The Triggering Event

Something happens at school : a behavior issue, failing grade, or alarming email and the parent’s nervous system goes into threat response.

You are not “overreacting.” You are responding to a perceived threat to your child’s safety and future.

The Scramble for Answers

Parents ask questions.
Schools answer vaguely, inconsistently, or not at all.
Confusion rises. Trust drops.

Parents begin doing the team’s job: collecting data, documenting patterns, gathering outside reports.

The Minimization Phase

The school says:

• “We don’t see that here.”

• “Let’s give it more time.”

• “Lots of kids struggle with this.”

Minimization is not neutral.
It destabilizes parents and delays intervention.

The Compliance Trap

Parents are encouraged (often subtly) to:

• Wait

• Reduce concerns

• Agree to informal supports

• Avoid pushing for assessments

Parents begin to fawn, smooth things over, and make themselves smaller to avoid being labeled “difficult.”

The Crisis Point

Eventually, the child hits a wall: grades crash, anxiety spikes, school refusal appears.

Suddenly the concerns that were minimized for months (or years) are treated as urgent.

The Reactive Evaluation

The school rushes an evaluation often incomplete, misaligned, or overly reliant on teacher perception.

Parents feel pressured to sign documents they don’t fully understand.

The Deficit Narrative

The meeting begins with a list of everything the child “cannot” do.

This is the moment parents often describe as gutting, humiliating, or surreal.

The Fight / Collapse Split

Parents either mobilize (fight mode) or shut down (collapse mode). Both are trauma responses, not moral choices.

The Cycle Repeats

A rushed, under-scoped IEP leads to misalignment in services and the cycle begins again.

The Truth

Parents are not burned out because they’re anxious or dramatic.
They’re burned out because the IEP process often requires conflict to access legally guaranteed support.

This cycle is systemic, not personal.
And it can be broken.