Stanford Developmental Pediatrician Consultation

We visited the Stanford Children's Hospital last Tuesday - August 23rd for a consultation with a Developmental Pediatrician. We waited almost 4 months to get this appointment and my husband and I took time off work to take Ethan to Palo Alto taking almost 2 hours in rush hour traffic.  We weren't sure what to expect, perhaps it was to hear something different about Ethan's development that we hadn't heard before, secretly hoping that they would have a magical answer that would unlock our son's potential. Wishful thinking that abruptly ended when Dr. Loe expressed concern about Ethan's plateauing milestones and a wall he seems to have hit.  The value in our visit was this reality check and subsequent discussion of what our rights were as parents in the IEP process.  We had no idea that by law, assessments by the school district should be done every three years; it had been over 2 years since Ethan had a formal assessment. We felt that we have wasted the last 3 years of Pre-K not questioning why the school seemed so nonchalant about Ethan's lack of progress, this whole time we should have been pushing for more services, trying new things, not being afraid to push back and demand the best for our son.  As parents it is our responsibility to be his advocate and voice when the system tries to pretend everything is ok, the harsh reality is that in a system full of bureaucracy and red tape we had let him down. This was a wake up call and lit a flame under us to research the heck out of what our rights are in the IEP process.  We realized that day that Ethan needs us to be a stronger voice for him and that we won't stand idle when either the county, school district, Kaiser, insurance companies, whomever tries to slow us down.  Even though the development pediatrician didn't really tell us anything new about our son's health that we hadn't already heard, it was us who developed a little bit as parents.