ExceptionAlly: Taking the Guesswork Out of Advocating for Your Child
My son’s ADHD diagnosis came nearly nine years ago, in the Fall of 2008. His struggles in school started a year before that, on the first day of kindergarten. I’ve been advocating for his special needs at school (and compassion from educators) for a very long time. It’s been a frustrating, helpless, heartbreaking journey. I have always been the underdog in the fight.
Most of you probably know exactly what I’m describing. That knowledge that your child can learn and can succeed in school, if only school expectations were different. That feeling of helplessness when your child is so gravely misunderstood by the people who surround him 6 hours a day for his entire childhood. The blood, sweat, and tears of fighting for your child. So many tears.
I always felt so alone in my advocacy of Ricochet, my now 14-year-old who has ADHD, autism, and dysgraphia. Every conference and IEP meeting felt like the whole world against little ole’ me. My husband had to work. My friends didn’t get it. I couldn’t afford to hire an advocate to fight with me. So, I researched and talked to other parents of kids with ADHD to formulate the accommodations I’d request to help my son. They were always crude drafts that fell short. And they almost always fell on deaf ears.
To say the advocacy experience has been a brutal, painful fight would be quite an understatement. It’s so exhausting I’ve often felt like I had physically been beaten. A fighter without a coach in her corner, teaching her how to win, ends up mostly losing.
I’m beyond excited to tell you that parents don’t have to fight in solitude any more. And you don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to hire advocates or attorneys to boost your impact. Now, there’s an online tool that learns about your child’s specific, personal needs, and then provides you with the goals and accommodations to address their needs to provide to school personnel. Gone are the days of guessing and do it all on your own.
Meet ExceptionAlly:
FINALLY! An online solution to help parents like you and I navigate the IEP process, so our exceptional kids get the education they deserve. Can you tell I’m a little excited about this. I’m feeling “where have you been all my life” excited about this!
You start creating a plan in ExceptionAlly by choosing your child’s diagnosis and rating their strengths and weaknesses on a thorough questionnaire.
You then get a list of possible appropriate accommodations to learn more about and select those that apply to your child or that you think will be helpful to your child.
Next, you select the top 5 goals and the top 5 accommodations by priority for your child’s needs.
ExceptionAlly even asks you about your Parent Journey so they can provide all the resources you need. 🙂
Once you’ve completed the online process, an action plan report is compiled and emailed to you in 3 steps: learn, prepare, and share. That’s right, the tool even provides letters and documents ready to share with your child’s IEP team. It couldn’t be any easier, or any more helpful.
The only thing better is that the ExceptionAlly is offering a free year of ExceptionAlly service to one lucky Parenting ADHD & Autism reader! Yes! Use the Rafflecopter below to enter… And, if you can’t wait to see if you win, or if you’re not the lucky one this time, use promo code PENNY25 at checkout for 25% off your first year, right here: GET EXCEPTIONALLY NOW.
