Who's the biggest stakeholder?

 

 So often, as parents, we turn to the 'experts'.  We are all educated in different areas of life.  I certainly would never tell a heart surgeon how to do his job!  But at times it becomes easy to just rely on someone else because they know more, or they are more experienced in that field.  When the light comes on in our car because something is wrong, most of the time we don't even look at a manual.  We just 'take it in.'  We have someone look at the problem, tell us what is needed, and go from there.
      But here, I am talking about our children.  First, we have to remember, they are not ours.  They have been giving to us.  They have been entrusted to us.  They are on loan to us.  The only manual, the Bible.  A verse that has always been a part of our parenting is, Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.  This is a constant reminder that it is our job and requirement to train our children.  Specifically in the direction of the Lord.  But, what about how and who and where and when?  Outside of training our children in the word of The Lord, there is educating them in the academia world.  Granted these can and should go hand and hand.  Some people do it through public school, home school, private school and so on.  For some, the decisions are easier.  They love their school and they love however they have decided to be sure their children are in the word of The Lord.  Then, there is me.
   Let me start by pointing out, I cannot think of anything I have ever purchased that did not take a lot of time.  Or even a return.  And most definitely a mulling over after it was home.  So when it came to school for our kids, to say it was not easy is an understatement.  I still remember the 2nd day of kindergarten for my oldest child.  She wanted so badly to get out in carpool line.  I had her in the car, and 3 other car seats with children 3 and under sitting in the back seats.  I also had a baby in my belly that would arrive in a month.  My little kindergartner got out of my car and walked away like a big girl.  I pulled forward and parked my car sobbing.  My car seemed so quiet!  Realize I still had 3 loud little kids in the car and a baby kicking in my tummy!  I knew I loved the school she was walking into.  I had amazing teachers and the Word of God being poured into her!  I called my husband in tears saying, "We made a mistake!  We need to only send her for 1/2 a day!"  She was fine, and I got over it all!  This was a bright kid walking into a school that I knew could teach her in all the ways she needed and we desired.
   But if we fast forward that day 5 years down the road, we approach a similar but un-chartered territory for me.  Our youngest of 5, who has some hearing impairment and communication delays, is approaching her kindergarten year.  At this point I have successfully (with tears) managed to send off 4 children to kindergarten.  But this time it is different.  This time, I am not 100% sure what type of learning she needs.  I am not positive that I have all the information on her strengths and challenges.  The school options I know about, well frankly I don't know anything about the staff and what their beliefs are.  This is terrifying for me.  But, I grab my stoic husband and we begin the grueling process of evaluations and ARDs(if you don't know what an ARD meeting is, well you can possibly count yourself lucky to avoid the stress).   Once all the 'data' is collected on our child, we get an evaluation back.  To be honest, I couldn't even read it in one sitting.  Imagine having ALL the places in your life that you are deficient in put on paper.  I certainly would have a long list waiting for me to see!  But that is what an evaluation like this is.  Sure it has some 'strengths' and positive points.  But that is not the bulk of it all.  So then we take all of that and meet.  We meet with multiple people in a room.  A teacher that has been with our child most of the year, maybe another staff member that has as well.  The other 4 or 5 people in the room are 'experts' in their field.  No, they do not in anyway claim to 'know' our child.  They are also very careful to not compare her to another child.  Their job is to work towards figuring out the best way to educate our child.  We, as parents.. educated parents... involved parents.. are also interested in how to best educate our child.   We, as parents, have some thoughts and ideas on what that will look like.
    In passionate discussions, our visions were not the same.  They were similar, but not the same as the 'experts'.  Some experts did not want to see our 'way'.  As discouraged as we felt, it came down to 1 final thought for us.  We, as parents of this child that has been placed on loan to us from the Lord, are the #1 stakeholders in our child's life, next to the child.  In ANY other setting, the biggest stakeholder should really have the final say.  We, as parents and a family, will be the most affected(outside of our child) by our child's success in the education they receive.  So, bottom line.... this is OUR decision.  This is OUR responsibility.  It can seem easy to pass it along to the experts. In fact I found that in a lot of settings it is expected and pushed to let the experts decide. But this is OUR child.  So, we are going to do this OUR way.
   We are truly fortunate to have had experts with us in these meetings that in the end, understood where we were coming from.  This is not always the case.  We have been on the other side of that, where out of shear pride, the 'experts' were not going to see OUR side of what we felt was needed.  And we learned from that.  I think it was there we learned, we are the biggest stakeholders.  We have been entrusted with not just 1 child who needs us to work for them, but 4.  We are not so boastful to say we won't possibly have a moment of  'oh, maybe that wasn't the right plan.'  But when we know the desire's of our heart for our child are based on the faith we have in Jesus, we cannot deny that.
   So, be the stakeholder that champions for you children, your spouse, your family...and Jesus.