It was 2012, South Sudan (a country in Africa) was only a year old at that point. I was in a refugee camp on the border of South Sudan and Sudan. Refuges were flooding into the camp daily by the thousands, as tanks were attacking only 8 km away. I met Beauty as I was helping lead a trauma healing program for the refugees. Beauty came to our workshop so she could be trained to help her family and tribe... Read more
One thing is true about parenting. We don’t know more than we know. Think about it. Johnny is having a hard time because he lost an argument with his brother. Do you … check if the rules of good conversation were adhered to, and punish whoever wasn’t a good sport? add more coping mechanisms to his in home therapy program tell Johnny that’s how life is? listen to Johnny and encourage him to tell his brother how he feels about... Read more
We recently got this comment on our Facebook page: This is a VERY optimistic and maybe unrealistic point of view. I’m sick and tired and just want a little dose of normal. Everyone puts a good foot forward when in a group, but in reality, we aren’t really very happy people. Over it. I wondered how true that was for special-needs parents. Are we faking it? Are we happy? Should we be? My older sister has Down syndrome, so I’ve... Read more
Ryan was meeting a girl at a coffee shop. They had been communicating online and this was the first time they were to meet in person. We arrived at the coffee shop a few minutes early. Ryan wanted to get inside to get his chair settled under the table before she arrived. I followed him as he rolled through the door and up to the table. Once settled, he looked up at me and said, “You can go now mom.”... Read more
I know this sounds shallow. I really can’t believe that I am admitting this to you but I am battling some grief over finding out our last family member who has had no prior diagnoses has been diagnosed with a rare disorder. I don’t know why this matters so much to me or why I’m taking it so hard. Perhaps my perspective is skewed. Maybe I have put hope in this one person who didn’t have the struggles that the... Read more
The words that Christian parents dread hearing just passed by my teenage daughter’s lips. “I don’t know if I even believe in God … and I’m not going to church,” she said, with a frightening (to me) confidence in her voice. My heart sunk. I feared this could happen because Katie faced emotionally painful challenges during childhood that were never fully resolved. God had not answered her prayers in the way she hoped (curing her high-functioning autism—or at least stopping... Read more
“My wife thinks our son has autism.” It was morning and I was sitting in the office of a colleague of mine. He had just asked how I was doing and that was my reply. There was a disassociation there, as I didn’t want to believe it yet. It took me longer to accept the diagnosis than what it did for Sarah. For Sarah, the diagnosis was a relief because it gave direction and helped her better understand what was... Read more
In the last four weeks, our family was hit by a series of health whammies. My husband’s hip replacement surgery was expected, but the others—Mom’s accelerated decline, painful back and neck issues for me, and the virus hitting my daughter and her kids—were not. I was tempted to lay in bed and binge watch my favorite television show, Parks and Recreation, even after my back and neck recovered. Thanks to my parents, I knew the importance of keeping a family connected to... Read more
People say ignorance is bliss. Sometimes it is, I suppose, but other times, it is something else: a crutch. A cave. A convenient excuse. In my early days as an autism dad, the complexity of autism afforded me an opportunity to hide behind my own lack of understanding and remain passive. Autism was too complicated, I decided, and the research too contradictory, so what was the point of trying to learn? Thus, I gave in to ignorance and did what... Read more
We see the posts every time we log on: “My daughter just made honor roll AGAIN! Woo-hoo!” “Check out my son dominating the dojo this weekend. He got second place!” “My kids just won a Nobel Prize for curing a rare auto-immune disease!” Parental pride can be a beautiful thing, but sometimes we special needs parents feel a bit of a sting when we encounter it from other parents. In fact, it can feel downright hurtful when we start to... Read more
Not Alone: Special-Needs Parenting
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