Sharing Gratitude: Simple Ways to Build Positive Momentum With Your Team
By: Becca Phillips, Advocate
Navigating through the world of special education can sometimes feel heavy, stressful, or even adversarial. However, it’s important to also recognize that there are also bright spots: teachers who go the extra mile to support your child, case managers who have clear and consistent communication, therapists who cheer your child on and celebrate growth, or administrators who step in with support for your child’s case. As we have entered the holiday season, now is the perfect opportunity to recognize and express gratitude for those efforts while also strengthening relationships with your child’s IEP team.
The goal in expressing gratitude isn’t to gloss over challenges or obstacles you are still navigating. Instead, it’s about building connection, trust, and positive momentum so that when those tough conversations do arise, you’re entering them as partners, not opponents.
Here are a few simple, meaningful ways families can celebrate their IEP team, show gratitude, and reinforce a collaborative spirit with the school based team.
Send a short, thank you note
A few sentences of thankfulness can go a long way in fostering a positive relationship. Be specific about what it is you appreciate, whether it be an email update, an approach to how a team member handled your child’s behavior in a certain situation, a create accommodation, a moment when a team member took the time to think “outside of the box” in providing support, or simply the way they greet your child upon arrival. When praise and thanks is specific, it often feels more sincere and memorable.
Acknowledge progress
Whether its big milestones or small steps in the right direction, acknowledge progress is so important. As a prior special education teacher myself who often highlighted strengths and growth to parents whenever possible, I can tell you that it can be rare that IEP teams hear feedback from parents about what's working. If you see improvement, whether that be more confidence, fewer behavior escalations, new words or language being used, an increase in independence, more flexibility during transitions or changes in routine, a moment where your child reads more fluently or accurately, etc, share it! When school based teams can see or hear that their efforts in the school are working in outside environments, they will stay invested and more importantly, they want to celebrate with you.
Share a "strengths" snapshot of your child
Send a quick update by email or a quick note at drop off/pickup about what your child is enjoying at home - share their interests, hobbies, talents, or recent achievements. Providing this insight is a quick way for teachers and staff to learn more about your child and build connections. It helps the school team to connect with your child as a human, past their educational performance, data, or what is written on paper in their IEP or 504 Plan.
Ask strength-based questions
Instead of asking what your child is struggling with, what areas they need to improve upon, or discuss the things that may not be going smoothly, ask questions like “What has my child been doing well lately?”, “Where are you seeing the most growth with my child?”, “Can you share a positive experience my child had this week?”. Asking strength-based questions will often reframe the relationship around collaboration and help shift the team's mindset to a positive state.
Celebrate wins
Teams (including you as parents) are going to thrive when hard work is recognized. Point out and celebrate wins! Did everyone navigate successfully through a week with tough transitions or an atypical schedule? Was a new accommodation implemented that went really smoothly? Did your child complete a nonpreferred task in its entirety? Was your child able to join their general education peers successfully for a specials period? Did they use their AAC device to interact with their same grade level peers in a social capacity? Celebrate if you child simply had a good day at school or was able to use a new taught strategy in class.
Engage in collaborative “next steps” conversation
Gratitude doesn’t mean you need to avoid advocating for your child, but instead it can mean using positive momentum in order to initiate solutions. You can balance advocating your child with expressing gratitude in order to create action. If you have an area of concern to address, you can use a gratitude approach by saying “I really appreciate how you’ve been supporting ___. I would love it if the next area we can tackle together is ___. My thoughts are ___ and I would love to hear what you feel is a good next step?”
Highlight or give a shout out to a team member
A quick shout out or highlight to a team member in an email thread, parent support group or Facebook group, PTA board, a handwritten note shared with the team member, or even a verbal shout out to the school administrators about the team member, are a really positive way to make said team member feel seen and appreciated. Public gratitude in a profession where teachers might not often hear positive praise from their students' families can not only provide an immediate moral boost, but build long-term goodwill.
End the week with a “Thank You for Being on Our Team” message
Having a child with special needs and on an IEP or 504 Plan means that teamwork and support is ongoing over a period of time. Sending a message at the end of the week periodically to thank your child’s team for their dedication, patience, and care they bring to your child each day is a powerful way to set a positive tone and again, show appreciation.
Final Gratitude Thoughts
Sharing gratitude is a way for your actions to help shape the partnership you want to foster and nurture with your child’s IEP team. A small gesture that doesn’t take much of your time can lead to more collaboration, empathy, and trust for the future. Ultimately, developing this positive relationship built on gratitude and positive momentum benefits the person who is at the core of the team and that is your child. Showing patience and understanding is also a simple yet very effective way to show gratitude. Acknowledge that your child is one of several (or many!) within a teachers class, that IEP teams and general education teachers are frequently juggling large caseloads, a variety of student needs, testing seasons, staffing gaps, end of a grading period, or personal matters. A simple acknowledgment of this and patience if a response to something you have requested or asked for takes longer than is typical goes a long way for our school based teams.
