Karen Golembeski:: Michael, you mentioned your suggestion for 10 minutes of homework per grade. Can you tell us what that means?

Michael Kaczor: What that means is, as a child’s progressing from grade-to-grade, in first grade they should have no more than 10 minutes of homework per night. And sixth grade, that’s 60 minutes (an hour) of homework per night. That’s what’s recommended by national research as being the appropriate amount of homework.

Too often a child with LD or dyslexia, the child comes home from school and the parents end up re-teaching a seven- or eight-hour [school] day. The child will understand it completely, go back to school, and forget everything the next day. That’s one of the difficulties. The repetition is good, but if the child keeps spending 16 hours a day [learning at school and home], you’re going to get tired and frustrated and upset, and so is the child.

Karen Golembeski:That makes a lot of sense. How important do you think it is for dads to have a voice when it comes to discussions with school personnel? Does it help? Does is hurt? Does is matter to have dads at the table?

Michael Kaczor: Well, first of all, it matters and it matters greatly. Dads can impact an IEP team’s decision-making process simply by their presence. It's good that they inform themselves about their parental rights and procedural safeguards, so that they know their rights and as well as their children’s rights and education.

It’s very important to know these things because the [school] district – even though it’s their job to inform you of these rights, [they] often just hand you a piece of paper and ask you to sign it – that they gave you the piece of paper. That piece of paper is very important. It contains a breakdown of what your parental rights and procedural safeguards are. You should at least know those.

Know about your child’s disability. Know about what remediation is going to look like. If it’s a reading or writing disability, [ask], “What kinds of goals are we going to put in the IEP to address those needs?”

Karen Golembeski: You’ve given us a lot of great tips already, but if you had two tips to share with other dads or for other family members, what would they be?

Michael Kaczor: The first would be: Learn all about your parental rights and procedural safeguards. That's number one, because if you are not informed, you can't possibly make informed decisions for your child. And when you sit on an IEP team – the Individualized Education Program team -- you want to be able to make informed decisions. Always [remember]: The parent is the expert on their own child. Nobody knows more about your child than you do. You live with them day in day out, you've been there ever since they were born. Never ever let an IEP team tell you they know more about your child than you do.

The second thing I would say is that it’s important to keep your expectations high for your child. They read your eyes, they know your body movements. They know how you act spiritually, socially, emotionally. So if you have low expectations for your child, much like the study that was done back in ‘60s, called the Pygmalion effect or Pygmalion study, we know that those children will start having low expectations for themselves. So if you want your child to be president and that's your dream, keep that dream alive.

Karen Golembeski: Great. Michael, thank you so much for joining us today. You’ve given us so many great things to think about and hopefully have inspired other dads to participate more effectively with their children with learning disabilities and also pass the word around to other fathers to get more involved.