Lessons From My Mom

By: Karin Davis

Being a mom has been the honor of my life. It hasn’t always been what I thought it would be, but it has filled my life with a love and happiness I would never have known. Having a special needs child was certainly not in the plan but it was what God had for me. Having my own mother to help me navigate this new course has been extremely precious.

The journey of raising a special needs child isn’t one I would wish anyone to take alone. There is so much to learn, so much to figure out and so many decisions to make – and in my case, so much to let go of.  My daughter can often really make a scene, I mean a real scene. But, once the mood has passed, as quick as the crisis is over, she’s forgotten about it and begins to act as though it never happened. For me, it’s harder to move on. I am still angry, still embarrassed, still frustrated. My mom taught me that in order for me to keep my sanity, sometimes I have to move past it, no matter how big a scene my daughter might make. My mother has been really instrumental in helping me raise my daughter. She allows me the space I (and my husband) need to make the decisions I think are best for her, but she is there to give support and advice whenever I need it.

Once, my daughter really took me over the edge during a Sunday service. She just refused to cooperate. All I wanted her to do was go to the potty. But for a child with wetting issues, that isn’t always such a simple request.  I had to have my mother come out of church to help me coax her into going to the bathroom. My daughter didn’t make it easy and we weren’t the only people in the restroom. I had just reached the end of my rope and I broke down in tears (something I don’t do often). My mom helped me to recover and to remember that in these moments there is only one thing I can do – pray.

Having a mom you can go to on a journey like this has been a lifeline for me.  I am often frustrated as I struggle to figure out the balance between what my daughter just refuses to do and what she honestly can’t do.  She helps me to remain steady and to remember that I have to remain patient yet firm with her.  She has helped me to learn how to pray and ask God to give me the ability to let go of certain things with her – to flow with her moods and not get stuck in a place that isn’t healthy for me or her. 

My mom has taught me that while it is important for me to prepare for my daughter to always have some form of her disability, it’s also OK for me to pray for and even expect a miracle.  I have learned to find the silver lining in my situation and how to find joy even in my daughter’s illness. My mom has taught me how to adjust to the relationship my daughter and I will have.  It may not be what I imagined, but it will be what God wants it to be. Thanks mom.

Reflections: Parental Paranoia

I am a paranoid parent. This is a fact that I admit to freely. I can’t help but look for the trouble in a situation or to be on guard against any potential trouble. I don’t want to let anything happen to my children. It is in these moments when I’m in overprotective parental paranoia that the words from the movie “Finding Nemo” run through my mind as said by the insightful Dory.

“If you don’t let anything happen to him, then nothing will happen to him.”

Interesting concept. In my effort to protect my children I may take the opportunity to learn and experience new things away from them. I don’t want to stop all of the good things from happening, just the bad ones. But yet it is important to realize that even through the bad experiences good things can happen.

My own parents have told me how they wished that they could have saved my husband and I from the heartache of having a 15 week preemie and all of the heartache that followed. My mom has told me countless times how she wished she could have protected me from seeing my son laying helpless in a hospital bed. However, if she had managed to do that somehow, she would have prevented me from experiencing the joys from each victory my son experienced. I had to go through the pain of the experience to know and appreciate the joy.

My son is now getting more and more adventurous. He tries to climb on things that I would rather he stay off of. He asks to do things that make me think twice about his physical abilities. He is ready to move into his world a little more and I find myself wanting to wrap him up in soft cotton and bubble wrap because it has been so much work to get him to this point. But if I stop from anything happening to him; then nothing will happen to him and I can’t help but wonder what kind of life that would be.

So now that I am aware of my problem I have choice to make. Do I give into my paranoid tendencies or do I bite my lip and let my son explore his world. For the sake of my son I will learn to bite my lip and use judgement between truly dangerous and only challenging. I won’t make excuses for him or shelter him from the challenges his abilities may cause him. Rather I will push him to keep trying even if it means falling down and getting a skinned hand or knee from time to time. Because the joy that is experienced after mastering a task that has caused some scars is worth a little pain.

And Everything Changes…

This post is for all of the loyal Unique Magazine readers who are wondering where the monthly issue of the magazine has gone. Well, to be completely honest it has had to turn into something different just like a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, our monthly e-zine has turned into a blog.

Now I can almost hear the questions from here. I know it may seem a drastic move but in the long run it will be better for both our readers and for Unique Ministries on a whole. The Unique Kid blog will still host the same great content that you have come to know, love, and anticipate from the magazine. However, it will be broken down over the weeks of the month instead of it all coming at you at one time. This means that you will receive an email notification each time we update the blog and you can choose to pop over and see what the greatest new post is all about or you can save it for later. There won’t be any issues to download anymore and more importantly, you, the reader, will be able to respond through comments and share with us more easily. I believe this new format will help the community of Unique Ministries to get to know each other better.

I hope that each of you will embrace this change and participate by sharing your thoughts and comments on the articles. We love hearing from you and you are the reason that so many here at Unique give of their time to try to share some encouragement and information with you.

Rest assured that our mission has not changed. The heart desire of Unique Ministries is to offer support, and encouragement to parents of children with special needs. To help you in the effort of putting your child first and leaving their condition or diagnosis in the appropriate place of being second to the child. Please share in the community and let us know how we are doing.