Posts Tagged ‘Special Needs Child’
It’s Not That I’m Not Happy For You
I need to be real for a minute. It’s not that I don’t want to be around you. It’s not that I don’t like your kids. It’s not that I don’t love watching your kids grow up from afar. It’s not that I’m not happy for you. It’s just too hard. It’s too hard to see your children developing at a normal rate. There’s no speech and language delay. There is no vocal stimming. There are no show stopping meltdowns. You have kids who have a typical path to follow.…
Read MoreErase The Word
There are many things that you start to realize when becoming a mother to special needs children. You learn all in the ins and outs of your child. You learn how to survive from day to day. You learn all the official terms and acronyms…..IEP, BCBA, PCA, TSS, OT, PT, self-contained, inclusion, etc. You start to realize some things that were not even thought twice about, earlier in life. I started to see really quick how the world views people in the special needs community. I see how the world…
Read MoreThe World Deserves to Know Him
When we are out in public, I don’t worry about how my son will act. I don’t worry about his struggles or mannerisms. Or his uniqueness. Because I know exactly who he is and how he is going to behave. And that he is learning and growing. I know he will flap his arms in pure joy. I know he will run. And sit. And maybe feel the cool of the cement with his cheek. I know he will squeal. And hum. And laugh. I know he will wave to…
Read MoreIf Only My Parents Knew This
My mom and dad raised three children. My sister, Lauren, was the first-born, and then came my brother, Aaron, and lastly, me. My sister has Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a high functioning form of autism, diagnosed at the age of four. Like any daughter, there are things I wished my parents did differently. I wished they never got a divorce, I wished they worked together instead of spent their days fighting, and I wished they were able to take a step back from autism so that they could evaluate our…
Read MoreAt Almost Thirty, it Suddenly Feels Different.
This week is my birthday. I will be 27 years old. Almost 30 as my best friend keeps jokingly reminding me. I’ve always loved birthdays. I used to celebrate for the whole entire month. This year though, the thought of my birthday can bring me to tears. I find myself wondering, where has all of the time gone? When I got divorced, at 22, I was just a kid. I remember thinking, I have all the time in the world. I don’t need a man, anyway. I can do it all…
Read MoreAccepting Our Reality
It could be worse. I have repeated these four words while laying in bed crying, feeling helpless over my son’s recent autism diagnosis. All my hopes and dreams for his future no longer existed. What’s going to happen? I can’t explain the feeling that sets in, your child has a life long disability. The feeling of panic took over me. Some days consumed me. The sleepless nights and anxiety take a toll. It could be worse, he is healthy. Will he be a victim of discrimination, taken advantage of, mocked or hurt?? …
Read MoreLiving Behind Closed Doors
There’s a saying we’ve all heard before ‘behind closed doors’. It alludes to not knowing the entire story since there is something being handled in private. I suppose being the parent of a special needs child is much like that. We tend to lead two very separate lives. And sometimes we do it so efficiently and effortlessly so many are none the wiser. It doesn’t happen overnight. We slowly seem to adapt and overcome, but are we? For years my husband worked at a local prison that was close to…
Read MoreTo the Bus Driver I Do Not Know
You don’t understand how hard it is to let go of my child’s hand in the morning and hand him over to you. You don’t know how long it took me to make this decision…to let him ride the bus. Some may say it’s brave or courageous to trust another with your child’s life. I sometimes think it can be daring but also really unwise. In today’s world we live in, we must worry about things that could happen. Yes, I understand it’s hard for most parents to watch their…
Read MoreThere is so Much Beauty
I think about the beginning sometimes. When I first heard the word autism. It was in a lunch-and-learn at the nonprofit I worked at. I was eating a sandwich, minimally paying attention, when the woman started describing signs of autism in toddlers. As she ticked off a list of traits, I did everything I could to keep my cool. The only sign of my internal panic being the flush that turned my cheeks and neck a deep red. I could feel the heat radiating from my face. She was describing…
Read MoreProgress Over Perfection
Progress over Perfection. That’s a phrase I think about a lot. In the most challenging years of our son’s life, post autism diagnosis, it felt like we were frozen in time. Or moving backwards even. But never forward. Our son was in pain, but we didn’t know why or what. He didn’t sleep or communicate. He hurt himself and us. He rarely smiled. For years it seemed like he wasn’t made for this big, confusing world. And to top it off, the world didn’t seem to want him either. But…
Read More