When I am a teacher, I want to connect well with my student's families. One of the things I will do to learn about their families are ask the student's parents to tell me about their family while listening carefully to the people they mention. The people they mention are candidates for a partnership between myself and the family. Another thing I would want to do is ask the parent/parents about involving the extended family members, because by law, (the federal special education law), it gives rights to parents, not grandparents or uncles or aunts, to make the choices about the child's education. By seeing and acknowledging the levels of cohesion between and within a family's subsystem, I would be able to create a context that supports the family as a whole to satisfy its needs along with the child's. Also, by considering the degree of family cohesion, I can give or suggest appropriate services and supports to the family. Moving on, another thing I read about were IEP's. IEP's seem like a lot of time, effort, and work and they only are successful if everyone is on the same page. They also seem confusing for the children. In order for me to help my students understand what an IEP is I will provide them with specific and varied instruction about how to be a part of their own IEP meeting effectively. I will also use an opportunity mapping process with students who have significant disabilities and in transition planning. During these meetings, I would like to regard them as an exciting, creative opportunity to come up with new ideas, and solutions that are resourceful. The goal of these meetings it to create and strengthen the mutual trust between myself, other professionals, the parents and the child.