Special Needs Children

I am a single mom and I have three children, daughter 12, and sons 9 and 6. My middle child has special needs. He has vision and speech difficulties also social challenges. Other medical things as well but we have had a very difficult road to this point. But I have to say it does get easier. I work at my sons school helping the special need children. How old are your children? What areas are you having the most difficulty with? Do you have a good support system for them? One thing that I feel is a blessing is that having a child with special needs has taught me to appreciate all successes big or small in my children's life and my own. Good Luck!

Special needs can include a wide array of issues. My 7 year old daughter is autistic, with food allergies. There's no coping needed. We do what needs to be done. She also plays the Violin, loves computer games, and loves to be outside. My 3 year old son also has special needs. He has food allergies, is very speech delayed, and has sensory processing issues (he's just shy of an autism diagnosis). Again we just do what we need to do. IEP meetings, Dr apponitments, therapies...They're not extremely exciting, but they're part of our life. We take life one day at a time. I always have a goal date as well. For example; My son went to the GI on June 2nd, and our date to go over test results, food diary, and next steps, is July 7th. So every single day, I remind myself that I have lass than a month before his belly issues will worked out. With every Dr I ask them what they would like to see, and when should we follow up. We only deal with things 3-6 months at a time. Good luck.

I am not a parent, but I was a child with special needs. I am legally blind, physically challenged, and I have Aspergers' syndrome (mildly autistic). My parens coped by treating me as normally as possible, and incouraging me to be as independent as possible.

I agree with the previous poster, I don't really consider it "coping" at this point. Some days, we are in survival mode, damage control...but most days just are. In the last 7 weeks, one of my sons has had two one- week hospital stays and just last week he was put under general anesthesia twice, once for a minor procedure and once for a major surgery... when we have weeks like those...we are in survival mode. Now that its "over" (ha, for now), we just go about doing what we do. All three of my boys have special needs. All have a genetic form of epilepsy (two of them have an additional genetic epilepsy diagnosis), they all have a bleeding disorder, one is visually impaired, one has cerebral palsy, brain damage, cardiac problems, is on the autism spectrum... and they are all amazing boys. They're happy, they LOVE life. We have learned to simplify. I no longer make plans a month in advance for outings to the zoo with friends, for example...I just don't do it, it stresses me out and I refuse to do it. We live on a farm and we homeschool and we lead quite a simple life. I cook from scratch, the boys do farm chores, if someone is having a bad day, they get excused from part of a day's chores (if they are having a bad day with seizures or illness...not if they are in a mood! LOL), and if they are feeling better, we get up and do what needs to be done. I don't allow the word "can't" in our home...any of my boys can do anything...they may need help with it, and I am more than willing to help, but there is no room for giving up or throwing in the towel allowed. My guy with the more serious issues sometimes is unable to communicate...when he gets like this, he sometimes can sign to me to get his needs met, but sometimes, he just needs to be left alone for a while...get re-centered and he "comes back"...could be a seizure, could be on the verge of a meltdown...whatever the problem is, it works itself out. I've never NOT been a mom of kids with extra medical needs...so I don't know any other way. In fact, lol, my first were twins so I had two with extreme special needs right off the bat...jump in with both feet....