10 Golden Rules of being a Difficult Parent of a child with SEND

  • By The Difficult Parent
  • 09 Mar, 2019

All the things that I would tell myself at the beginning of this journey if I had a time machine and travel back to give myself a pep talk. I will add the additional rules sent to me on Twitter in a new post. This is a personal post.  It is all the things that I have learnt to do to get through this sanity intact

10 Golden Rules of being a difficult parent of a child with SEND

1. They NEVER read their own policies. They do not know the SEND Code of Practice 2015
RULE 1: READ

2. You NEED to read policies - because professionals NEVER read their own policies. If you cannot find them online use a Freedom of Information Request.
Rule 2: RESEARCH

3. Always refer to the policy - they won't have read it
Rule 3: REFER to policy and to law.

4. If it not in the policy go back to the SEND Code of Practice 2015 (they will have read neither policy nor CoP)
RULE 4: DON'T EVER GIVE UP Keep digging, you will find what you need

5. If its not in the SEND Code of Practice to back to the law: Children and Families Act 2014; The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970; Equality Act 2010 - please add whats useful to you
RULE 5: BECAUSE ITS THE LAW

6. If they are calling you difficult then you must be doing something right for your child. They are more scared of you than you are of them.
RULE 6: YOU ARE A WARRIOR

7. You are not mistaken, you have entered a surreal Kafka-esque parallel world. Sorry about that, they probably are lying to you.
RULE 7: YOU ARE NOT WRONG YOU THINK IT SOUNDS WRONG THEN IT IS WRONG

8. That's right! You are the only person who read your child's notes / EHCP / file / school report
RULE 8: PREPARE TO WIN, BECAUSE THEY WILL FAIL TO PREPARE

9. ALWAYS let them dig their own grave: ALWAYS use email; NEVER answer the phone. You need PROOF of what was agreed. Otherwise its your word against theirs - and they are the professionals - right?
RULE 9: DONT ANSWER THE PHONE

10. THROW NOTHING AWAY Keep extensive records of letters and emails. Follow up meetings with emails regarding what was said and agreed to. And only ever use THEIR evidence. They can't dispute their own evidence ... Can they?
RULE 10: THROW NOTHING AWAY
The Difficult Parent started out as these 10 rules tweeted over 10 weeks on twitter that I started to put out weekly in November 2018.  Popular and added to by other parents, the energy and positivity, the support and advice that I got from other SEND parent and SEND professionals on Twitter led to DifficultParent.com.

Again, this started as a blog of my life in mid-January 2019.
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