Thursday, January 26, 2006

The Job of Parenting a Complex Special Needs Child

The other day bank teller apologized because another teller needing help interrupted her. I told her I was the mother of a complex special needs child so I understood multi-tasking. Funny how little tidbits of conversation stay on your mind for days. For days since then I have been thinking about the multi-tasking we do as parents of complex children.

This morning as I was walking through the living room there was a television interview on with a doctor about a book he wrote on marriage. In all fairness I have to say I am pulling this totally out of context because I heard very little of the interview. He was saying that you have to treat it like your job and apply the same level of effort to making marriage work.

It is the same way for parents of complex special needs children. We can’t relax and enjoy our children as much as we would like. We have to develop understanding of the education process, a variety of medical conditions, medication side effects and governmental programs. Then we have to figure how to present our child’s needs just as someone giving a presentation.

We become the lobbyist (advocate), the secretary, interpreter and caregiver not to mention breadwinner, chief cook, and bottle washer.

Applying business principles to our multi faceted job of raising our children does help get respect and results for our complex children. I will talk more about this in coming blog posts and in Parenting Your Complex Child.

Until tomorrow,
Peggy Lou Morgan
http://www.parentingyourcomplexchild.com/
http://www.lighthouseparents.com/

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