The new school year can be an exciting time- new grade, new teachers, new classmates, new opportunities. Though, as students and teachers start settling into their new year and routines, some parents may find themselves hearing that their child is struggling in their new classroom. Whether it’s academic or social challenges, it can make many caregivers of students feeling confused, worried, lost, and many times, alone. 

That’s what led Portland parent and Shadow Project community partner, Scotti Weintraub, to start Reframe Parenting. Members of The Shadow Project have gotten to know Scotti over the past few months as we work with community members to plan for our future as an organization and how to best serve our students through our school programs. Recently, The Shadow Project sat down with Scotti to hear more about her, Reframe Parenting, and the supports she provides to parents and caregivers. 

Q: Can you share a bit about yourself? 

I’m Scotti Weintraub. I’m the founder of Reframe Parenting, and I’m also the mom of two teen boys who both have struggled in their own ways in school, which was the motivation for me starting Reframe Parenting.

Q: What is Reframe Parenting and what led you to creating it? 

When my oldest was young he had some challenges. I wasn’t finding the support and the information that I needed at school. It became pretty frustrating as a parent because I’m not an educator in a school setting, and I didn’t know what to do. After a lot of researching, a lot of reading and studying and just really talking to everyone I could about how to get him the support that he needed in school, I feel like we eventually found some success. But it was way more work than it should have been. And the more I talked to other people about that, the more that I found that other people were struggling, too, when their kids were having trouble at school.

Hearing this made me feel less alone, but it also made me realize that this need is huge, that parents need information and solid resources. A lot of parents don’t know what they can ask for, what is available to them, and what questions to ask in a school setting to get their kids the support they need to figure out what’s going on and to help them succeed. 

My goal behind Reframe Parenting is simply that other parents have an easier road than I had. It is very important to me that parents feel empowered to speak up for their kids, that they have access to high quality information. 

After casually helping other parents, I realized that there was this huge need, and about a year and a half ago I launched Reframe Parenting. So I am a parent coach, and I help other parents simply figure out how the heck to support their kids at school.

Q: What inspired the name, “Reframe Parenting?” 

The inspiration for the name Reframe Parenting was really that I feel like if we look at our kids in slightly different ways, their challenges in particular, in slightly different ways that it just opens up conversations instead of shutting doors.

Reframing, I believe, is just so critical as parents to really be able to see who our kids are, not who we are or were when we were kids. Seeing their unique challenges and strengths can help us better support them at school.

Q: What supports does Reframe Parenting provide parents and caregivers?

One thing is, I do one-on-one personalized coaching for parents. This involves helping parents figure out what’s going on. Some of that involves digging into things, like: What are we observing? What is behind what we’re actually seeing? Is there a behavior that we’re seeing that might indicate something else is going on? There’s some discovery that happens in that process and then strategizing and carrying out some action steps around asking questions, figuring out how to get that support in school. 

I have also hosted small workshops, like a Back-to-School Bootcamp that featured speakers talking on a whole bunch of different topics related to back to school.

I also have free resources on my website, including a School Struggle Checklist, which is five questions that families can ask themselves if it feels like something is not working right.

I also have an upcoming “Kickstart School Success Bundle” bundle premiering in October, which will be a free opportunity for parents to get access to resources from a bunch of different folks who support families.

Q: As a member of our Strategic Planning Committee and a parent, how do you believe The Shadow Project can best support parents of children with learning challenges? 

I think information is a huge one. I think that teacher education and communicating with schools is obviously vital to supporting those students, but parents often are not even knowing what it is that they’re doing in school. I think parents are a key piece of the puzzle in school support that often gets overlooked.

The one thing I have found in this work, is that information is often very siloed, especially if your child has a very particular diagnosis. There’s information that’s about dyslexia, there’s information about autism spectrum disorder, but there isn’t often a way to cross-pollinate all that information. If you don’t even know, for instance, that your child has dyslexia, you just know that they’re having a hard time at school, and reading is really hard, and no one’s said, “Maybe this child has dyslexia,” it can be hard to even know that what they’re looking for is dyslexia information. Sometimes parents know what’s happening, sometimes they don’t, so to help them figure that piece out and point them towards the right information and resources and professionals who can help them is important.

To learn more about Scotti Weintraub and Reframe parenting, check out reframeparenting.com There you can sign up with your email address to get the School Struggle Checklist, and also the Reframe Parenting email list. The emails include information, resources, conversations around school support issues. You can also find her on Instagram at: ReframeParenting. 

Keep an eye out for Reframe Parenting’s “Kickstart School Success Bundle,” which will include free resources from different people who support families, coming in October. The Shadow Project will be sharing more great resources and opportunities with Scotti in the future!