Life is hard...and amazingly wonderful, so keep an open mind

In a lot of ways parenting a differently-abled child is not that different from parenting an able-bodied child.  We all need the same love, nurturing and guidance. The pitfalls I will list here applies just as easily to any child, it is just that I come at them from the perspective of someone who is differently-abled. Also, as a parent, if you look at this list and see that you have fallen into some or even all of these pitfalls, it doesn't make you a bad parent, merely a human one. I now have enough distance from my childhood to know that most parents are only doing the very best they can. They are all products of their own time, culture and upbringing. Just as we, their children, are the products of our own time. There are no perfect parents and no perfect children, either. THE DREAM CRUSHER VS THE CHEERLEADER Imagine you are reading the paper one evening after a long day at work when your 5-year-old son comes wheeling into the living-room and excitedly announces that he...

My parents never expected to have a differently-abled child and back in the mid-seventies comparatively little was known about cerebral palsy. Both my parents had to 'learn on the job.' I can't imagine it was easy for them, but they did the best they could with the limited resources available to them at the time. The fact that I am sitting here now typing this blog is a testament to the amazing job they did. In this first of a three-part series on parenting the differently-abled, I want to look at my mom and dad and how they motivated me, each in their own unique way. They got a lot of things right and in subsequent blogs, we will look at all those things, but for this blog, I want to look at one particular thing each of them excelled at when it comes to raising a differently-abled child (and me in particular): My Mom - Cheerleader, Mother-Lioness    Mom and me As far back as I can remember my mum fought for me, she fought for me to have the same opportunities...