Creating #Autism Awareness and Providing Support Through Honestly and Android
How YOU could help a Special Needs Parent
Do you know a special needs parent and wonder what you can do to help?
The first thing you should know is that typically the special needs parent will never ask for help. If they do ask you for help then they truly need it. One of the things the special needs parent does very well aside from raising challenging children is suffer in silence. They have become so dedicated to their child that they often times lose themselves in the process but they rarely if ever complain about it. The special needs parent typically struggle with exhaustion, money, time and just about everything else. 
If you have ever wanted to offer help to a special needs parent but maybe don’t know how. Perhaps their situation is so difficult, you don’t know what you could possibly do to help. There are some things you can do to help even if they don’t seem like much.
One of the toughest parts of being a special needs parent is the feeling of isolation. Their child requires so much of their time and undivided attention that they often times have little or no adult contact (aside from doctors and therapists). Make plans to stop by for a visit. Many special needs parents will tell you that they would love to just talk to another adult. Make sure you call first as a surprise visit could just add to the stress by destabilizing their child.
You could also offer to bring dinner over and just lighten the load a bit. Maybe send them a card, email or text message just to let them know you’re thinking about them. You could send them a gift card for groceries or maybe their favorite “take-out”. Think about maybe making arrangements to go over and spend some time with their child (if that’s something that would work).
You could educate yourself about Autism of whatever else the parent is dealing with. As their child requires all their time and energy, every single day, maybe you could help with lawn care or repairs to the house. The list of possibilities is endless really. The most important thing you will be doing is showing them that you care.
You don’t have to understand in order to show love, compassion and support.
Speaking from personal experience, knowing that someone cares means more than you could possibly imagine. Regardless of what you do to help, you are reminding them that they aren’t alone and that’s priceless.
**Thanks for reading**
-Lost and Tired
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Beautifully written and such an important message! I just found your blog yesterday through the Babble.com Award. You definitely deserve it! Keep up the wonderful work you are doing here and blessings to you and your family.
Stephanie,
Thank you for your support. Thank you for reading and helping to spread Autism Awareness.
Thank you VERY much. I truly appreciate it.
Thank you for posting this Rob. Very well said and it's especially meaningful to hear it coming from a special needs dad. I'm the mother of two sons with special needs and facilitate self-renewal groups for special needs moms. Blessings to you and your special family.
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Thank you very much Rhonda. Same to you and yours.
Rob,
Great post man. I have people ask me all the time what they can do for their friends giving care for special needs kids. You nailed the most practical ones for sure.
Some wonderfully loving caregiver parents and I have started a non profit organization in Houston called Desperate for Respite, to give parents and caregivers 4 hours of respite from the grind of isolation. You can check us out at http://www.desperateforrespite.com.
Thanks for all you do!!
Loren,
What an amazing thing you are doing. Thanks for your support and for your support of other special needs parents. I'm going to check out your site and then tweet it out later. Thanks again.
great post! We are the parents of 3, 2 of which have pretty big medical needs, especially our youngest one. Your post is so very true of the lifestyle we lead! Prayers for your family!!!!!!
Prayers and thoughts right back at ya Cindi. Thanks so much.
I have 3 beautiful children, the youngest being Downs Syndrome.Of course I wonder what are lives would have been like if my baby could have been ( Normal , should I say). And what is Normal I say?? Are family has had many, many, trials & tribulations, but would not trade one miniute of it!! My baby will be 40 yrs. old come Feb., & I thank God everyday for giving me this child,making me STRONG, and being with me to take care of him. And I just need you to know, I despise the word ( retard) !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow. You are truly AMAZING. You have been doing this for such a long time. This is beyond inspirational. There are many times that I have a tough time believing that there will be a future. You have just given me hope. Thank you so much for that.
+1000 on despising the word retard.
Cute photo! I am often found snuggled up in my boy's bed if he is having a really tough night.or is sick… because of his issues at 4 years he is unable to get out of bed or ask for help if he needs it.
He also makes a good hot water bottle…
I found your site after a group conversation amongst Moms of Special Needs Kids and how our husbands cope or what breaks our marriages, and someone posted this link up. The photo above is my husband to a T, I know its hard no matter which parent you are. So I just wanted you to know that others in your situation (though obviously not the same) appreciate what you say and send you strength and understanding and wish we could be there to help! Its tough doing it alone, and as you say, we do it in silence, I always assume people will want nothing to do with my son and would be afraid to look after him, because often thats the case. HUGS FROM AFAR – You do a great job!
I had been a single Mom of an ASD boy for mostly 7yrs before having my daughter two years ago, as a single mom. Thankfully she's two now and not on the spectrum (that we can tell!), because I can only imagine the challenges I would have faced, even though I know we would have persevered. Boy and I, we're strong, grin. I remind him that every day (low-tone, and easily frustrated).
It was very tough with a new baby on the way and knowing I needed more support than I could provide by myself after she came. So I found myself living with my grandmother just so we could survive on the piddling income I could make while still devoting enough time and attention to my son for him to keep progressing well enough to keep up with his classmates.
But by keeping up, I mean just barely. His academics in everything but recess were hovering just above actionable status by the school, but only because of the six hours I would put in most every night just to keep him treading water. Reading/storytelling and recess were the only two things he cared about .AT.ALL.
They were just getting ready to start multiplication and serious Language Arts stuff – parts of speech, specific types and styles of writing, you know, all the technical parts of communication. Can you imagine how fast his eyes glazed over and he went away to his Dinosaur Place? One of the Big Two obsessions for him, the other being all the other living creatures he can learn about, grin. Handwriting was a struggle too, the ability to even hold a pencil correctly would come and go. People struggled to understand when I would tell them how he would lose abilities and/or skills that he had previously seemed to get…
Math and spelling? He just didn't care about. He loved to create stories, but couldn't be buggered with the spelling, or working on improving his handwriting. Even knowing that *he* couldn't re-read what he wrote wasn't a good enough catalyst for him, he would just make up new words to go along with whatever he drew. He saw no point, didn't want to, and that was pretty much the end of that. Anyone trying to get a seriously balking ASD kiddo to do something they don't want to do can probably help me write that book, grin.
Because of his slower development in a few areas, like attention span, coherent communication with anyone not knowing his "language", and social skills – plus the bullying he was receiving just because of who he is – in February I decided to pull him out of public school and devote all my free time to his education, since I already was anyway. Seems that six years in the school system only taught him one basic lesson: Wait twenty minutes and whatever you don't like will go away, grin. But that meant that homework – and I mean LOADS of it – would come home from his entire school day's worth of classtime activities, since he didn't do it during class, or stay present enough to absorb anything the teacher said. Worksheets covered with doodling, and a really intensely rich imagination were all that got worked on while in public, sigh. He is amazingly gifted where it comes to reading though, but even that can't be attributed to school. He started the past school year well ahead of his peers after learning how to read over summer break, and all because of his own desire to decode these little squiggly lines and figure out Teh Sekritz of the written word, grin.
Losing my job shortly after that didn't help *my* piece of mind, but luckily we live in public housing so my rent adjusted and we have been able to scrape by. It was actually a really good thing – more time and attention to help Kiddo get the hang of staying more present in *this* world. Also, a year ago I met a man online that had experience with kiddos on the spectrum, and we started dating. I am now lucky enough to have a partner helping to shoulder the load, yay! We've come so far since February that it's almost a totally different boy in the house now. He's much more relaxed, can follow a multi-step set of directions pretty well on most days, is regularly keeping up with a small list of chores, and his eye contact alone has improved by leaps and bounds. We haven't even touched Math this whole summer, but then again he is still struggling with fundamental concepts like before, behind, around, front, back, etc. How in holy blank-edy-blank was he expected to be able to grasp number manipulation if he was still not even understanding the linear nature of numbers??? Don't even get me started on time! *sigh*
Ok, sorry… had to have a little mini-rant there. Better now, I think, grin. People that have done for me the very things you just suggested in this post are about the only things that kept me going sometimes. I'm so very glad there are people like *you* out here to keep me from feeling nearly so alone in all this. I definitely shared the link, because I know a goodly percentage on my friends' list either are a special needs parent or know one. Keep on being awesome, and give an extra snuggle to any who will take it tonight!
Sorry, that should be:
…His academics in everything but recess *AND READING* were hovering…
Excellent post! It made me feel like my feelings are normal for an abnormal situation. Thank you so much for sharing!
Anita
My recent post Twix? No Thanks – I'm Praying with Honesty
It\’s normal to feel whatever you feel. We aren\’t living in typical situations. Thank you very much…
Hi Rob. Love your blog. I'm a SAHM to three children, including a non-verbal boy with severe autism and a girl with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Life is challenging on the best of days, but reading your story makes me feel not quite so alone. Hang in there! I know you will, and I will too, because there is really no other choice — our children need us.
[...] can someone help your special needs family? This is a follow up to How you can help a special needs parent. It may to better to read the original prior to reading this [...]
I am a stay at home father of five kids, of which 3 have special needs. I have been searching for an organization that offers advice and education to stay at home fathers. There isn't really anything out there that I can find. So, in my "free" time, I am going to start one. I blog and have a group on facebook that I use to communicate with other parents. There is a group of parents out there that is struggling with being heard. And that is the stay at home father. Blessings to you and your family. When I get the website up and running, I will send you a link.
My recent post it's been a while…
Great idea Carl. There aren\’t slot of resources available. I try to provide something similar as best I can. Awesome idea.
[...] could someone help YOUR special needs family? This is a follow up to How you can help a special needs parent. It may to better to read the original prior to reading this [...]
child abuse…
[...]Lost and Tired » How YOU could help a Special Needs Parent[...]…
Nice
[...] How YOU could help a Special Needs Parent [...]
Right on! I wrote about this same topic back in November. http://dswalkerauthor.com/2011/11/07/your-child-h…
As special needs parents, we can feel so isolated. It's so good for our friends — and we are blessed with wonderful friends who genuinely want to help — to hear what you have to say.
Blessings to you and your family
Bobbi Sheahan
This is a wonderful post. Thank you Rob. It is hard to ask for help, to even know what to ask for sometimes. If it weren't for the ABA therapists in my home most days I could go days without really talking to and interacting with another human being. That's just not healthy. I also have 3 sons on the spectrum and for the most part they are all nonverbal. They are wonderful but sometimes you just need to know someone cares and be able to talk to someone that will talk back.