In this powerful and personal episode, Mark speaks directly to dads—through the lens of his own relationship with his father—to explore how the way we show up for our children shapes their identity, their confidence, and ultimately their life path.

Reflecting on the complexities of growing up with a father whose moods and expectations left a lasting impact, Mark shares an honest message: your child is not a finished product. They are learning, developing, and looking to you as their model.

This episode challenges dads to rethink how they interpret behavior and respond in the moment. What if your child isn’t being defiant—but struggling? What if the issue isn’t the behavior itself, but the story you’re telling about it?

Mark breaks down how shifting from reaction to intentional response can transform your relationship with your child—and prevent the kind of lasting emotional scars many carry into adulthood.

You’ll also hear practical strategies for making this shift, even if it doesn’t come naturally:

1. How to reframe your child’s behavior as communication
2. The power of the pause in high-stress moments
3. Why separating behavior from identity matters
4. How curiosity can replace correction
5. The importance of pre-deciding your responses
6. Why doing your own internal work is essential

For fathers of children with special needs, this message becomes even more critical. Behavior is often communication, and your ability to stay regulated can help your child find their way back from overwhelm.

Mark also addresses a topic that often goes unspoken—the imbalance in parenting load. In many households, especially those raising children with additional needs, one parent (often the mother) carries the majority of the mental and emotional weight. This episode challenges dads to step out of the role of “helper” and into true co-ownership—sharing responsibility, learning their child deeply, and being present not just physically, but emotionally.

Because this isn’t just about parenting—it’s about partnership, leadership, and legacy.

Key Takeaways:

1. Your child is a learner, not a learned person
2. Behavior is often communication, not defiance
3. Your reaction is shaped by your own experiences and triggers
4. A pause can change everything
5. Connection fuels cooperation
6. You don’t have to do this alone—but you do have to take ownership
7. Supporting your partner is part of supporting your child

At the heart of it all is one message:

Your child may not remember every mistake they made—but they will remember how you responded to them when it mattered most.

Connect with Mark:

1. Website: specialedrising.com
2. Podcast: Special Ed Rising: No Parent Left Behind!
3. Email: specialedrising@gmail.com
4. Social: @specialedrising

If this episode resonated with you, share it with another dad who needs to hear it.

Welcome to Special Ed Rising: No Parent Left Behind.

I’m Mark Ingrassia—special educator, advocate, and parent coach. For nearly forty years, I’ve sat at IEP tables, managed classrooms, and stood beside families when the stakes were real. And I can tell you this: families deserve better information, better support, and better systems.

This podcast exists to make sure no parent walks this journey alone.

We talk strategy and broken structures.

Stress, mindset, and resilience.

What real inclusion actually looks like.

And how to build parents into confident leaders for their children.

Because real solutions require more than one viewpoint, I bring together diverse and experienced voices from across education, healthcare, advocacy, policy, and parenting to strengthen the conversation.

If you’re raising, teaching, or supporting someone with disabilities—you’re in the right place.

Welcome. Let’s get to work.

In this episode I want to speak to the dads. This week is the fourth anniversary of my father’s passing. The end for him was difficult. He suffered from symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease that gradually took his mobility and his strength. It was tough on the family, but for me, as his primary caretaker and absorber of his erratic moods and swaths of anger at times, it was a huge challenge for me to keep perspective, even after decades of life lessons and cultivated patience.

My dad and I had a contentious relationship starting from my middle school years to the end of his life and several big moments left their scars. I always wanted it to be better but I was forever swimming upstream in my attempts to get his approval. I do have some happy memories from when I was a small boy and there were some joyful moments throughout our time together. Sadly, those are the harder ones to get a clear image of now.

Living in ignorance of his mood, day to day, meant living in a knot of unease. For me the mixed messages on a sometimes daily basis regarding my worth were like a battering ram to my ego and self-worth. I was his legacy but he didn’t get it. Some men of his time, and no doubt today still, are seemingly unaware of the power they possess in influencing the development and life path of their children. They are the gps setting and their example will influence the directions their offspring will choose.

Dad was of a generation where men rarely searched inward or questioned their choices. As a result he cycled through the same behaviors that were extreme ends of good and bad moods. The good moods were highly elevated and the bad moods left emotional carnage. I’m telling a story that many from my generation could relate to chapter and verse; the stalwart dad who knew all and was not to be questioned or challenged.

I couldn’t live up to my father’s expectations unless I traveled the road most traveled in his mind and so I was destined to fail no matter what I did. Even when he bowed to my professional choice of teaching he saw it, I believe, as nice rather than practical because it was not the most fruitful financially.

Being more the temperament of a sensitive artist than the engineer —probably set us up for battles. From the start I was not one to do something I wasn’t comfortable doing. I had some agency even as a child and additionally I did not respond to injustice; for myself or anyone else. So I spoke up or shut down. Seeing the world differently, paired with that stubborn streak in me, didn’t make things easier in a relationship between two strong-minded people. The only problem with this is that I was a boy who knew nothing about life other than to react to my feelings in the moment and he was an adult who we might assume should be more developed in his understanding of the differences between us and the roles each of us played; his being to model, teach and love and mine being to be a purely myself, observe and absorb that example.

The purpose of this episode is not to bash my father. He struggled no doubt and he was ultimately there for me despite my having to jump through his hoops at times to gain that support; but he did usually come through for me. At his best he could be funny and fun. He just didn’t know how to relax enough and enjoy what he had. His motto was that, there is always something to do and thus the never ending cycle of reactionary days. I continue to work though my relationship with my dad in trying to gain perspective in hopes of feeling better about us.

The purpose of this episode is to help you avoid the pitfalls in a relationship like mine and my father’s. As I tell the dads I work with, you don’t want to be remembered for your anger and how harsh you handled your child’s behaviors and tendencies. There is a way to avoid that. It is to slow things down and reframe something a lot of dads don’t realize in the moment—you created a child, not a finished product. Communication doesn’t equal maturity. Just because your child can argue, negotiate, or even sound “grown” doesn’t mean they have the emotional regulation, perspective, or impulse control of an adult. They’re still learning how to be in the world.

And that matters, because the way you interpret their behavior becomes the way you respond to it.

If you look at your child as defiant, disrespectful, or manipulative, your reaction is going to match that story. But if you understand that you’re dealing with a learner—not a learned person—it changes everything. Now you’re not in a battle. You’re in a teaching moment.

Think about it this way. If your guitar falls over, you don’t pick it up and smash it because it didn’t “do what it was supposed to do.” You check it. You adjust it. Maybe you realize the stand was off, or you placed it wrong. There’s thought. There’s care. There’s ownership.

But with kids, we sometimes skip that step. We go straight to reaction.

Your child spills something, ignores a direction, talks back, melts down in the worst possible moment—and it feels personal. It feels intentional. It hits something in you. That’s where most reactions come from. Not the behavior itself, but what it triggers in you.

Because here’s the truth—reactions are rarely about just the moment. They’re layered. Your stress. Your upbringing. The way you were spoken to. The expectations you carry. The pressure you’re under. All of that can show up in a split second.

So when your child does something frustrating, the real question isn’t just “Why are they doing this?”

It’s:

What are they trying to communicate?

What skill are they missing right now?

And what is this bringing up in me?

For example, a child who refuses to do homework might not be “lazy.” They might be overwhelmed, embarrassed, or lacking confidence. A child who talks back might not be “disrespectful”—they might be trying to assert independence without knowing how to do it appropriately. A child who melts down in public isn’t trying to ruin your day—they’ve lost regulation and don’t yet have the tools to recover.

Those are infractions of a learner.

And your response in those moments becomes part of their blueprint. Not just for behavior, but for identity. How they see themselves. How they handle mistakes. How they respond to pressure.

That’s the legacy piece.

Because legacy isn’t what you say to your child when things are calm. It’s how you show up when things are hard. It’s whether they experience you as someone who teaches or someone who reacts. Someone who regulates or someone who escalates.

A well-thought-out response has a much better chance of landing because it’s intentional. It creates space. It gives you a second to separate your child’s behavior from your internal reaction.

That pause—even if it’s just a breath—is powerful.

It might sound like:

“Alright… what’s actually going on here?”

instead of

“Why are you doing this again?!”

It might look like getting lower, softening your tone, and saying:

“Hey, something’s off. Talk to me.”

instead of escalating the moment.

And that doesn’t mean you don’t hold boundaries. You absolutely do. But boundaries taught through calm, clarity, and consistency stick a lot more than ones delivered through frustration and volume.

Because your child’s job isn’t to regulate your emotions in real time. They don’t have that capacity yet. It’s not their role to shift themselves to meet your needs in a heated moment.

It’s your role to model what regulation looks like.

And when you start asking, “What does my child need right now?” instead of “How do I stop this behavior right now?”—you move from control to connection. From reaction to leadership.

That shift doesn’t just change the moment.

It shapes the path.

What we’re really asking here is—how do you as a dad move from reacting to leading? And the truth is, that shift doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built moment by moment, with intention. You’re not trying to become a different person—you’re trying to become a more aware version of yourself in the moments that matter most.

It starts with the story you tell yourself. Most reactions don’t come from the behavior itself—they come from the meaning you attach to it. If your child ignores you and your immediate thought is, “He’s disrespecting me,” your reaction is going to come in hot. But if you can train yourself to say, “He’s struggling with something right now,” or “He doesn’t have the skill yet,” everything changes. Now you’re not in a power struggle—you’re in a teaching moment. That’s a small shift, but it’s a powerful one. I always come back to this idea: this is a learner, not a learned person.

From there, you’ve got to build in a pause. This is probably the most practical tool you have. You don’t need to walk away for ten minutes or sit in meditation—you need three to five seconds. One breath. Drop your shoulders. Lower your voice. That pause isn’t for your child—it’s for you. It interrupts that surge of emotion that makes you snap, raise your voice, or overcorrect. The dads who lead well aren’t the ones who never get triggered—they’re the ones who’ve trained themselves not to act on that trigger immediately.

Another big piece is separating behavior from identity. Kids do things—they are not the things they do. When a child hears, “What’s wrong with you?” or “You’re being bad,” that sticks. But when they hear, “That choice didn’t work—let’s figure it out,” you’re holding the line without attacking who they are. And here’s the truth—kids who feel safe are teachable. Kids who feel attacked either shut down or push back harder.

You also want to get curious before you get corrective. Instead of jumping straight into discipline, slow it down and ask, “What’s going on here?” or “What made that hard for you?” Even if they can’t fully answer, it changes your posture. You’re not assuming—you’re trying to understand. Because a lot of what we label as bad behavior is really frustration, fatigue, anxiety, overload, or just a missing skill.

Another strategy that helps a lot is pre-deciding how you’re going to respond. Most of us get into trouble because we’re making decisions in the heat of the moment. That’s when emotion takes over. But if you already know, “When homework gets refused, this is how I respond,” or “When there’s backtalk, this is what I do,” you take the guesswork out of it. Your response becomes calm, consistent, and repeatable instead of reactive.

And then there’s the deeper layer—the part most people don’t want to look at. Your reactions are often echoes. How you were spoken to, how mistakes were handled in your house, what respect looked like growing up—that all lives in you. If you don’t examine that, you’ll repeat it automatically. This isn’t about blaming your past—it’s about understanding it so you don’t pass it on unchecked.

Connection is another piece that can’t be skipped. If your child feels connected to you, they are far more likely to listen, to cooperate, and to trust what you’re teaching. That doesn’t require anything complicated. It’s time, attention, entering their world a bit, letting them feel seen without always correcting or directing. Connection isn’t extra—it’s the foundation.

And this becomes even more important when you’re parenting a child with special needs. Because in those situations, behavior is often communication. What looks like defiance might actually be overload. What looks like ignoring you might be processing delays. What looks like a meltdown might be a nervous system that’s completely overwhelmed. If you meet that with intensity, things escalate quickly. But if you meet it with regulation—if you stay grounded—you’re actually lending your child your nervous system in that moment. You’re helping them find their way back.

So when things start to go sideways, keep it simple. Pause. Remind yourself this is a learner. Get curious about what’s underneath. Respond calmly and clearly. And then teach later, not in the heat of the moment.

You’re not going to get this perfect. No one does. But over time, it’s the pattern that matters. Because your child won’t remember every mistake they made—but they will remember how you responded to them when it mattered most. And that becomes part of who they are.

If a dad feels like, “I hear all this… but I don’t think I can do it on my own,” that’s not a weakness—that’s actually awareness. And that awareness is the starting point.

Because this kind of shift—going from reactive to intentional, from triggered to regulated—isn’t just a parenting tweak. It’s internal work. And internal work is hard to do in isolation, especially when you’re already overwhelmed, stressed, or carrying your own history into the moment.

So the first thing is this: you don’t try to muscle through it alone. You build support around you.

That can look a few different ways.

It might mean talking to someone—a therapist, a coach, a mentor—someone who can help you unpack your reactions without judgment. Someone who can help you see the patterns you don’t notice in yourself. Because we all have blind spots, especially when it comes to how we show up under pressure.

It might mean finding other dads who are trying to do this differently. Not surface-level conversation, but real conversation. The kind where you can say, “I lost it this week,” and instead of being met with silence or jokes, you get, “Yeah, me too—let’s figure it out.” That kind of accountability changes things. It normalizes the struggle while still pushing you forward.

It might even start smaller than that. One person. One space where you can be honest about what’s hard.

And then there’s learning—real, intentional learning. Not just consuming content, but actually applying it. Listening to something like this and then asking yourself, “Where did I react today? What was underneath that?” That reflection piece is where growth actually happens.

Because here’s the truth—most dads don’t need more information. They need support implementing what they already know.

Another piece is creating structure for yourself, the same way you’re trying to create it for your child. If you know transitions are hard, if you know certain behaviors trigger you, don’t wait for the moment to figure it out. Plan for it. Decide ahead of time what you’re going to do, and even say it out loud to someone else. That builds accountability.

And maybe most importantly—you give yourself some margin.

You’re going to mess this up sometimes. You’re going to react. You’re going to say something you wish you didn’t. That doesn’t disqualify you from doing this work—it’s part of it.

What matters is what happens next.

Do you double down on it? Or do you come back, repair, and try again?

Because repair is powerful. When a dad can go back to his child and say, “Hey, I didn’t handle that well. I’m working on it,” that models more than perfection ever could. It shows accountability. It shows growth. It shows that mistakes aren’t the end—they’re part of the process.

And for dads of children with special needs, this support piece becomes even more critical. The demands are different. The stress can be higher. The behaviors can be more intense or more misunderstood. Trying to carry that alone is a fast track to burnout.

You need people who understand the layers—who get that it’s not just parenting, it’s navigating systems, therapies, behaviors, uncertainty. Being around others who understand that reality helps you stay grounded and reminds you that you’re not the only one figuring it out as you go.

At the end of the day, this shift doesn’t happen because you decide once. It happens because you keep showing up, you keep reflecting, and you let other people support you in the process.

You don’t have to do it alone.

And honestly—you’re not supposed to.

The last piece of this conversation that doesn’t get talked about enough is—how you show up not just as a dad, but as a partner. Because in a lot of families, especially when you’re raising a child with special needs, the weight doesn’t fall evenly. One parent ends up carrying more. And in many male-female partnerships, that weight tends to land more heavily on the woman.

Not always—but often enough that it needs to be said out loud.

We’re talking about more than just time spent. This is the mental load. The invisible work. The appointments, the emails, the therapy schedules, the school communication, the anticipating of needs, the remembering of details, the emotional regulation of the household. It’s constant. And when one person is holding most of that, it adds up fast—into exhaustion, into frustration, and sometimes into resentment.

So the question becomes—what do you do about it?

First, you acknowledge it. Not defensively. Not by comparing who’s more tired or who worked longer that day. You step back and ask, “What are you carrying right now that I’m not seeing?” And then you listen. Really listen. Because a lot of times, your partner isn’t asking for help anymore—they’re asking to not be alone in it.

That leads to the next shift—moving from being a helper to being a co-owner.

Helping is reactive. It’s, “Tell me what you need and I’ll do it.”

Ownership is proactive. It’s, “This is mine to carry too.”

That might look like fully taking on certain responsibilities—appointments, school communication, bedtime routines, therapy follow-ups—and owning them start to finish. Not assisting. Not checking in constantly. Owning.

Because every time your partner has to delegate, remind, or follow up, they’re still carrying it.

Another piece is learning your child at a deeper level. Knowing the triggers, the strategies, what works, what doesn’t, what the plan is when things go sideways. When that knowledge lives in only one parent, that parent can never truly step away. They’re always “on.” But when both parents understand it, there’s real relief. There’s space to breathe.

And then there’s presence. Not just physical presence—but emotional presence.

Sometimes support isn’t fixing anything. It’s recognizing the moment and stepping in. It’s saying, “I’ve got this—go take a break.” It’s noticing when your partner is at capacity before they have to say it out loud. That kind of awareness can change the entire tone of a household.

And here’s the reality—if this imbalance goes unaddressed, it doesn’t just affect your partner. It affects your child. Because a burned-out parent has less capacity. Less patience. Less regulation. And in a home where the demands are already high, that matters.

But when you step in more fully—when you share the load in a real, consistent way—you’re not just helping your partner. You’re strengthening the entire system your child depends on.

This isn’t about keeping score. It’s not about perfection. It’s about recognizing that this only works long-term if it’s shared.

And if you’re a dad in that position, the question isn’t, “How can I help more?”

It’s, “What can I take ownership of so we’re not carrying this unevenly anymore?”

At Special Ed Rising I’m here for you. Happy to listen and guide you. Feel free to reach out.