Parent Responsibilities
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Participate in parent conferences and other education opportunities offered by the school. For the 2007-2008 school year, we will have four "family days" at school. During these days, parents will participate in teacher conferences, learning workshops, and student presentations. We recognize that it can be challenging to take time out of your schedule for this kind of commitment, but we believe your participation will significantly increase the benefit to your child, to your family,
and to the overall success of the program.
We will also contact you regularly by phone and email.
- Help your child to get eight hours of sleep each night. If he
struggles with sleep issues, seek medical and other advice.
Help your student develop a consistent bedtime and waking time.
Pay attention to activities or input (e.g., certain foods like
sugar or caffeine, video games, TV) that may inhibit his ability to get to sleep.
- Help your child to develop and sustain good nutrition and exercise habits.
Reduce intake of foods that are high in fat and sugar, and provide a balanced breakfast every day.
Avoid doughnuts, sweet rolls, and pre-packaged foods that do not have good nutrition.
Send your child to school with a healthy, balanced lunch. At home, help your
child get lots of physical activity, including walking,
playing games, biking, and other aerobic activities.
- Have regular consultations with a psychiatrist to explore the use of
medication or other neurochemical interventions to help your child's overall functioning. While not all adolescents benefit, medication is helpful to many of our students, and given the frequent changes that occur
during adolescence, ongoing consultation with a psychiatrist
can help with these changes. Note: The school does not require that students take medication.
- Learn about the DIR Model, including Floortime, as a way of interacting with
and relating to your child. The work of Stanley Greenspan and Serena Wieder
will enhance your parenting skills and help you to understand and participate
in the school's work more effectively.
We can suggest specific books, including The Challenging Child and Engaging Autism.
- Interact with your student on a daily basis according to the principles of Floortime. Floortime is an essential component of your child's education, and he needs as much of this interaction time as possible. We recommend regularly
scheduled sessions with your child on a daily basis.
We can help you learn how to do this better.
- Explore the use of outside therapies for your child and family. All of the students at school and their families can benefit from working with a mental health professional to talk and play with them to address issues of adolescence and of their specific developmental challenges. Many students can also benefit from working with an Occupational Therapist on a regular basis. While the school program is therapeutic in orientation, we cannot be an effective substitute for the individual focus of ongoing private therapy.
We can help you to assess what therapies and therapists might benefit your family.
- Participate actively in raising money to support the school. The actual cost of educating a student in this program is about $30,000. The school charges tuition of $21,000, meaning that for each student, we must raise $10,000. While the Director, the board, and the staff make a significant contribution to these efforts,
the school has set a goal for the parents of raising approximately $25,000 in 2007-2008.
- Limit your child's exposure to video games, computer games, movies, TV and other media. This does not mean that you should prohibit them entirely. However, given the uneven emotional development of many of our students, exposure to violence (in particular) in media often has a distorted effect, increasing aggressive tendencies and creating strong negative emotional reactions. Some of our students have even reported an awareness of this effect after exposure to violent movies and games. We recommend that you limit the total amount of time each day that your child watches TV or plays video games (to two hours or less). We also suggest that you pay close attention to the content your child watches, avoiding stories that focus on using violence to resolve
conflicts and that emphasize saving the world or achieving good through violent action.