Family Interaction

said he would absolutely like to be part of IEP meetings for Emily, or go to parent-teacher conferences but his way of supporting his family is different from others. Another aspect of family interaction that I thought was interesting was the relationship between Emily and her grandma. Erin’s parents live right down the road from her and she thought it was going to be a great support system to have. At first Emily’s grandmother would watch her but as time went on and Emily’s behaviors got more intense, her grandma refused to watch her. This was another aspect that I thought differed from what our text said. “There is a high level of involvement and support from grandparents in families with a child with a disability; grandparents often felt …show more content…
We first talked about the school experiences that Emily has had up until this point. Bill said that their experiences with professionals were pretty good up until this past year. Erin is involved in Emily’s education and will often times go into school and monitor class. Emily is currently placed in the general education setting with a paraprofessional for the morning and then resource room for the afternoon. The family feels that this is a good placement for Emily, when done correctly. They have had issues with the paraprofessional this past year quitting, and the replacement not having any knowledge on how to deal with some of the behaviors Emily has. Erin feels that she has to always be monitoring Emily’s education because there is a lack of communication and willingness to cooperative from the professionals’ side. In the text it states, “Even when inclusive education is available, parents often find that they must monitor how educators implement it. Monitoring can be challenging when school personnel are reluctant to partner with families” (Turnbull, 2015, p.93). I think this is pretty relevant to the situation Erin is in right now because she has expressed the lack of trust she hold for the professionals that are working with her child to give her the accommodations and services she needs. She explained that up until this year, her and Emily’s teacher were pretty good …show more content…
The reason being is they are just taking everything one day at a time and feel that they will deal with that challenge when it becomes more relevant. They do know however, that they will not be sending Emily to the same high school as her oldest sister Madison went to. When we were talking about transitions for Emily I was thinking about the information I was learning in my class specifically for transitioning. In that class we learned that the earlier you start, the smoother the transition from post-secondary to adult life will go. Our text suggests that “Despite requirements for transition planning, many parents continue to report that there is a lack of planning, information, and collaboration in planning for their child’s future” (Turnbull, 2015, p. 101). When I read that, I couldn’t help but think maybe a reason for Bill and Erin not wanting to think about it or really having a plan could be because there is not information coming from the professional side about their options. I think its partly due to the fact that they just want to deal with the challenges they have right now but because of the poor relationship they have with professionals right now, they might not be getting the proper information or planning that Emily needs. Emily is only in 3rd grade, but she could at least start to figure out some of her interests and