IEPs can be very stressful for teachers of any grade level or experience. However, there are things that parents can do to help reduce the stress on the special education teacher so that an autistic child gets the highest quality of care and guidance possible. A happy teacher can help to make a child’s educational experience – and IEP – even better. As an educator, it’s your responsibility to start building strong partnerships with parents, rather than administrators, to ensure that the IEP gets carried out easily and effectively.

Here are some easy things you can do as a teacher to reduce the stress of IEPs:
• Work with the parents to put a plan in place at the start of the school year so that you both have a roadmap of where the child needs to go (and what needs to be done).

• Get accurate contact information for the parents. Sometimes teachers overlook this simple information and when the time comes to contact the parent for assistance, it can become even more stressful. Take the time early on to establish contacts and contact guidelines.

• Set realistic expectations and goals for yourself as an educator. Besides IEPs, you have meetings, paperwork, lesson plans, maintaining parent communications, and students to teach. Reduce stress by managing your workload and setting expectations for what you can accomplish.

• Review successes in the IEP if you start to feel discouraged. Talk to the parents and recap on the progress the child has made.

• Organize your classroom and all of the paperwork associated with the IEP or the particular student. Organization can greatly reduce stress and make it easier to keep up with a student’s progress.

• Make it a point to address parent concerns and complaints as soon as possible. This will ensure a more proactive and positive relationship between you and the parent.

• Communicate with the parents over the child’s behavior outside the classroom. Try to form observations on certain behaviors and use them to develop a more successful IEP. Keep revisiting the IEP throughout the year to adapt it to the child’s needs and development.