The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree: What’s Said About Parents After They Leave the Room

Advocacy is hard. It’s murky, muddy, and often lonely terrain for most parents to navigate. They walk into meetings blindly, with shaking hands and heavy hearts, trying to make sense of systems designed to confuse. They enter rooms filled with professionals, people who hold the titles, the jargon, the authority, and are told to trust that “everyone here wants what’s best for your child.”

But behind the polished words and polite nods, something else happens. Parents are told half-truths, misled by omissions, and reassured with phrases that sound supportive but mean nothing in practice. They are told that “funding is limited,” that “supports are already in place,” and that “we’ll keep an eye on things.” These phrases become shields, ways for institutions to protect themselves while families are left to carry the consequences.

I have sat in countless school meetings where the conversation drifts, not to how we can support the student, not to what systemic barriers are in the way, but to the “real” problem: the parents.

Poor parenting.
Not enough discipline.
Inconsistent punishment.
Too much screen time.
Poor diet.
Not enough time outside.
Not enough sleep.

The list goes on.

I’ve watched as hours of precious meeting time get swallowed by this narrative, dissecting families’ personal lives instead of focusing on the child in front of us. It’s a comfortable deflection. It’s easier to believe a struggling child is the result of poor parenting than to turn inward and ask hard questions about how the system is failing them.

And once that seed is planted, the next step comes almost automatically: the school begins “getting the parents on the same page.” It sounds collaborative. It isn’t. Too often, it’s about bringing parents into alignment with the school’s perspective, not truly partnering to understand the child. The school positions itself as the expert, prescribing bedtimes, screen limits, diets, and behaviour plans, as though parenting “fixes” will erase systemic failures. The unspoken message is clear: if you would just follow our lead, your child would succeed.

But this is not a partnership. It’s control. And it’s a subtle form of gaslighting that convinces families to turn the work inward on themselves instead of demanding that the system change for their child.

When parents push back, ask questions, or dare to disagree, the tone changes. Suddenly, they’re labelled difficult, emotional, or unreasonable. Their credibility is quietly stripped away while their child’s story is rewritten to fit a narrative that absolves the system. And when the meeting ends and parents walk out the door, what’s said next cuts the deepest.

The whispers. The side glances. The laughter shared at the expense of a family’s pain. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” someone mutters. It’s said as a joke, but the harm it carries is devastating. That single sentence collapses the complex realities of disability, trauma, and systemic failure into a convenient lie that the child’s challenges are the parents’ fault.

No parent should be talked about this way, especially not in rooms where decisions about their child’s education and future are being made. Yet we accept it, because it’s more palatable than holding schools accountable. It’s easier than confronting chronic underfunding, an inaccessible curriculum, rigid policies, and the lack of real support.

Every time we shift the conversation away from systemic responsibility, we waste another opportunity to make change. Every time we blame parents, we give the system a free pass to keep failing children.

Disability is not the problem. Parenting in collaboration with a system that refuses to listen is. Understanding what your child needs is already hard enough. But nothing compares to the heartbreak of realizing that the very people who are supposed to help, those who promised partnership and inclusion, are the ones deepening the wounds.

When families leave these meetings, they don’t just walk away from a table. They walk away carrying shame that doesn’t belong to them, questions that go unanswered, and the crushing weight of knowing that they are being blamed for their child’s pain.

We have to do better. Because when systems turn hurtful instead of helpful, they don’t just fail parents, they fail children. And when that happens, everyone loses.

The harm doesn’t happen by accident.