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.
Note: To support the site we make money on some products, product categories and services that we talk about on this website through affiliate relationships with the merchants in question. We get a small commission on sales of those products.That in no way affects our opinions of those products and services.
Share this:
About The Author
Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts is founder of Support for Special Needs and has been a regular contributor since its inception in May 2010. A mom to two kids with special needs, she didn't want other parents to feel what is the often isolating world of raising a child (or two!) with disabilities. Her kids had kidney transplants at the age of eight and will need liver transplants in the future as a result of ARPKD/CHF. They both have vision disorders and learning disabilities.