OUR CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND
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** WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW **
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JULY 12, 2004
FEAR FACTOR

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear but around in awareness.
James Thurber

We are a nation now motivated by fear. Our war mentality makes fear a factor in every major national decision. Fear has been and will be a key theme in the Presidential election. As a nation we may not be any closer to understanding fear, but we are more aware of its effects. Today we want to talk about how fear plays out at the family level.

We receive many calls from families in crisis. They want our help or advice to improve some part of their child's or their family's life. It might be special education or Medicaid services. It might be community supports or housing opportunities. But in every instance, regardless of the issue, the family always asks if they are going to hurt their child or family by fighting to obtain or improve the services their child needs or receives. The question stuns us every time.

Families instinctively know that there is a huge risk involved in advocating for their children. Why must that be so? Why must families first overcome fear before they are able to step forward to fight for their children? Why must parents fear that their children:
will be abused or neglected;
will be put into situations that exacerbate problem behaviors (set up to fail);
will be ostracized;
will be segregated and isolated;
will be publicly singled out for ridicule because they have special needs;
will receive only bare, basic services and considerations;
will be denied access to or excluded from routine opportunities and choices; or
will lose previously hard-won services?
Why, too, must parents fear for themselves that their abilities as parents and even their ability to parent might be threatened by:
school referrals to protective services;
exclusion from school meetings and events;
exclusion from their child's school;
intimidation and being ostracized;
disingenuous calls at work; seeking "advice" or "informing" them of a situation involving their child at school, even though there is no true need for the call;
the threat of child abandonment charges if parents do not respond immediately and exactly as the school demands;
requiring conference calls and multi-person face-to-face meetings in place of one-on-one conversations or emails;
requiring single point communication systems that bar parents from talking to anyone at school but a single designated person;
deliberate scheduling of formal educational activities like IEP team meetings at times known to be difficult or impossible for parents to attend;
emphasizing or accentuating the child's challenges as a means of making parents feel guilty;
suggesting that the child's needs or challenges are due to the parents' lack of education or failure to follow through on educational programming needs at home;
characterizing the parents as disinterested, unreasonable, difficult, emotional or unsympathetic, even though most parents are doing the best they can; or
forcing parents to achieve administrative or technical perfection in framing or responding to programming needs and requests?
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) reauthorization process has been fearful for the parent community in the same way that the description above has been for parents. A real parade of horribles has been presented to parents. A lame duck session or Omnibus action could leave us with the original House bill. The next Congress and/or President could look more unfavorably on IDEA and the needs of 6.5 million children than the present Congress and President have.

We must temper our fear about what might happen to IDEA down the road with the awareness of the importance of the IDEA rights we have fought so hard to obtain and now hold. We cannot let the fears of the future force us to sacrifice the rights of the present. We are all too aware of how important those rights are, particularly given the fear that all parents take into the advocacy process for their children.

Marilyn Ferguson once said, "Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom." We must ever be aware of that fact as we step out on the uncertain waters of struggle". We cannot displace the fear that comes with each step but we can carry the certainty that each step is made with courage and with the goal of helping the child.


Tricia & Calvin Luker, today's parentvolunteer@ourchildrenleftbehind.com