Special Education: Connections

Discovering your child has special needs can come as a shock and trigger a period of deep reflection and even depression as you attempt to adjust your expectations to meet the new reality. Just like anything else in childrearing, the road ahead is often unclear and may seem solitary. Yet, many parents have found that raising a special needs child can also have unexpected benefits and force constructive changes in their lives.

Suzanne Schwartz, the mother of an 11-year-old autistic son in Tenafly as well as a neurotypical 9-year-old boy, says that she always knew something wasn’t right with her son, although others refused to see it. “My brother was autistic, so I knew that something was wrong,” she says. “But everyone, except my father, tried to deny it.” She describes being incredibly isolated because she says, “you go to play groups and you try to make friends but you can’t have the same conversations and you start to withdraw from them. It doesn’t matter what else you have in common.”

Read more here: NorthJersey.com: Special Education.