Dear General Ed. and Special Education Teachers,

Teaching is hard. I get it. You have a room full of students who test your nerves all day long. You have papers to fill out, meetings to attend, requirements to meet, and standards to teach. It is an overloading, overwhelming, all consuming job that is exhausting and HARD. I know, because I am a teacher.

During all of those really hard times, please don’t forget about your frustrating special needs students. You know the ones. The difficult ones that test your nerves all day. Whether you teach at an inclusive preschool, elementary school, middle school, or high school. Remember them.

Remember that many times… the tantrums, fits, and hard behaviors they are giving you is because THEY are having a hard time. They NEED you to always take the necessary steps to correct their behavior but also take a moment and remember them. After they are corrected, they need you to give them your grace, patience, and kindness.

They need you to assure them that you love them, even if you don’t. They need you to smile at them when they do something great, even if your patience is already gone for the day. They need you to greet them every morning as if it is a new, beautiful day FULL of wonderful possibilities, even if the day before was a nightmare.

The parents of these children need you to assure them that their child is loved even when their child has been challenging. The parents need your guidance on what to do to help the child succeed at school in a loving way that shows no judgment. Even when they seem to have it all together, most likely they are struggling with raising the difficult child just as much as you are struggling to teach the difficult child. Knowing that the place their child spends most of his/her time loves and nurtures their child is so important… even when the child is challenging.

So remember them. Even when it’s hard and you’re tired and you don’t feel like smiling.

With all the love in the world,

A teacher mom with a sweet little boy with special needs

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