Search Results for: blog ten ways a special needs child will change you forever

The Future is the Present Before You Know It

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I went to the park with my toddler and my baby today, and had a great time. The weather was beautiful and we met some friends there. Usually, my little man loves to be outside, and sit in his stroller and watch the other kids run around. Today, I got a little glimpse into future park play dates. Recently, my baby has gotten to be quite squirmy. He wants to be on the move even though he can’t even crawl yet! He is rolling over though, and I’ve decided really needs his space. He kept fussing in the stroller for … Continue reading →

Tips to Make Christmas Easier on Kids with Autism

There are plenty of things about Christmas that can be very stressful for kids who have an autism spectrum disorder. Their “system” gets thrown off when there is no school. Here are a few tips that can help make Christmas a bit easier on a child who has autism. Let’s face it: Christmas is one holiday that can easily takeover one’s daily experiences. From the perspective of a child who has autism, this can be stressful, anxiety producing, and perhaps even too much to deal with. Kids get a few weeks off of school at Christmastime. This means that the … Continue reading →

How to Cope With Your Child’s Diagnosis

Your child has just been diagnosed with a developmental disorder, or with a mental disorder, or with a serious health condition. This is going to be a traumatic experience for any parent to go through. Here are some suggestions about how to cope with this knowledge. Perhaps you always had a “feeling” that something was “different” about your child. Maybe you have taken your child to see doctors and specialists, in order to confirm or deny your suspicion. You might have visited with a psychologist or other mental health practitioner who observed your child. After all this, you finally get … Continue reading →

Parents of Special Needs Children Count Their Blessings

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When your child is diagnosed with a special need, it changes you. It strips you of the dreams you had and tosses you into a scary world full of a new vocabulary and a ton of doctors. It makes you doubt yourself and God. But after the dust settles, you begin to grow and learn, and if you’re open to it, having a child with special needs will help you become a more grateful, happier person. You are Stronger than You Think Even wallflowers turn into untiring advocates for their child with special needs. Trying to make sure your child … Continue reading →

How to Parent Adult Step Children

Almost thirty years ago, Robert married a woman who had five grown children. No big deal, right? They ranged in age from mid-twenties to mid-thirties, so they had all been on their own for many years. They appeared to be well-adjusted, independent, responsible adults. They lived locally, and Robert and his wife socialized with them on a regular basis. So what was the problem? It turns out that there were many, but primary among them was the fact that his wife’s family was, what the shrinks would call, enmeshed. They were ‘all up in’ one another’s business—they spoke to one … Continue reading →

Book Review: All About Adoption:How Families Are Made and How Kids Feel About It

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All About Adoption: How Families Are Made and How Kids Feel About It is a book from Magination Press, which specializes in titles helping children understand tough situations or deal with feelings. (Magination Press is also the publisher of Maybe Days, a Book about Foster Care.) All About Adoption authors Marc Nemiroff and Jane Annunziata are both clinical psychologists specializing in families and children. All About Adoption starts out by saying “there are lots of different ways to have a baby. ..some parents have one baby..and some parents have two or three babies all at once. “Babies grow inside a … Continue reading →

Considerations in Adopting When You Already Have Children: Emotional Risk

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I believe some types of adoption that would have been fine for us if we’d been adopting our first child are not fine for us now that we have other children. My last blogs have talked about birth order and spacing and safety issues. Here I will speak about emotional issues. Adoption can be a roller coaster of emotions, for your children as well as for you. The issues I will address here are: permanence issues and fears, and medical issues. I personally would not accept a legal-risk foster-adopt placement now that I have children. In a domestic infant adoption … Continue reading →

Thoughts on Raising a Child with Special Medical Needs

It was 14 years ago on June 14, 1994 when we learned that our son was born with something wrong. We had no idea what that something was until the doctors ran some tests and found that he had Velocardiofacial Syndrome (also known as Shprintzen Syndrome). He couldn’t keep his formula down, and he was not gaining weight. Doctors had to insert a feeding tube through his nostrils (NG tube) so he could be fed. Later the doctors had to surgically insert a tube into his stomach (G tube). My wife and I are glad we did not know what … Continue reading →

The Magic of Storytelling

Once upon a time, before Mario Party, Zelda, and World of Warcraft, before Nintendo DS Lights, Wii, Sony Playstations, and video I-pods, and even before television and radio, there lived storytellers. Now, storytellers were an interesting breed of human beings, who looked pretty much like everybody else, except for a certain mysterious sparkle in their eyes. People, especially children, would eagerly gather around to hear their tales of enchantment, misfortune, romance, adventure, and luck. The storyteller was animated. The storyteller was passionate. She made her voice dance with magic and her face glow with expression. She took every listener along … Continue reading →

A Picture Book for Kids with Juvenile Diabetes

I am very excited about a project I’m working on with my mentor and hero, Rick Walton. Rick has a son with juvenile diabetes, and I have two, and because we write picture books, we decided to join forces and create a book for very young children who are newly-diagnosed with the disease. The book will be donated to kids in the hospital, as a gift inside the “bags of hope” which contain items to help these newly-diagnosed children (and their parents) cope. Pitching the Book Although we had seen picture books written about diabetes, we hadn’t seen one specifically … Continue reading →