18 Funny GIFs Describing What Back to School Is Like for Parents of Kids With Disabilities
I have two children with disabilities, so back-to-school brings a mix of emotions for me. As excited and ready as I am for routine, a new year is often terrifying. There are so many unknowns. Will they have a nice teacher who believes in them and supports them? Will the team follow the IEP? Will my child have friends? The list could go on and on.
While I am doing the best I can to prepare and be ready, I don’t want to dwell on the worries, so instead, why not make light of it, have a good laugh and remind each other we are not alone in how we feel?
Here are some funny memes you may relate to as your kids go back to school.
1. When you drop off your kid on the first day and you feel free, but then you realize… it is on!
2. When you let yourself get too focused on all your worries:
3. When your kid tells you they made a new friend on their first day of school.
4. How you feel after the first week of school is behind you.
5. When the new teacher calls you about an issue clearly stated in the IEP, and you realize they have not read it.
6. When you feel the school is not on your side.
7. When you find out the teacher your child really connected with last year has retired.
8. When you have to call an emergency IEP meeting after the first week of school.
9. When the school tells you, “But we’ve never done this before.”
10. When you are talking to a teacher and they don’t seem to be listening or taking you seriously.
11. When you start training because you see a fight with school coming.
12. When you get an email in the middle of the day from a teacher bragging about how amazing your kid is.
13. When teachers ask you to come in and they start listing their “complaints.”
14. When the phone rings and you realize it is school calling.
15. When school suggests your child should not be in an inclusive classroom after only a few days back in school.
16. When you get a feeling this will be a rough year.
17. When your child’s team is on point as the school year begins.
18. When you realize you and your kid got this, and it’s going to be a good year.
Banner image via Giphy
Ellen Stumbo is the founder of Disability Matters, an organization with the mission to encourage every church to embrace disability. Ellen is a national speaker who focuses on issues pertaining adoption, faith, disability and parenting kids with disabilities. Ellen writes for several online platforms including Focus on the Family, LifeWay, MomSense, Not Alone, Mamapedia, Group, The Mighty and the Huffington Post. Her writing also appears in several book anthologies. Ellen blogs at ellenstumbo.com and you can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.
ellenstumbo