Parenting Tips For Special Needs Children

January 10, 2009 by brwilson
Filed under: Parenting Tips

Parenting for special needs children does not come with set rules or an official parenting handbook. You don't leave the hospital with a know-how-to-raise-a-child kit that teaches you positive parenting skills. Sure there are plenty of guides, books, videos and other material to help you along the way but how is one to know what to go by.

Here are a few tips to remember when parenting special needs children.

1) Nobody is right all of the time, the best parents are even wrong sometimes.

2) Each special needs child is unique and a parenting formula that works for one child may not work for the next.

3) You're allowed to make mistakes.

Here are a few things I believe will help any parent when trying to figure out the parenting roll in life.

FOCUS

In our daily lives we get caught up with work, family, friends, and many other responsibilities. There are also plenty of distractions that will cause problems when parenting and those can include televisions, telephones, and many other daily things. We need to pay attention to our special needs children even more so than other children. When they get home from school do you sit down with them and ask how their day was? If they are still a toddler do you spend time with them when you first get home? Parenting takes focus and if you try to listen to what your child is saying while you are watching the TV they will realize you're not paying attention and just walk away. Eliminate distractions when your child needs you.

SELF CONTROL

By controlling our own behavior we will lead by example for our special needs children. I was driving our family to the movies one night when someone cut us off, all of a sudden my 5 year old son yells out dumb@#% and I realized than it was time to lead by example.

GET INVOLVED

Getting involved with your special needs child's daily life is one of the best things you can do to build a strong relationship with them. If they are in sports coach a team if you can or just make it to the games. Sign up to be one of the parents that go along on the field trips. You will be surprised at how much your involvement will make your relationship grow.

These parenting tips only scratch the top of what is required in special needs parenting. But don't be afraid to make mistakes just learn from them. A good parent is one that is there for their child.