A dad sits down at his son’s IEP meeting. The first question goes to his wife: “So mom, how do you feel things are going?” He shares a story from the bus stop, and every head snaps his way. Nobody expected him to have anything to add, he says, “because I was dad.” If you have been the parent nobody turned to, you are not imagining it.
FROM THE VIDEO
Key moments from In It, the Understood podcast with Amanda Morin and Bob Cunningham:
Common questions from parents
Why do teachers talk to mom and not dad?
Does it matter if dad helps with school at home?
Is reading aloud to my child enough?
Does family medical leave cover IEP meetings?
How do I help my child love learning again?
At one IEP meeting, every head turned when dad spoke up. Nobody expected him to have anything to add. What counts at home has nothing to do with which parent you are.
Why does the school turn to mom first?
Understood’s podcast In It asked a blunt question: where are all the dads? The hosts, Amanda Morin and Bob Cunningham, asked fathers of kids who learn differently. The dads had an answer. They are here. They are harder to see.
Charles stays home and teaches his son. He takes him to therapy and to classes for kids who learn differently. He counts the room: 28 or 29 moms, and one dad. Maybe two. The other dads look unsure, he says. “They kind of know but they’re not confident about it.”
Jeremy had been to about five IEP meetings for his son. Back at work, his boss told him his wife should handle those. Jeremy quit that day. Later he found a job that let him be there for his family.
Then there is the other side. Some dads get praise for simply showing up. One dad, John, says being there has an “extra credit” feel. He gets it because he is a dad. Moms, Amanda points out, get no medals for showing up to a conference.
We think the show is right about this. The trouble is not the dads. It is an old habit. Schools, clinics and bosses got set up around one parent. The other one gets treated as a guest. Mom carries it all. Dad gets praise and no questions. The child loses both ways. Have you sat at that table unseen? Here is what the law says about your seat on the IEP team.
Nothing on that list needs a certain parent, only a present one.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Does it matter which parent helps at home?
You don’t need a credential to be your child’s first teacher. You already are one. That holds for moms and dads alike.
Barger and colleagues (2019) looked at 448 studies of parents and school. What parents did at home had a small, steady link to school results. The link held much the same across family income and ethnicity.
Small is the honest word. It is also real, and it keeps showing up. The biggest positives were at home. They were talking about school, encouragement, and doing interesting things together.
Look at that list again. Nothing on it needs a certain parent. It needs a present one. We made a one-page picture of what parent involvement looks like at home.
One more thing in that review stayed with us. Only three of those 448 studies were about children with learning disabilities. The authors asked if parents are an untapped help for these kids. We think they are. That means you.
Showing up is not the same as pushing, though. Grolnick and Pomerantz (2022) put it plainly. Help with homework goes wrong when it turns into pressure. That is a thing you learn to notice. Here is more on helping without taking over.
Key takeaways
- Dad is not extra credit: At the IEP table, he is part of the team.
- Home is where it counts: Talking and encouragement were the biggest positives (Barger et al., 2019).
- Warmth, not pressure: Homework help goes wrong when it turns into pressure (Grolnick and Pomerantz, 2022).
What does showing up look like at home?
One guest on the show shares big numbers about dads who read to kids. We could not find those numbers in the research we hold. What we did find points somewhere useful.
In reading studies, some parents were taught a few specific activities. They made far more difference than parents who read aloud. That comes from Sénéchal and Young (2008), as reported in Higgins and Katsipataki (2015). So keep reading aloud. It is warm time together. Then let your child read some to you, too.
Charles is rebuilding something bigger. His son loved being read to. He taught himself to read. Then, in Charles’s words, he “got kind of damaged by school.” Every day he was made to feel like “a bad kid.” Nothing in that story sounds like a bad kid to us. It sounds like a curious kid who stopped feeling safe to learn.
Now part of each day is lessons, and part is video games. Charles jokes that he gets a “doctoral level dissertation on Minecraft.” That is doing interesting things together. Our view is that a love of learning is a child’s natural state. It comes back when learning feels good to share again.
Khalil, a teacher, author and dad on the show, puts it this way. “We are mirrors for our children.” A dad might think his child is not watching, he says. But “they’re always watching.” Reading was hard for Khalil growing up. The hosts say that struggle pushed him to build other skills. Nobody handed him those skills as a gift. He earned them through the hard part.
Try this tonight:
- Ask one real question about school at dinner. Then listen.
- Name one bit of effort you saw today, out loud.
- Let your child teach you about the thing they love most.
- Going to the next school meeting? Bring one thing you saw at home.
- If work is in the way, ask HR about family medical leave. Amanda Morin suggests it in the episode.
A dad at the IEP table is a parent with information, not extra credit.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Your child deserves to have every parent who shows up be heard. Nobody will ever push for your child as hard as you will. What gets in the way is an old habit. It turns to one parent first and treats the other as a guest. Our free download on building confidence from small wins is The Confidence Account.
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Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
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A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
