If you are a parent, guardian, family member, caregiver or teacher of an Exceptional Needs child in need of coaching or consultation and are interested in meeting with me personally, you can contact me directly at, specialedrising@gmail.com.
Learn how to manage challenging behaviors in your home (or classroom) and set up routines and schedules that work to reduce stress and anxiety that your child may be realizing.
I will also guide you through developing daily living skills for your child including cleaning, food preparation, laundry, hygiene and more.
I will be your advocate and support you through the IEP process and help you to know your rights and the rights of your child.
When you work with me you work with a human being with compassion who doesn’t judge you but rather spends the time to get to know you and understands the struggles you face in managing your child and creating a functional home that works for every member of the family.
And in addition, I remind and work with you to remember yourself and how important it is to spend time taking care of you.
Contact me directly at, specialedrising@gmail.com
My Approach and Strategies for Parent Training
- Building a rapport with parents through honest and authentic communication. Offering understanding, accepting where they are in the process, leaving judgement aside, listening to and respecting their concerns and developing trust.
- Introduce the concept of Mindful Parenting; this is something I’ve been developing and implementing in my work with families and my blog. The key being the focus on the space between stimulus and response as the opportunity for choice in how we respond to and create growth, both personally and interpersonally. Developing healthy relationships.
- Identifying child’s and parent’s strengths and weaknesses and planning for how to fuel the first and diminish the latter.
- Assessment, through observation, of behaviors that can be treated positively through establishing routine and rules of the house.
- Using schedules (picture/word) to inform, regulate the day and relieve stresses by knowing what is happening next or what one is working towards.
- Visual reminders in high traffic locations around the home
- Offer ideas to make the home safe for the child (if needed)
- Positive behavioral approach using any number of reward systems from charts to punch cards to food to stickers…immediate and longer term, earned rewards. Use natural and logical consequences that correlate to the behavior or acting out.
- Active ignoring. What is it? How to implement?
- Sequencing activities for predictability and stress reduction
- Modeling behavior techniques for parents and equipping them to model for their child
- Use of Social Stories
- Preparing for transitions with First/Then, daily calendars and schedules
- For outside excursions, preparing a sensory kit to quell meltdowns to leave in your car and an additional one to carry to different locations, ie. Food store, restaurant.
- Differentiation. Teaching parents how to differentiate goals for their challenged child from those of typical children they may have. Create realistic expectations.
- Teaching parents patience and tolerance to be able to handle difficult challenges.
- Self-consolation; self-forgiveness and self-compassion in order to be a healthier parent for one’s child
- Create sensory areas, if needed. Help design this space.
- Instruct in and establish a Life Skills program and daily life skills for the home.
- The importance of choices
- Cueing for language and for requests
- Helping train in the use of communication systems, adaptive equipment and visual support; ie. Communication devices, PECS, sign language, etc.
- Assessing skill levels to assign a child with developmentally appropriate chores and how to fit them into the day’s schedule.
- Encourage family involvement on a deeper level where everyone is recognized as an individual with individual abilities and something to offer
- Transitioning to school from home and from high school to Day Hab.
- Being a resource to inform parents of their rights and the programs that exist for their son/daughter
- Everything with the goal of building as much independence for your child as is uniquely possible
Special Ed Rising 