Tips on Parenting a Child with Disabilities

When speaking of disabilities, the focus always in on the on the individuals who are suffering from them.  There is not a whole lot of guidance for parents living with other individuals with disabilities.  Sure, there are the medical journals that try to prepare the anticipating mother and father about what they can expect from their child, but the content within this medium only gives the basics.  One size does not fit all, when it comes to children who are disabled.  Here are some other tips to consider when going about day to day life.

 

·         Accept the fact that your child functions differently than those who do not have a disability.  The child will have to learn how to do things that might seem to go against the “norm” of how everyone else was taught.  Do not try too harshly to appear too “normal” in order to function in society.  Do not let everything slide, but do not become so strict to the point where things are more difficult than they really have to be. 

·         Avoid telling your child that his or her life is harder than everyone else’s.  The only reason why this is said is due to limited thought patterns.  If you find alternate solutions to problems, then your child’s life does not have to be harder.

·         Find a balance between letting your child do things him or herself and helping out when necessary. 

·         Avoid taking the seemingly easiest route in every case.  We all do not like hurdles in life, but sometimes these hurdles show us things that we never realized before.  Your child will have his or her own set of challenges that he or she must face.  An example of such a challenge would be a grown child living inside of a rancher home with a parent because most apartment complexes have steps,  While this sounds like the logical option at first glance, this will keep your child from growing as an individual.  Adapting to new situations will help your child realize how capable he or she is as a person, it will give him or a boost in confidence. 

·         Avoid doing something for your child because he or she is too slow to complete the task.  If the task needs to be handled in addition steps, then so be it.  Your child will get faster and learn new ways to do things as his or her skills grow. 

·         Do not tell your child that he or she cannot do something because of their disability.  This can create a lifelong belief that goals cannot be achieved because of something out of the individual’s control.  Since he or she believes that his or her desires cannot be fulfilled due to having a disability, then the individual will not even believe that smaller day to day things can be accomplished.

. 

It is always harder to do the right thing than it is to go with popular opinion.  Disabilities are still seen as something that impacts a person’s life in a negative way with absolutely no positive benefits whatsoever.  The fact of the matter is that people with disabilities have the potential to teach others what it is like to live authentically.  Do not let your child live a mundane existence where he or she feels that life limited in every way possible.  One of the best gifts in life is to share one’s wisdom with others.  Your child will acquire knowledge that a lot of other people will not know about, and this is what makes their potential to succeed in life so great.  

Molehills to Mountains

Minor pet peeves can get bigger if an individual does not honor his or her emotions.  If one does not create a boundary for him herself, then things can go south pretty fast.  It is always that one person who disrespects another individual in small ways that add up over time.  This person in my life is my roommate.

The relationship as a whole is not too terrible.  I found it rather annoying that she laughed at me when I said that I wanted a new dresser for Christmas this past year.  Both she and I were not doing that well financially last year.  Even with this fact, I did not appreciate the laughter.  I should have said something in the car when this competition conversation transpired, but I did not want to start an argument over it.  Being positive can be difficult sometimes due to my roommates negativity.  Sometimes I absorb her negative thinking and believe that it is my own.   I was worried about doing my taxes while living under the table in a different place than what is on my legal documents.  The thing that I did not realize at the time is that my roommate prefers the apartment to look as if no one else lives there but her and so that line of thinking entered my head while trying to get my taxes done for the current year.  I still have ways to go in deflecting the negativity of others.

My roommate is always in a rush to get somewhere.  I question where she is trying to get half the time because I do not understand the reaeon behind it.  She would drive me somewhere, and then rush me to get out of the car.  It is only a few minutes more, so I don't understand what the big deal is really about.   You always have more time. Time does not go anywhere   My roommate seems like she has a split personality.  She can be so gentle at times, and then gets caught up in anger.  It is rather weird.

Maybe I try too hard to look past an individual's fault in order to see his or her more positive traits.  I should call her out on things when they happen and stick up for myself more often instead of letting things slide.  The truth of the matter is that the relationship does not work.  it never has.  My roommate let me stay at her place due to a foreclosure on my father's house.   It is time for me to move on and say goodbye.  There's no point in trying to prolong my stay.  We are in two different worlds trying to occupy the same space, but it is not working any longer.  Letting go can be difficult, but it is a necessary evil when it comes to moving forward in one's life.  I accept that this aspect no longer works, and I want to embrace the new coming into my life.

The Fear that Lurks Deep Within

The first time I felt the need to leave my job was when I was kicked off on storm duty in January 2016.  My supervisor said that I was too sluggish getting inside the building when there was thirty inches of snow on the ground.  She also indicated that I was holding up other people from starting work on time because they needed to help me get inside.  I got put up in a hotel, and the company almost made me pay for it.  After I returned to work, I started getting sick left and right.  I had Pharyngitis, and I was diagnosed with adult allergies.  My supervisor kept telling me to go home a lot.  When I eventually caved in, I got hit with a warning for taking too many sick days.  mMy father eventually passed away and I could not find adequate transportation back to work.  I got on short term disability, and I was told that my leave could last up to a year by the HR supervisor.  The head nurse Sallie Dicus kept pushing me to go for  long term disability even after I told her that no doctor would sign for it.  I saw a psychiatrist, and he stated that he would need to see me for a few months before he would sign anything.

My whole problem was the company I worked for would not make any good accommodations to help me continue with employment.  The company was perfectly capable of turning me into a mobile representative.  Due to a specific rule that says a rep needs to have all three skill levels to become mobile is ridiculous.  I had high marks on all my call reviews and was exceeding expectations.  The company should have met me halfway, but policy was policy and nothing could be done.

I'm grateful for the experience because it taught me how to stand up for myself.  I now know how to make quick and important decisions because of everything that transpired.  I have learned to take my power back.  This whole incident created my fear of working in corporations as a whole, but the only reason the fear existed was because I was too afraid to go to extremes to better my life. 

To add insult to injury,  I have taken a shadow job instead of going for the one that I really want.  The job that I have taken has a lot of similarities to the job that I really desire, but it's just not as good.  I had the idea that if I took one job that I could not have the other one.  However, I can always leave a job for the real one at any point.  I fear being locked into a contract, and not being able to escape.  The thing I need to understand is that I and always a free agent.  No one owns me whatsoever.  I can pick and choose how I run my life.  If a few bridges burn, then so be it.   There are plenty more bridges to be crossed. 

Independence is a Nightmare

Taking big leaps in life can be difficult for absolutely everyone.  They can be devastating for those who have never lived independently at any point during his or her life.  Independence is a freeing experience, but it means that the illusions one might have lived under are now gone.  One finally realizes the weight of every decision he or she makes. 

I lived a sheltered life when I was younger due to being born with Cerebral Palsy.  My mother did not let me do anything by myself.  She always insisted on helping me with absolutely everything.  I never learned how to do basic things like dressing myself, going number two, and tying shoes until much later in my childhood than most other people. 

My father saw me as a source of pride.  He was proud of me for graduating college.  This was not for my sake.  It was for bragging rights on how well his bloodline was doing.  I had to do everything the way my father wanted without question.  Every time I would fight him on something, he would bring up the fact that he paid for my college education. My father also helped me get from place to place since I could not drive.

My job mimicked the relationship that my father and I shared.  I was told what to do and when.  I spoke to people on the phone using a script template helping them with their unpaid bills.  The only thing was that most people did not really want help understanding anything.  All they wanted to do was complain about why they could not work or whine about every minor tax charge on the bill.  The customers would ask what all of the tax charges meant.  I hated explaining every minor tax charge because there really was not a straight answer what each tax item.  I wanted to tell these people that taxes are part of life and to stop nickel and diming everything. Maybe they would they would get somewhere in life is they actually put effort towards something productive instead of arguing taxes that add up to a dollar on the second page of a bill.  I actually failed a call one time just because I politely told a customer that the reason that his was high was because he had not payment on it in five months.  I was told that I should have told him about energy saving tips instead.  Each individual bill was not high so telling the customer about the energy tips would have been incorrect information. 

After my father passed away last year, I felt free for the first time in my life.  I could actually do what I wanted.  I started studying a lot as well as writing.  I had started a youtube channel a few years earlier and went back and forth on whether I should continue making videos.  I thought that I would eventually find my way if I followed my passions to a degree.  Now everything has come crashing down. I lost my job, my doctor, my family, and my home.  I never had anything in my name before my father passed away, so organizations including homeless shelters will not help me.  I still have not narrowed down what I want to do with my life.  I do not know how to take steps to write for a living or counsel others.  I do not have the money for school.  Due to transportation restrains, I cannot afford to travel far away for job interviews.  I majored in philosophy when I went to college and graduated with Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts.  I decided to go into philosophy because I was bad at both math and science.  I lack practical skills outside Microsoft Office.  I do not perform well in fast paced environments.  Due to not being able to drive, my chances of being promoted to a high position by a company are rather slim.  Corporations want people that can adapt to new situations immediately.

Since I have lost everything in the area I am living now, I decided that the best course of action is to move far away.  I kept getting blocked from getting a place in the Baltimore area, so I took that as a sign that I should not be here anymore.  I do not know how to take steps to move somewhere else, and I cannot get help from anyone else because everyone I know is living in survival mode and feel that they cannot sustain themselves if they are not working at their jobs 24/7. 

I have begun to wonder if counseling others and writing is what I truly want to do, or is it something that seems desirable because it is better than call center work.  What if somehow I found a practical application for writing and counseling, but ended up hating it?    It does not seem like I will actually get the chance to see if that is true or not since I cannot figure out how to actually make money doing what I say I like to do.  Most of the daily grind jobs out there right now are customer service or sales jobs that pay less than where I was employed.  If my soul screamed like a banshee for me to get out of my current job, then why is it being so coy about what I should do next with my life?  When things are not going the way the universe wants, it will make a person ill so he or she will slow down and focus on other things, but when the individual does not know the steps to take, the universe only gives out small hints on what to do.  How did I get too sensitive to work in a call center in the first place?  I worked for two years without a problem, and then all the sudden, everything about the place bothered me to no end.  I also got sick a lot as well. 

I am not trying to state that the universe is against me, but I feel as though it is having its cake and eating it too.  It tells me in a sharp manner to head a different direction than the one that I have been going towards, but then it uses the “free will” card when it comes to what I should do next.  Where are all the theatrics and light shows when it comes to my new path?  Where was the “free will” card before I started having lucid dreams and incidents of sickness telling me to go in a different direction?  As I stated earlier I worked at the call center years without much of a problem.  I was fine with the job back then.  I never asked to have lucid dreams.  I did not know that lucid dreaming was possible, nor did I attempt to have a lucid dream.  Where was my   Now I have to get a similar job to what I just had that will pay a lot less.  Then when I do not have time to engage in my passions, the universe will once again come up on me and make me sick all.  I will be back to square one.

I do not know how to finish the cycle I am in right now.  I do not know how to meet my needs in a way that is actually beneficial to my sense of self.  I get thrusted in this new direction with no clarity about how to navigate.  I learned a lot of things and met many great people, but all of this does not help me manifest what I want in a practical way.  I have a lot of obstacles in my way that I do not know how to overcome by myself without help.  I have already asked help from others numerous times and was turned away. 

I do not understand how the universe expects me to be this independent right out of the gate.  People usually have to learn the ropes before they can do everything by themselves.  I am not completely in the dark.  I know how to take care of daily practical matters, but I am being asked to figure everything out myself even though the obstacles I face can only be overcome by multiple people.  I am just beginning to do things on my own, so why am I facing challenges that somebody with twenty years of experience of being independent would have a tough time handling?  I have asked the spirit world for help as well, but all I ever see is mixes 1s and 7s, 3s and 7s, 4s and 7s, and 1s and 6s.  The first three mixed numbers indicate that I am headed in the right direction.  The last number means to ask for help from others in regards to a material situation.  I am not going to count the times that I have asked for help and was turned down. 

I have done everything that I can possibly think of at this point.  The only thing I have not done is look how to ship my belongings across the country.  I will probably try that next.  My life in Baltimore is pretty over at this point, and staying that much longer would just be procrastinating the inevitable.  If there is not anything here, then that is it.  Under normal circumstances, one needs to plan out a big move, but all the events that have taken place are hardly traditional by any stretch of the imagination.  I am just going to have to figure out how to use my newly found sensitive and my writing skills as I go along.  I am not a huge fan of this approach, but it is all that I have as of right now.