November is when it all comes out. The Halloween sugar crash, the "we survived the first quarter" exhaustion, the shorter days. By now, if your child's behavior support isn't solid, you already know it. Teachers know it too. I promise you, they're just as tired as you are.
I've read hundreds of Behavior Intervention Plans in my career, and I can tell you which ones were built with real thought and which ones were built from a template in the last ten minutes of a meeting. The template ones all sound the same with vague goals like "will use appropriate words," no baseline data and no mention of why the behavior is happening in the first place.
Here's what I want every parent to understand: behavior is communication.
It doesn't matter whether your child is autistic, has ADHD, is managing anxiety, has a language impairment that makes frustration boil over faster, or is navigating trauma. The "why" behind the behavior always matters more than the behavior itself. A good Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) figures out the why. A good BIP builds skills around it. A bad one just tries to make the behavior stop looking bad on paper.
I get it. Reading a BIP and knowing whether it's good or generic feels impossible when you're not trained in it. That's not a knock on you; it's a genuinely specialized skill, and it's one I've spent decades building. You shouldn't have to become a behavior analyst on top of everything else you're already carrying.
This month, before the holiday break stress hits:
Ask when the BIP was last updated with real data - not just re-signed at the annual meeting.
Ask how data is being collected (frequency count? duration? ABC chart?) and who's actually collecting it.
Watch for consequences dressed up as "strategies." A strategy teaches a replacement skill. A consequence just waits for the next incident.
And if you're already staring at a BIP that doesn't sit right with you, don't wait for the next incident report to do something about it.
Book a free 15-minute call with IEP Partner. Let's get eyes on it together before the holidays make everything harder.
