Being a mum to a Special little human with additional needs.

Parenting for special needs

Special Needs, a term often used for our kids who have additional challenges, see the world in a different light, have a different learning style and funnily enough are the best teachers in the world. What do I mean by a teacher?! They teach us to be patient, push the boundaries, see things we had never noticed before and so much more. I am in a fortunate position (yes, I do mean fortunate, it’s not a spelling error) to be able to see things in the same way a lot of my client’s parents do. So many times, we are told that our kids are delayed, s/he is not ready to be pushed academically, and often told “let’s just focus on making sure they are happy kids”……. Sorry, but that doesn’t gel well with me.

Part of the reason why I love my job is because I have been able to unlock so many of my “severely delayed” kids. I have been able to see their potential and help find a way for them to communicate their thoughts, wants and needs effectively. And to build on their literacy skills, show people that they have the ability to use these skills in functional ways. It’s so important to educate our community that just because they have a label doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of great things, they just need a little more support and time to get there.

I might come across as if I’m in a haze of ice cream and lollipops and maybe a little too positive but I’ve been through it; the lows, the not so frequent highs, that initial appointment where you are told that your child doesn’t tick the “typically developing child” box, the denial, the countless times wondering why it happened to us, the tears, hurt, anger that take you on a roller coaster ride until one day something changes. Maybe it’s acceptance, maybe it’s something else but I remember that day came for me after Ava (my daughter) just started school. I was content with the 12+ different diagnoses she was given and decided to change how I view her (dis)ability. I saw that Ava was teaching her peers NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language), she was the one to help normalize “special needs” within her mainstream class, she was instilling compassion, kindness, and patience in them all and that is something that as parents we can struggle to teach our kids and I am so proud that my wee little Ava has successfully done this. I admit that I’m not always able to see the positive in all the challenges we face as a family, but I try to make a conscious effort to turn it around and learn from each experience.

So, if there’s one thing you can take from this reading is to take an extra second or two to see the potential in those kids with those labels, to not see what their struggles are but to see how far they have come and how much more they have to give.