Love Notes for Special Parents, Again

Did a spruce-up recently of my inspirational message series for parents of kids with special needs. Visit the gallery on my Facebook page to see all 28 of them, download the ones that inspire you, and share them with fellow parents who could use a lift.

The Stages of Grief After Someone Rejects Your Child or Young Adult with Special Needs

1. Anger at the rejecting party.
2. Anger at yourself for having put your child in a position to be rejected.
3. Anger at every naysaying professional who ever put limits on your kid for forcing you to be constantly challenging that child to prove them wrong
4. Anger at all the voices in your head of people who thought this wasn't going to work out well and what could you possibly have been thinking.
5. Anger at yourself because obviously those voices were right, and what were you thinking.
6. Anger at everyone and everything and the whole awful mean mean world.
7. Acceptance that people just suck.
8. Planning for the next thing that will absolutely find your child included and will show everyone how wrong they were. What were they thinking?

Worries and Fears Forever, Apparently

pic.twitter.com/fWEQp3PAJ8

— no context the good place (@nocontexttgp) January 18, 2018

Chidi on The Good Place just kind of speaks for all of us, doesn't he? I sure know that endless parade of worries and concerns turning into fears. It marches through present events, whether things are going well or not, and drags me back to past situations and decisions that will, apparently, never be settled. It's been so many years and I keep hoping I can just learn to be patient and calm and accepting of what comes, and if there's a secret to that, I haven't found it. Have you? Do you have a secret for not getting wiped out by worrying and flummoxed by fears?

I Just Want to Talk (and for You to Agree with Me)

"I want you to do what you want. I just want you to talk to me about it. I want us to talk about what it will mean and how we’ll make it work. I want us to talk like we’re going to figure it out together. I want us to talk … because I like the sound of your voice. I just want to talk."

I watch this clip from the next to last episode of The West Wing frequently because it's such a sweet ending to a long-running and slow-developing love story on the show. But I also think about it sometimes when I find myself with no one to talk to about things but myself. And you know, I get tired of the sound of my voice.

My husband and I have fallen into a pattern that I think is fairly typical for parents of kids with special needs. I do the researching and planning and worrying and second-guessing, and he implements whatever it is I wrestle into place. He's very supportive and rarely disagrees with or argues with my plans, and I appreciate that. I want to do what I want. But I'd still like us to talk about what it will mean and how we'll make it work. I want us to talk like we're going to figure it out together. I just want to talk.

I remember having the same feeling back in my IEP days, where there seemed to be two options: I would shut up and completely agree to whatever the professionals wanted, or they would throw up their hands and give in to whatever they felt I was demanding. And yeah, I wanted them to do what I wanted. But I wanted to talk about what it would mean and how we would make it work. I wanted us to talk like we were going to figure it out together. I just wanted to talk.

I'm out of that school grind now and making decisions for young adults whose communication issues make it hard for me to get the feedback I like. I'm still making plans for them, and explaining those plans to them, and justifying those plans to myself and anybody within listening range of my voice, like the sound of it or not. I want them to do what they want, but I want it to be what I want. It would be nice if they understood what it would mean and how we'll make it work, and that they have a part in us figuring it out together, but I'm never quite sure. Which means, once again, that the weight of every decision is on me.

That's probably the way it is in most relationships that aren't scripted by TV writers (how do I get me one of those, by the way?). We want in theory to share the decisions and their weight, but wanting to do what we want to do doesn't always go along with that. We want detailed positive reinforcement for our decisions rather than a real give and take. It's lucky for Danny that the show ends before he has to make good on his swoon-worthy declaration. But it's a nice dream, isn't it? Let me go watch that again.