{"id":5967,"date":"2011-10-31T09:34:39","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T13:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=5967"},"modified":"2014-12-02T12:01:36","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T16:01:36","slug":"murphys-laws-and-tips-for-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/murphys-laws-and-tips-for-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Murphy&#8217;s Law and Tips for Parents by Sue Whitney"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Murphy%27s%20Law%20and%20Tips%20for%20Parents%20by%20Sue%20Whitney\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p style=\"text-aligh: left;\"><strong><em><span style=\"color: #888888;\">Law 1 &#8211; The only tape recording the school will never misplace is the one of you being sarcastic at an IEP meeting.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><em><span style=\"color: #888888;\">Law 2 &#8211; If you lose your temper and are rude to school staff during a meeting, that person will be connected to your child for the next 1,000 IEP meetings.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Our children need us to learn the skills necessary to behave well when we are in frustrating situations. They cannot afford for us to lose our tempers or learn on the job.<\/p>\n<p>You need to expect that you will be&#8230;<!--more--> caught off guard when you don&#8217;t expect it.You need to expect that you will get upset.\u00a0You need to have the skills to manage your emotions before this happens.<\/p>\n<p>These tips (and the articles they are based on) provide alternatives to name-calling, temper outbursts, and other bad behavior that you will regret later.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Tips for Parents<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Virtually nothing that happens during a school meetings needs an immediate response from you. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you have a school crisis, you need to focus on short-term problem solving and long-term planning. Read\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fetaweb.com\/02\/crisis.manage.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Crisis Management, Step-By Step<\/span><\/a> at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fetaweb.com\/02\/crisis.manage.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">http:\/\/www.fetaweb.com\/02\/crisis.manage.htm<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>2, Avoid making decisions or taking action when you are angry and frustrated. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/advoc\/articles\/Emotions.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">From Emotions to Advocacy: The Parent&#8217;s Journey<\/span><\/a>, Pam Wright describes roadblocks and obstacles parents face as they learn to be an effective advocate for their child.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/advoc\/articles\/Emotions.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/advoc\/articles\/Emotions.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: bold;\">3. <strong>Being assertive is not the same as auditioning for the bombastic Hall of Fame<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/info\/advo.parent.sherrett.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Assertiveness and Effective Parent Advocacy<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0 advocate Marie Sherrett explains how to be an assertive, effective parent advocate.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/info\/advo.parent.sherrett.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/info\/advo.parent.sherrett.htm<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><strong>4. Disagreements between parents and school personnel are normal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Problems arise from the manner in which disagreements are handled. As Pat Howey writes, &#8220;there are better ways to obtain positive results than roaring through meetings like a Mack Truck.&#8221; Read\u00a0<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/advoc\/tips\/howey_advice.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Advocate Pat Howey Talks about Reasonable Expectations, Power Struggles, and Perspectives<\/span><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/howey\/power.mtgs.ltrs.htm\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/advoc\/tips\/howey_advice.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/advoc\/tips\/howey_advice.htm<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Law 1 &#8211; The only tape recording the school will never misplace is the one of you being sarcastic at an IEP meeting. Law 2 &#8211; If you lose your <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/murphys-laws-and-tips-for-parents\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1268,1376,136],"tags":[711,826,139,1220,421,67,825],"class_list":["post-5967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-humor","category-parent-school-disagreement-disputes","category-strategies","tag-emotions","tag-frustration","tag-iep-meeting","tag-murphys-law","tag-parent-advocacy","tag-parental-role","tag-sue-whitney"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5967"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12172,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5967\/revisions\/12172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}