How do I advocate for my child at school?

Navigating the educational journey with a neurodivergent child can present unique challenges within a school system primarily designed for neurotypical students. As a parent, advocating for your child’s needs becomes paramount for fostering a supportive learning environment. Drawing from personal experiences as both a teacher and a parent, Holly has created this guide to distil the intricate art of educational advocacy.

Continue reading: 8 min read

Most teachers work in the profession because they love kids and want to help them learn. Keep this in mind before you bombard your child’s teacher with demands. Approach the relationship with the attitude of, ‘How can I best support you to support my child?’

Congratulations on making it through the time-intensive early years and entering school with your neurodivergent (ND) child. Navigating the educational system can be a challenging journey, especially when your ND child is navigating a school system built for and by neurotypical (NT) people. By now, you are probably aware that as a parent of an ND child, you play a crucial role in advocating for your child’s unique needs and fostering a supportive learning environment. To begin with, the role of educational advocate can be extremely daunting. There will be multiple relationships to juggle across a variety of stakeholders and many lines of communication to smooth out. There is a lack of information about how to go about advocacy well, so this is my attempt to distil my learnings on the delicate art of educational advocacy, having experienced it both as a teacher and a parent. Regardless of the school, the teacher, or your child’s needs, these guidelines can help you to begin relationships on the right foot, or repair relationships that may have gone off the rails.

As a former primary school teacher, I know firsthand that most teachers only want to support their students to the best of their abilities. Unfortunately, teacher training in Australia doesn’t contain adequate learning about how to support the diverse range of abilities and neurotypes teachers will be met within the classroom. This means many teachers will be learning most of this on the job. I can hand on heart declare, I learned far more about neurodiversity and disability after I left teaching, than I ever did in my teacher training. Even those who have decided to study learning support as a specialisation, unless they have lived experience, are unlikely to have nearly the same understanding as you do as a parent. By assisting your child’s teacher to improve their understanding of neurodiversity, you are not only helping them to appreciate and embrace neurodiversity for your child, but for all the children they teach and will teach in the future.

To help you do this time-consuming, important job as effectively as possible, here is my go-to guide for establishing the type of relationships that help your child’s teacher to appreciate how wonderful your child is.

1. Educate yourself

Before approaching teachers, take the time to educate yourself about your child’s neurodivergence. You cannot expect teachers, who are navigating an overpacked curriculum, the needs of multiple students, the requirements of teacher registrations, extracurricular club demands, report writing and multiple emails from parents a day (to name but a few things), to be able to dive into researching your child’s particular needs. Understanding and knowing your child, what motivates them, what overwhelms them and how they can best regulate themselves is an essential first step to communicating with your child’s teacher. Once you have developed your rich understanding, you are better prepared to begin informing others. Creating clear, considered and concise information that can be used to inform teachers about the best ways to support your child can only be done well if you have done your homework first. Understand the specific challenges and strengths of your child’s brain and figure out which information is the most important to understand first. You need to give the teachers enough information, but not overwhelm them with all the information in one hit. Taking the time to thoughtfully prioritise your communication will empower you to communicate effectively and advocate for your child’s unique needs.

In addition to educating yourself about your child, you need to do your best to educate yourself about their school. What kinds of expectations do they have at the school? What kinds of ‘classroom management systems’ do they use and how are they used? Not all families have the luxury of choice, so researching these answers is not necessarily about ‘school shopping’ but more about helping you to understand the ecosystem that the teacher is operating in.

The way that a school discusses behaviour and any tools they employ will also help give you valuable information about how your child is likely to feel at school. For example, a school that uses a class Dojo, (an online avatar that is awarded points by teachers) might be aligned with your ND child’s needs because it helps with motivation and making expectations tangible. Alternatively, it might be a signal that the school relies heavily on extrinsic motivation to ‘control behaviour,’ which your child has no chance of keeping up with and might add anxiety to your ND child’s day.

Other important questions to find out about at the school is:

What kind of learning support is offered to students and how is this determined?
What is the educational philosophy of the school?
How does the school teach children about their brain and executive functioning and higher thinking skills?
What kind of differentiation is offered by the school?
How has the school catered to students with neurodiversity in the past?
What are the school’s main values?
What are the chains of communication at the school?
How is communication about students best shared? (I think that having things in writing is always ideal because people can refer back to it).
What is the policy of the school regarding outside therapists and allied health workers?
How does the school organise meetings to discuss support plans for ND children and how often will reviews occur?

2. Establish respect, rapport and open communication (fancy talk for ‘be kind’)

Teachers are incredibly overworked and underpaid. They also have their school bosses, the Department of Education and the parents of all the students they teach constantly making demands of them. Most teachers work in the profession because they love kids and want to help them learn. Keep this in mind before you bombard your child’s teacher with demands. Approach the relationship with the attitude of, ‘How can I best support you to support my child?’ When you come with this attitude, instead of a combative one, your child’s teacher will feel it. Be proactive about establishing this tone to your relationship and don’t wait until you have complaints to make contact. Kindness goes a long way to helping your child’s teacher feel motivated to go the extra step to support your child.

Involving your child with the culture of respect for the teacher is important too. While it’s important to address challenges, also highlight your child’s strengths. A fabulous way to give teachers insight to these strengths is through small gift-giving. If the gift is also something that is useful and remains in the classroom, it will act as a visual reminder of your child’s strengths. Encourage your child to demonstrate their areas of talent through their gift. For example, a child with knowledge of plants can share their understanding by picking out and arranging a bunch of flowers for the teacher with an information card on the plants chosen, an artistic child can give their teacher a voucher for the local coffee shop in a hand made, beautifully painted card, or a budding engineer can build their teacher a pencil caddy out of LEGO for their desk. Work with your child to come up with a way to start their school year off with a token of respect and appreciation to make a positive connection with their teacher that can get things started on a happy note.

Build a positive and open line of communication with your child’s teachers from the very beginning. Share information about your child’s strengths, interests, and any strategies that have proven effective in the past. If teachers come to you with concerns, don’t doubt their version of events, but instead ask questions and validate their emotions. For example, if the teacher says, ‘Your child ran off out of assembly and they just can’t do that.’ Instead of meeting their anger with anger (assuming your child was found and all is now ok), start with acknowledging the teacher’s shock. For example you could say, ‘Oh wow, that must have been terrifying for you, trying to juggle all your other students and being concerned about my child’s safety. What a huge day you have had. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Let’s see what we can come up with together to stop this from happening again.’ Establishing a collaborative relationship with teachers lays the foundation for a supportive and inclusive learning environment. When conversations about your child’s behaviour can be met with understanding how difficult it must be for a teacher to manage all those human beings, you defuse the teacher’s emotions so they can access their strategic thinking. When you then offer support, guidance and tools to understand what might have caused the behaviour so they can see it coming next time, teachers stand a fighting chance of being able to implement strategies that help support your child’s sensory system.

3. Outsource

If you are finding it difficult to educate your child’s teacher on effective support for your child, offer them easy ways to gain the information they need from elsewhere. Remember, they are busy. They are unlikely to have time to read a whole book, but they might watch a TikTok, listen to a podcast or watch a succinct YouTube clip or read a short article. They also might be okay with you offering them access to one of your allied health therapists such as an occupational therapist so that they can communicate directly with them. Offer to create support materials for your child that they might find useful in the classroom, for example social stories of the class routine or visual checklists for emotional regulation that all children in the classroom can consult when they need.

4. Collaborate on strategies

Work collaboratively with teachers to develop strategies that support your child’s learning while still aligning with school values. Discuss potential accommodations, modifications, and interventions that can be implemented in the classroom. This may include adjusted seating arrangements, additional breaks, or alternative assignments that cater to your child’s needs. Share resources with teachers that offer insights into your child’s neurodivergent brain. Coming to your child’s teacher with ideas about how to solve a problem is far more conducive to collaboration than just raising the problem. For example, if you need an assignment modified, suggest a way that your child can demonstrate their learning. Even if that doesn’t end up being the final solution, the fact you didn’t just expect the teacher to figure out how to modify the assignment, will get the ball rolling in the way of accommodations and adjustments that can be tried. The more informed teachers are, the better equipped they’ll be to create an inclusive and supportive classroom environment. When we know better, we can do better.

5. Help establish inclusion-culture

Help the teacher to establish a culture of inclusion and respect in the classroom by offering to talk to the class, using your connections with other families and advocating for your child within the community. By speaking directly and positively about your child’s differences, you may open up friendships you never knew possible, give undiagnosed children the chance to be understood or simply help to shift the undeserved stigma around neurodiversity. We have to be the change we want to see in the world.

Advocating for your neurodivergent child with teachers requires open but thoughtful communication and a deliberate effort towards creating an inclusive learning environment. It won’t happen on its own, but you have the tools to improve school for not only your child, but all children. By fostering understanding and appreciation of the vast and beautiful variety of bodies and brains that the world has, you not only contribute to your child’s academic success but also promote a more inclusive educational experience for all students.

Good luck, you’ve got this.

Love, Holly.

1 FEBRUARY 2024