One of my twin sons received speech therapy in school. He was pretty straightforward – /ɹ/ in all positions. It was pretty streamlined and a fairly low maintenance process.

I’m not entirely sure it should have been.

While I received progress notes, participated in annual reviews, and practiced homework assignments (ok, I missed some homework), I felt very disconnected from the process. The only time the SLPs ever contacted me was to confirm attendance at the annual reviews. I know my experience fell into the range of “typical,” but even now, I question whether I should’ve been more connected and involved in it. I mean, I am so familiar with the process and know my rights – many parents don’t – but I wonder if the lack of invitation from his SLPs acted as an invisible boundary I wasn’t suppose to cross. It’s interesting because I have experience with this kind of interaction from both sides of that boundary.

I have worked in private schools, public schools, hospitals, and private practices, and my interactions with parents have greatly differed from setting to setting. Naturally, there is a range within each setting as well, but generally speaking, each setting differs from each other. I have found that when parents bring their child to the hospital or private practice, there is already a degree of parental participation that brought them to that setting in the first place. Schools don’t always see that kind of participation because education is offered regardless of parental involvement; however, there is still a range, but perhaps the very involved are more like outliers. I have worked with students whose parents were minimally involved in the IEP process and those who have advocated firmly about what they felt their child needed.

We don’t really get to decide what kind of participation level is more or less valid; everyone and every family has a story to which we are not always privy. Regardless of quantity or even quality of involvement, it does not change our responsibility to the child as educators and clinicians. We give the best care for our students even if parents don’t follow through on homework. We call parents during our preps to go over all of the goals that they would like added to their child’s IEP. We smile and love our students everyday even after their parents express their displeasure toward us. And we have the difficult conversations when they send us research for a new trending therapy that holds no statistical or clinical significance in practice.

Educators in the public schools can sometimes have rather tenuous relationships with parents. However, I believe that it is our responsibility to draw them into the process anyway. It is important for us to invite parents into the education of their children. Period. This has become increasingly difficult as more stringent security measures have restricted their entry into the building, which can then lead to more panicked emails and phone calls. When we initiate contact, a parent’s knee-jerk reaction is often, “What happened?” This common dynamic does not necessarily follow the security trends of schools these days, but it does speak to the day-to-day disconnect between schools and families. It happens now and it happened when I was a kid; it seems that it is written into the history of the home and school dynamic.

I firmly believe that SLPs are in a unique position to rewrite this bit of history. We measure success with smaller benchmarks, so we are able to celebrate victories more often. This deserves contact. We often get to see our students in prime learning situations – small groups, even individual – so we get to see the best of them. That deserves contact. We see them use their skills in other settings beside the therapy room when we are in their classrooms. Contact. We are also positioned to liaise between parents and teachers and vice versa. Contact. Our contact might just encourage more parental participation where there needs to be and appease confrontation from parents who are overly involved. There are many reasons to connect if we remember to.

With that said, please do not think that I have any delusions about how difficult this is. I have worked with families who just had it out for me. There are a lot of reasons this could be, none worth dwelling on, but it’s usually the kids who feel the brunt of that animosity. And let’s be completely honest, it is so hard as human beings to be berated by a parent and then smile warmly toward their child and give him/her your all. But we do it. I have seen our teachers and related service providers do it over and over again, because we are dedicated to the kids.

I didn’t really mind only being a part of annual reviews and homework for my son (or did I?). I guess if we’re talking ranges, I fell more into the “low-touch” end of the range. But I do wonder if I should have fought the SLP to work on his slightly distorted /s/ in s-clusters that makes him sound a bit like Sean Connery. She told me it did not have an educational impact (oof, that’s going to be a whole other post), so I dropped it. Maybe I shouldn’t have dropped it. Maybe she should have contacted me to discuss this concern and any other concerns I might have had. Maybe she should’ve checked in to see how I felt his progress was going. Maybe if I had gotten an invitation to be more involved, I wouldn’t be considering all of this right now.

We need to partner with parents, especially in schools. Of course, I am mostly speaking to myself when I write this; this reads more like a journal entry than a blog post. I think we should remember that parents usually get a short update after every session in private practices, hospitals, and outpatient clinics, but in schools, they may only receive contact once or twice a year. I wrote in a previous post about latent distrust…Perhaps we should consider that lack of communication (and from parents’ perspectives, lack of accountability) can breed distrust and lack of confidence in public school related services (Also another post). It’s undeniable that we are better than our unfortunate community and societal status – teachers (we’re included, of course) are so under-appreciated. Let’s bring parents into our brilliant process so they can see us and their children for all that we are.