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I posted this in the 2e section, but realize this may be the best place so please forgive the duplication.
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Hi,

Looking for suggestions for what type of professional is the best go-to person for disagreements between parents on educational decisions.

The background info: I have a 7 year old son who has been identified as 2e son (adhd). We had a slew of problems the 1st few years of schooling, but now he seems to be doing better. I'm hopeful it stays that way and this ultimately becomes a non-issue. But....

I am in the middle of a very ugly, toxic separation from his father. I have no need to slam my ex but do want to mention that he has time and time again put vindictiveness and spite ahead of what's best for our son. With that in mind, we are in the process of writing up an official Allocation of Parental Responsibility for court. I am trying the best I can to put in protections for my son in case a major decision comes along down the road that we can't come to agreement on.

I had success with convincing the GAL (Guardian ad litem) that a mediator (i.e. attorney with mediation training) would not be the right person to understand my son's specific needs. So....the question then becomes.... who is the right person to render an opinion? Essentially, this would be the person who would make the final decision or recommendation to a judge. Would it be a neuro psychologist, clinical psychologist, education counselor??? Does it matter? Other than adding a requirement that the person must have experience working with the gifted population, is there anything else I should take into consideration.

Does anyone have any experience in this area or any suggestions?

THANKS,

Laura

I'm not sure what type of professional, but I would want to SPEFICY that the recommender have experience and training with giftedness, ADHD, twice exceptional students, and any other specific conditions that are subsequently diagnosed by a professional with experience with twice exceptional student (we see a pediatric neuropsychologist).

It might also be worth specifying how you would go about paying for this professional evaluation (split 50/50?), how recommendations will play into your children getting medical treatment, medication choices, frequency and type of therapy, and educational decisions.

FWIW I have two 2E kids and separated from my ex when they were 3 and 7, so I have BTDT with arguments over medication, therapy, and conditions diagnosed post-divorce. Technically my daughter's therapist didentified in the parenting agreement even has the power to make my ex come to therapy.

Also if you haven't thought about it, consider including some sort of plan for educational enrollment decisions and college savings. My lawyers said most people don't, but we did, because that's definitely a thing parents of teenagers are arguing about when they get there.

In some states, the court can designate an educational surrogate parent, or something similar, who is kind of like a GAL specifically for educational decisions. I don't know how it works exactly in divorce/separation cases, but in many state custody situations, there is both an ed surrogate parent and an ed advocate appointed by the courts. So one for decision-making, and one for advising. The ed advocate is usually someone with expertise in special education (special needs teacher, psychologist, speech therapist, etc.). You might investigate whether there is an existing system of this kind in your state.

As to some other kind of professional, I would agree that having 2e skills is critical. I would lean toward some kind of professional psychologist (neuro or school would be my personal bias).

BTDT parent experience. If the dad and you have disagreements, then this becomes matrimonial law/ special education law hybrid. One parent needs medical and educational final say. ADHD is a medical diagnosis that can adversely affect education. Districts only recognize the custodial parent that has educational custody.

There is no right person to render an opinion. You will need your expert witness and the dad will have his. Could be any expert, such MD, PsyD, PhD, teacher, social worker. It would be best to have 2e input, but the court is not going to require it. Also depends on who your judge/referee is. If you get a 60+yo that was never involved with his/her DC, then he/she will probably not have a good understanding of IDEA.

Feel free to PM me if you need to discuss further.

Thank you for the suggestions. There were some good comments that I'm planning on using. I think I have my search narrowed down to Rush Neurobehavioral Center (rnbc.org). It looks like it might hit the mark. By coincidence, one of the clinical psychologists happens to be the former supervisor to the guy that did my son's neuropshych eval. I also discovered that she wrote the following article which gives me some peace of mind. If anyone is familiar with them let me know.

https://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/blog/assessing-addressing-unique-needs-gifted-children

Again, thanks for the input!

Laura

It's a good point about who has final say. I have custodial authority for medical and educational decisions, which is great because I'm the person who does 100% of all school and medical stuff. My ex didn't want to be bothered with that stuff anyway.

I don't think I'd say that the court would "never" require someone with 2E. If you and your ex can agree on it, you can ask a judge to sign it into the legal document. We have several things in our document that other people said were weird or would never fly, but as long as ex and I agreed on them, so they mostly did. For example, we added a provision that if ex and I both agree, the kids can be on MY medical insurance instead of ex's, which has saved us a couple thousand dollars in the long run.