Yes, early intervention and early childhood special education offer such a great opportunity to start working with children and families at the very beginning. What we all do at the beginning certainly impacts the rest of the child’s and family’s journey – especially when we focus on the family communicate well with the parent, as you mentioned. Best of luck with your journey into ECSE!

So well said, Katie! You give some great reasons for why writing down the joint plan can be helpful. Thank you!

Good for you, Carolyn! I love what you said about how families are surprising themselves. You really give people hope that tele-intervention is a positive thing! And yay for not having to fight traffic!

I admit I was excited about using telepractice to enhance my coaching skills and encourage families to use the same applied improvisation I usually bring to their homes, and it’s been a good experience so far! I’m glad to see how many of my families are embracing this method of intervention. They are more willing to move from room to room so I can see more of the action and I feel less like I’m “stalking” them in their home, they are being creative about other ways to try strategies, and are, I think, surprising themselves with their capacity to teach their children new skills.

I find myself appreciating #7 for another reason. Not only am I being flexible with what happens in the session, I’m finding its been a positive experience being able to be more flexible scheduling sessions at times of the day that we had difficulty arranging before due to conflicts on my calendar or the challenge of fighting northern VA traffic. I’m seeing that this also contributes to families being more adventurous in asking me to support them in a variety of activities.

Hi Kerry, Thanks for sharing more about your experience. I could relate to what you shared! Cultivating patience for the parent and yourself resonated with me too. For example, prior to a telepractice, I taped on my wall all sorts of questions, some typed in font and colors I liked. Some examples included, “how did you feel that worked?”, “What did you notice?”, “Tell me more about that”, “what do you notice about his attention when he _______?”, “How did that feel?”, “What do you think about that?”. The first family I called, after this preparation, after the Joint Plan was reviewed, when I asked what they would like support to focus on today, said “I don’t know, can we just watch him play together for a little bit and then I can decide?”. Getting all geared-up for the session this beautiful statement that left me feeling humbled. I am not sure if it was the honesty, reflective nature, or what, but there we were, the father with his phone, me watching the child in silence. There was a moment when I really saw the value of deeply appreciating this child and family meeting them where they were. There were opportunities for me to have prompted the father with questions, but deferring, waiting together felt like we really were in-fact working together to understand this beautiful child and that neither one alone had all the answers. It was a big step for me because I also felt like I was leaving more space for him to lead and step into by saying “sure, that sounds great”. I also felt like it allowed me to trust him, that he will know what feels right, which he did. It reminded me about the reciprocal learning inherent in coaching. I noticed things in the child and his environment I had not before. Taking this quiet moment together for ten minutes was powerful for me and emphasized the value of patience, flexibility, giving a chance for what is most meaningful a given moment to float to the surface.