So often I’m asked by parents to help them write goals for their children. Sure I could do that, but I won’t. I absolutely refuse to write goals for parents. Why would I do that?
Your role as the parent is not to write the goals for the IEP team. Your role as the parent is to assure your child has positive outcomes from their school experience. Do you know what you want your child’s outcomes to be?
Example: You do not need to write a goal for how much progress they should make in math, what concepts they should be mastering or what materials they should be using. What you should be doing is clearly expressing the outcomes you expect for your child regarding math both short and long term and then listen and collaborate with the team as a process to achieve those outcomes is developed.
Example: You do not need to write a goal about how proficient your child will be on the computer. You do need to discuss with the team what role you see the computer/technology playing in your child’s future so you can help balance their day accordingly with technology skills.
Example: You do not need to write a communication goal for your child about how many words they will utilize in daily conversation. You do need to communicate with the team the needs of your child’s daily language now and in their future routines to assure that the communication goals are geared towards your child mastering their needs.
Why do you have to tell the teams the outcomes? Shouldn’t they already know them? NO!!! Your outcome expectations for your family is much different than your neighbors. Some parents don’t care about what you care about. That’s o.k. That’s why we have individualized IEP’s to meet our children’s unique needs.
As we move into IEP season, remember, you are NOT to write goals. You NEED to work with the team on explaining your expectations for an end result. Let the team write the goals towards those expected outcomes using their knowledge, resource and experience.
Need help defining your outcomes? Not sure how to weed out important from not-so-important skills? Let’s talk!
