Community Corner
Celebrate the Children that Make All the Difference
Children with special needs are an important part of our families and communities.
There are so many amazing parents around the world and especially in our community. I have had the pleasure of getting to know many of them through local playgroups while I am home with my two kids on maternity leave. I wanted to focus this week, however, on parents of children with special needs.
As parents, we all have days where we may feel frustrated or inadequate. I think we all wish at some time or another that we had some kind of book that tells us exactly what to do in each new situation that we encounter. Parents of special needs kids must feel this same way, but multiplied by at least 100. There are so many more things to consider in activities, doctors, special caregivers, schools and daycare for their children.
The prose poem that I chose this week is one that I have always loved. It is one woman's description of her love and relationship with her child with special needs. It cannot possibly describe every parent's experience with a child with special needs, but I feel it gives insight to people who may not have any experiences, and it might be touching to those who have.
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Welcome to Holland
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...
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When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland".
"Holland?!?" you say, "What do you mean "Holland"??? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy"
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills...Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned".
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.
But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things...about Holland.
By Emily Perl Kingsley
This poem brings tears to my eyes each time I read it and think about the amazing students with special needs that I have had the good fortune to have met and worked with. My very first teaching job was at a 12-month boarding school for children with special needs, specifically extreme behavioral disabilities. I was at that job living with and teaching the children year round for four years. I lived in a dorm with six girls as a dorm mom and also was the 7th- and 8th-grade English teacher.
It was the most rewarding professional experience I will ever have, I am sure of this. They opened their lives to me and trusted me to support them through many major emotional trials. I know that I learned far more from these children than I was ever really able to teach them. They have been engraved in my heart and so many I still keep in touch with and am so proud of their numerous accomplishments and successes.
Parenting Pointers
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Keep a sense of humor and enjoyment with your child.
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Be your child's best advocate because you know them better than anyone else and you know what they need: physically, emotionally and socially.
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Know your local and statewide support groups and do not be afraid to reach out for help.
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Find a way to have some time for yourself each week, even if it just getting some coffee and sitting in a park for an hour.
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Get involved in events that are specifically designed for children with special needs.
Parent's Homework
The pointers this week really can be applied to many of us out there in the “parenting trenches”. Take time this week and enjoy your child. Find as many moments as you can this week to just laugh with your child and enjoy their company without thinking about work, bills, etc.
Below I have compiled a very short list of some organizations in Connecticut that provide events, fundraisers and support groups/ classes.