attention issues so
13:48
you know what iep meetings are like from
13:50
that perspective
13:52
but before that i know you were also a
13:54
teacher for many years how many iep
13:56
meetings did you attend as an educator
13:59
i’ve probably attended over 100 iep
14:02
meetings as an educator do you wear a
14:04
different hat now that you’re on the
14:05
other side of the table
14:07
i like to think they’re all round tables
14:09
instead of
14:11
yeah that’s really interesting will you
14:12
say more about that well i think that if
14:15
we look at it as one side of the table
14:16
or the other side of the table we fail
14:17
to realize that in the middle of that
14:19
table is the kid that we’re all trying
14:20
to help yeah so i’d love all iep tables
14:23
to be round tables dina do you have any
14:25
advice for parents going into iep
14:28
meetings
14:29
um
14:30
you know i i really
14:32
really never wanted to feel like i was
14:35
fighting the school
14:36
um
14:38
and and so many times it just ended that
14:40
way i just remember one meeting sitting
14:42
on my side of the table and then like 13
14:45
administrators on the other side and you
14:48
know i was just even the seating
14:49
arrangement feels very uncomfortable um
14:53
and so trying to constantly just use
14:56
words like we and
14:58
i do feel like the more people that are
15:00
on board and into kind of helping you
15:03
find a resolution find a solution
15:05
the more the better and i think that
15:07
that’s why that video was so upsetting
15:09
is that that was the moment where i
15:10
realized you know that we weren’t on the
15:13
same page yeah and so you know i just
15:16
had to take a step back and and just you
15:18
know i was like she is not a good match
15:19
for me she is not my people i’m a big
15:21
fan of finding your people
15:23
and she was not a good person for my
15:25
team and so we just had to reevaluate
15:28
the team and get a different team and
15:31
you know and even making brook feel like
15:33
she was part of that team and and trying
15:35
to get her to
15:37
understand you know the things that she
15:38
struggles with but the things that she’s
15:40
great at and for her to come up with
15:42
some of her own solutions and so
15:44
you know i think that you know i tell
15:46
her all the time like you have so many
15:48
people in your corner that are trying to
15:51
help you
15:52
manage all of this for you to learn what
15:54
you need to learn and so you know a lot
15:56
of times it’s a struggle you know even
15:58
when we got her set up at this new
16:00
school i had done all this work and and
16:02
really fought to kind of get this to
16:03
happen and then she started the school
16:05
and then she said you know i really
16:06
don’t think that it’s going well in my
16:08
history class
16:10
and i said okay i said why is that well
16:12
i’m not learning anything uh you know
16:14
all we do is worksheets
16:16
and i said okay so well what are you
16:17
learning about she has the enlightenment
16:20
and i said okay well what do you know
16:21
about the enlightenment she was like
16:23
well it was a period of time when people
16:24
realized that they could just learn
16:25
anything if they just opened a book and
16:26
she just went on and on
16:29
and then she just stopped she goes wait
16:30
a minute i guess they did learn
16:32
something
16:33
that’s the most i’ve ever heard you say
16:35
about anything
16:37
did your daughter watch the video
16:40
she didn’t for a long time
16:42
and then
16:43
i don’t know maybe
16:45
two months later just out of the blue
16:47
she just came in the kitchen and she
16:49
just looked at me and she
16:51
she was kind of sad and she was like i
16:53
saw your video
16:55
what was that like for you
16:58
you know i think he knows
17:02
how
17:02
hard um
17:06
that i fight for her
17:08
and i think she appreciates it
17:11
you know i i think she is just
17:14
such a unique case and so self-aware
17:17
um that she gets it she was like thank
17:19
you
17:22
thank you so much for talking to us
17:25
thanks lady
17:26
[Music]
17:29
amanda do these meetings ever get easier
17:33
i think they get a little bit easier i
17:35
don’t know if they’re always easy but i
17:36
think they get a little bit easier and
17:38
you get a little bit
17:40
more comfortable
17:41
but sometimes they blindside you and you
17:44
and they aren’t easy i had an iep
17:46
beating the other day and i came out and
17:47
cried and it wasn’t even a tough one is
17:50
it just so emotional to have a bunch of
17:54
potential strangers talking about your
17:56
kid and what they think he needs
17:59
i think so i also think that there’s
18:00
just this piece of it where
18:03
you’re ready for anything and then
18:05
there’s this sort of either a letdown or
18:08
an anger or an overload or just this
18:11
emotional
18:12
wellspring comes from it
18:14
what did you do right afterwards
18:16
i ate lots of chocolate yeah yeah that
18:19
might be what you would say
18:21
[Music]
18:26
you’ve been listening to in init a
18:27
podcast from understood for parents our
18:29
website is understood.org where you can
18:32
find all sorts of free resources for
18:33
people raising kids with learning and
18:35
attention issues we also want to hear
18:37
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18:39
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18:41
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18:44
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18:46
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18:53
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18:56
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[Music]
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[Music]
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you

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