One of our kids (not sure which one) used to have a t-shirt that said “Believe there is Good in the World”! I think it is important to both believe there is good in the world and to BE the good in the world. Sometimes, with all that is in the news lately, it is hard to always see the good that is out there. We’d like to encourage you by sharing an incredible example of “Good in the World”, especially for those of us who are parenting a child [...]
Recently, we met with a family that was looking to relocate to our area from out of state. They have a son with a disability and wanted to know about services and funding. His disability is quite different than Mary’s as his challenges are physical and Mary’s are primarily cognitive (and behavioral). Because of this and the fact that he is 17 years younger than Mary, we didn’t know all of the answers to their questions. But we knew people who did know the answers and quickly made some phone [...]
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. We’ve all heard that song and possibly, it is the most wonderful time of the year. It also is perhaps the most stressful time of the year for families who have a child with special needs. Worries about your child’s behavior at family gatherings, changes in routines and schedules and having your child out of school for 2 weeks can make the holidays difficult. Couple this with the expectations of how a “perfect” Christmas should be and, well, it is easy to [...]
Sibling relationships are, well, complex. Our siblings can be our best friends, confidants, rivals or pain in the necks and often all at once. You add the dimension of a sibling with a disability and the relationships become even more complex. However, one of the questions most asked at our seminars, pertains to siblings. So, to write this series, we asked our grown children (Emily -29, Albert – 25) to give us their insights. In the past two blogs, we’ve shared the blessings and struggles that siblings have growing up [...]
Last week we wrote about the impact that having a sibling with special needs (SSN) has on our typically developing (TD)children. To write this week’s blog, we asked our TD children for their input. We asked them a few questions and we’d like to share their responses. Every child and every family are unique and certainly, their experiences are not necessarily the same as your TD children; but I think the responses are interesting and hopefully it might generate some discussion with your kids. Because both Emily (age 29) and [...]
Often when we give our marriage seminars, someone asks a question about siblings: “Would they be resentful of all of the extra time we devote to our child with special needs?’, “How much responsibility for their sibling with special needs should we place on them?”, “How do we find balance in our families?” This concern weighs heavily on parents; we know it did for us. Each family and every sibling are different, but as our “typically developing (TD)” children are now adults (Emily is 29, Albert is 25), we’ve had [...]
For 36 days, our dear friends sat by their son’s hospital bed. Their son, who was born with multiple disabilities had been in and out of the hospital before during his 29 years, but this time he returned to his heavenly home and went to be with the Lord on October 30th. Our hearts and our prayers are so focused on this precious family right now. We wish we could help them in some way. We know that many of you, who have a child with special needs, have spent [...]
Over the past several weeks, we talked about the unique and varied challenges that face a marriage when couples are parenting a child with special needs. We mentioned last week that couples often feel isolated, finding it hard to physically get out the door and hard to “fit in” once you get there. We’ve talked about the hurts individuals have felt because sometimes people that are close to us, who should understand our situation, often don’t. These things are true and representative, at times, of what our lives are like; [...]
Can you believe it is our twentieth blog? Can you also believe that we’ve done 20 blogs on marriage and we are only now getting to talk about sex? Of course, you can. We all know that sex is incredibly important to a marriage, but we rarely talk about it. In fact, most of us probably talk about it face-to-face with our spouse even less. And if it is hard to discuss, imagine how hard it is to write a blog on the subject!!! But we risk our pride and [...]
Very often, someone has come up to us and said, “God gave you Mary because He must have known that you would be able to handle parenting a child with a disability,” or some variation of that statement. While we know that people mean well and are trying to be encouraging to us, it sometimes is hard to hear. Mostly, it is hard to hear because we respectfully disagree. We disagree in two ways. First, and of less importance, we disagree with the statement because it seems to imply that [...]
