( Everyday Life with Autism )

It is never enough to emphasize the importance of communication between home and school. I strongly encourage parents to be more envolved in their children’s school day. If you are a working parent you can still get envolved by corresponding with school either through a notebook, that I talked about before, or by email. Both feedbacks are crucial to help the child learn, grow, and develop in a healthy environment. We need to be on the same page with parents to provide a consistent and stable life to our students.

Some parents don’t apply any consequences when their childen misbehave. For example they allow the use and exchange of inappropriate language at home. They would also expose their children to age-inappropriate scenes and games that would consequently make the child behave in an inappropriate way in school. It is ineffective to apply consequences and discipline at school if at home the child is free to cross all boundaries and red lines. The child’s life would be a nightmare of confusion. The student spends six or seven hours at most in school, then the rest of the day her/his family is supposedly in charge.

If you think that your child is a hopeless case because she/he is progressing slower than the average NT (Neuro Typical) child, then your are wrong. Every single spectrum child has a potential. We just don’t know how much the child can achieve and how far can she/he advance in her/his education. There is no excuse not to give your child a chance. At school we don’t differenciate between any of the students. We cannot even tell who has bigger potential. We have democracy in giving them services and equal learning opportunities.

Some kids come to school on and empty stomach, no snack or lunch in their backpacks. How can we teach a hungry child. A tired child who couldn’t get a good night sleep is also not ready to learn. She/he is ready to take a nap not to work on their grammer. When it is freezing cold a child definitely needs a jacket not to learn new a phonics rule. These vital basic things are parents’ responsiblity.

I know how frustrating it can be to teach and raise a child with ASD. But our job, educators and parents, is to give as much care and attention as we can before it is too late. The early intervention is the key to your child’s success. Act now!

On the other hand, we do appreciate parents who are doing their best to help us get our job done. It is in the child’s best interest if home and school cooperated. It is very easy to tell the difference between a child whose family is providing support and whose is not.

It does not take more than 10 to 15 minutes to use the notebook and provide feedback, or respond to school’s questions. You can also be proactive and create a spread sheet with the main concerns and areas you are interested in. Make it user’s friendly so we can respond by putting a check mark. For example: a spread sheet can communicate or reflect your child’s participation, readiness to do work, whether she/he got in fight with peers, did an outstanding job,…Show us what you are looking for. School alone cannot fix problems. Together we can go farther and faster, and we can solve many problems.

nadia shanab

Tags: communication, consequences, discipline, organization, parenting