I think sometimes we special needs parents are getting the wrong message. We’re told that if we want to be effective, we should be the mama bear — fierce and protective. Or the victim, sad and pleading.
The course leader’s parable reminded me that I have other options, ones that actually might be more effective than anger or sadness.
Tag Archives: Family
Love, even when it’s hard
Lisa Belkin at the Huffington Post did a wonderful story on me, my family and my Care Map on Friday. So many good things are coming out of it: new friends, new thought partners, new mentors, new opportunities. In some ways, the impact is easiest to capture in the stats: 9,000 visits to the blog, …
Stages of grief and special needs parenting: Is acceptance all there is?
The stages of grief—the emotional progression following a loss made famous by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross—has often been applied to experience of special needs parenting. To those of you who aren’t raising kids with special needs this might seem really weird or just plain morose, ungrateful or unkind. I mean, nobody actually died, right? But although none …
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I get by with a little help from my friends
Researchers at Brigham Young University recently released findings that for people raising young children with disabilities, certain types of social relationships are typically more harmful and others more helpful for parents.
Plate techtonics
I’m on shaky ground this week, dizzy and disoriented. I can’t find a linear thread here so I toss out all these puzzle pieces hoping to make a coherent picture in the end. — Last week I jealously listened to a couple of parents on a panel share their memories of receiving their children’s diagnosis …
Is shared parenting in a special needs family possible?
With the same jarring sense of realization that I’ve left a load of laundry rotting in the washing machine, this Sunday’s Boston Globe article Learning to Share reminded me of my intention, pledged back in the last millennium, to equally share the parenting load when I became a mother. What’s shared parenting? As the article …
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