Articles & Resources
We share what we’ve learned so you don’t have to learn it the hard way. Explore articles written by parents, for parents, full of guidance, tools, and real-life experience.
LATEST FROM RDT
Articles, guidance, and real stories.
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Child OCD Diagnosis: When Anxiety Stacks on ADHD and Everything Gets Harder
Last week, Caydence was officially diagnosed with OCD. Not as a correction to something we thought was happening. Not as a clarification of anxiety we already knew existed.…
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My Time Is Not My Own: The Invisible Mental Load of Special Needs Parenting
School forms for my son. School forms for my daughter. The educational-attorney contract. My daughter’s uniform. Sneakers for both kids. Medication refills. Speech appointments. Scans. Physicals. Eye doctors.…
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How to Navigate a CSE Meeting
This article focuses on New York, where the Committee on Special Education, or CSE, is the team responsible for determining special education eligibility and developing, reviewing, or revising…
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The Rules Aren’t Rules. They’re a Map.
There’s a shelf in my son’s closet that only holds one kind of thing: sweatshirts in the same color, folded the same way. No collars anywhere in there.…
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How to Prepare for Your Child’s IEP Meeting
You’ve requested the evaluation. You’ve documented everything in writing. You’ve built your binder, whether by hand or with help. Now comes the moment all of that preparation has…
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“You’re So Brave” and Other Things Strangers Say
There is a very specific exhaustion that comes from being a special needs parent in public, and it has nothing to do with your actual child. It’s the…
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How to Build Your Special Education Advocacy Binder
By the time you’ve requested an evaluation and started documenting everything in writing, you’re going to have paper. Lots of it. Evaluations, emails, IEP drafts, report cards, therapy…
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The Catch-22 of ADHD and Anxiety
ADHD and anxiety show up together far more often than most people realize, and once you understand why, it stops looking like a coincidence and starts looking like…
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How to Write an Effective Email to Your Child’s School District
Once you’ve submitted your written request for an evaluation, you’re going to be writing a lot of emails. This is just the truth of special education advocacy: email…
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Understanding 504 Plans: Their History, Process, and Real Limits
A 504 plan can be exactly the right fit for one child and completely insufficient for another, and understanding why starts with understanding what it actually is. Section…
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How to Request a Special Education Evaluation for Your Child
Somewhere along the way, you started noticing things. Maybe it was your child’s teacher mentioning a concern at pickup. Maybe it was your own gut telling you something…
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The Hunt for the Right Placement: Spreadsheets, Tours, and a Thousand Phone Calls
Finding the right school for a child with unique needs is its own particular kind of hell, and I say that with full love for whatever school eventually…
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