Hello Savvy Parents!
Before I jump into my first blog thanks so much for interacting with me in this forum! I look forward to sharing the resources that will help us discover both ours and our child’s purpose. So feel free to also challenge me as well. We are in this season together!
The boutique practice that I have created exists to coach savvy parents to their goal line for their children from the womb to the classroom. So what better way to launch than by weighing in on back-to-school with a bit of the research. May this one be a reminder to us all!
Two teachers were involuntarily chosen to participate in an experiment. One taught gifted students while the other struggled with special needs classes year after year. Only this semester when they each welcomed their new students they had actually been switched! Just goes to show you can never tell who is playing who inside a walled in room.
Assuming that it was business as usual they proceeded to teach their new students as they always did. When the gifted children saw that they were being talked down to and given remedial work, they were initially in shock, but soon became compliant because the experts “always” know what’s best! Yes?
In the other room however, the children could hardly believe that someone would acknowledge their potential and even challenge them academically. No matter how much they struggled with the new concepts the teacher just kept right on encouraging them. It was the first time anything this compassionate had happened to them.
By the end of the semester (researchers let this go on that long) the children in the special ed class were at or below their grade level and sorely lacking motivation. But their counterparts in the other room with those supposed ”special needs” were working at or well above their grade level, and eager for more…
I share this telling account because in the decade that I’ve participated in IEP meetings, on treatment teams, in psychiatrists offices with parents, in homes with families, and in classrooms with teachers I have rarely received a referral for a young child who was not given a negative label and put on the autism spectrum: not to mention being forced to take adult strength medication even in pre-school! At the same time it has been my observation that the complacency shown by teachers of these children, and the desperation on the part of their parents both seem to stem from what each believes to be true about the child(ren) involved.
So I challenge you to consider your child’s potential along with your long term strategy in monitoring the effectiveness of the learning, healthcare and other contractors you have chosen. Otherwise like the teachers in this study, you may find that your family is also being subjected to someone else’s mastermind. In the meantime…
Believe well!
Adelaide Zindler, B.S., Fp
The Savvy Parent Coach
…Coaching savvy parents to their goal line for their children from the womb to the classroom.
