Helping Your Child Deal With Their Special Needs
"I feel like my child is identified by her condition."
Throughout the Building on Family Strengths Project, parents told us that other people's reactions to their child's special needs can be a challenge. They voiced concerns that their child's social life would be impacted by their condition, causing them to miss out on life experiences. In addition, parents found that their child needed to express strong emotions like frustration and fear about their condition.
Strategies
Many parents said it was important to make time for their child to 'just be a kid' and enjoy life. They did this by bringing their child's friends to their house, having their child attend a diagnosis specific camp or getting their child involved in activities. Other ideas from parents included:
- Help your child cope with painful situations - use a teddy bear to practice procedures on, use distractions such as talking about happy memories, singing songs, or story telling, bring along a comfort object (stuffed animal, blanket, or favorite toy), use physical closeness such as holding your child to provide safety
- Communicate mindfully with your child - get down on your child's level to communicate eye to eye, teach your child to communicate their feelings, model behaviors through your tone of voice, scripted responses, or being matter of fact about the condition, give your child compliments to re-affirm their ability to handle things
- Shift your perspective - look at your child's challenges and how they are viewed, adjust your expectations and priorities, teach your child that everyone has some kind of special needs, teach your child to "love themself for who they are"
- Be prepared - use a notebook, white board, or log book to manage information, arrange your schedule to try to make things happen without undue stress, plan on how you are going to interact with others, do research on outings before you go, create routines for your child
- Create communities of support for your child - find a special needs play group, have a facilitator or buddy for group or social situations, know where to go where your child will be accepted, build personal relationships with teachers and other parents
- Become an advocate - educate and raise awareness with your child's classmates and friends, model positive interactions for others such as how to greet your child, establish boundaries with others, balance your privacy with giving out important information
Reflect and act
It may help you to reflect on a specific challenge your child is facing. Below is a printable document to help you come up with your own strategies to help your child deal with the impact of their special health care needs.