An IEP meeting can be five professionals, a thick document, and a schedule; everyone in the room chose work that serves children, and the format still pulls toward deficits and boxes. Your work is to keep one person visible through it. Read your three verbs aloud early: what your child does that no assessment measures. Ask for plain language every time you need it: "Could you say that the way you'd say it to a neighbor?" is a complete, respectful sentence, and a meeting you could not fully follow is a meeting that is not finished. Put your words in the document: the IEP has a place for parent input, and from the middle years on it becomes a family-and-student paragraph. Let your companion steady you and take notes. Take the document home before signing; a plan worth signing is worth a night's sleep. When the conversation disappears into the plan, bring it home with: "Can we talk about what this looks like for him on a Tuesday?"