Give Your Child with Special Needs Some Space
posted by admin in Reflections/Ruminations/Random Thoughts 0 commentsHas anyone ever said to you that you’re smothering your child?
I was reading a special education thread today where a mom related an incident with her son’s therapist involving how the therapist told her that she needed to give her son some space. The mom really was upset about the therapist’s remarks. Here she’s spent years handling her son’s needs and now she’s asked to step away and to let go. She wondered whether she was enabling her son or helping him.
I can relate to her feelings. I started to think about my family. For ten years now I have helped my child with everything from brushing her teeth to putting on her shoes. At times, I serve as her translator due to her severe articulation issues. While I am anxious to see her realize an independent and abundant life, I admit that the thought of letting her go terrifies me.
Think about flying in an airplane and how the flight attendant reviews the safety instructions and tells you that in the event of a loss of cabin pressure to secure your air mask before assisting your child. Then he comes over to you, makes eye contact and gets your promise to follow this instruction. Well, I admit that I readily make this promise every time, but I always wonder to myself whether I just lied to the flight attendant. Everything about his instruction goes against my motherly instincts. I think about how my child who has motor planning issues will have a hard time orienting the mask to her face, attaching the straps around her ears and how the mask may cause her sensory system to freak out!
Letting go, even when the experts tell you to do so, is hard. How do you know the right time to step away?
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