Exhausting…

You know what it’s like when you shop for a car and how you dread getting down to the nitty gritty with the salesperson?  The haggling… the part where you have to get forceful and threaten to walk away to get the dealership to finally concede and do you a big, fat favor and throw in the wheels to go along with the car?

To me, that’s what negotiations feel like in an IEP meeting.  Doesn’t matter how much I prepare.  Doesn’t matter how many books, articles or blogs I read or how much Lily’s therapist, Dr. K, helps talk me through it ahead of time.  It always sucks.  Even the time I had an advocate in the room to help me.  Still sucked.

In the end, though, at Lily’s annual IEP review meeting today, after two and a half hours, we came to an agreement with positive feelings all around.  But I had such a difficult time getting them to understand why it is so important to scaffold the support of Lily’s Executive Function skills that I wish I had arranged for Dr. K to call into the meeting.  Next time.