The Strains of Raising a Child With Special Needs

Since having John, our world has turned upside down. It has been quite an adjustment, of which we have not completed, on all of us to care for this little boy whom we have all come to love. But just because we have chosen to accept this little guy into our family and have committed to providing love and care for him doesn't take away the fact that it has been a strain on everyone.

Being new parents to a special needs child means that we are still in the adjustment period. After thinking about this, I'm not sure that there is a time when we will be able to say that we have adjusted to this life. I think that with each new circumstance comes a new adjustment. This past week when John was so sick, we got a taste of the medical fragility of John as opposed to our other children.

Our other 4 children have had to adjust to the fact that Dad and Mom aren't as readily available to them now as we were before John arrived. Sure, they knew that John was going to have Down syndrome and that he would be different and require extra help. But the reality of those words are difficult to see when you are a child.

I have found myself becoming more impatient with them since John. I realize that part of that is that I am stressed and have not fully accepted my new life. But with each new day, I am learning to let go a little bit more and accept that this is my life but I also have to keep going with my other children because they need me just as much as John.

Another stress that child, let alone a child with special needs can bring into the home and has brought into our home is the stress on a marriage. Joy and I have a fairly good marriage with all of the added stresses of our professions and of having 4 children which we had felt like we had overcome a lot of those challenges and had a plan in place to raise our children and still be able to manage our individual careers. And then came John.

John changed all the rules when he came. Joy and I would tackle this head on just like we have done most things in our life. Our plan of attack was for me to stay at home and provide his therapy while she worked as a Pediatrician. Even though we still feel like this is the best option for us and for John, it has come with a price. And usually, the price is relational. I tend to be a real intense person and have built a career on striving to provide better, faster results with my patients than the other therapists I work with. When working with one of my patients, I become so overly focused on my goals, that sometimes I tend to tune out other relevant things. And that is what I have caught myself doing at home.

Since I am home with John 24/7, I have sometimes noticed myself tuning out the other relationships in my life for the sake of making John better as it has always been one of my goals to have the best, most progressive Down syndrome child around. I would often catch myself, and still do at times, doubting Joy's care for him, afraid that she wouldn't work with him on the things that I would or wouldn't push him as I would. So I find myself today, sitting in this house with John just as I have done for the past 6 months devoted to him which there is nothing wrong but I have done so at the expense of ignoring others in my life.

After 6 months, and having a wife who loves me enough to be honest with me, I am beginning to see that some of the sacrifices made for John have not been healthy. I am learning to let go a little and relax. I am learning that to not only keep working with John, but to trust God for his development. Since I believe that He is the One who gave John to me, shouldn't He be trusted to develop him? This perspective may not give me more time with my wife and other children, but it will change my attitude toward them and hopefully make me more pleasant to them.

Children with special needs can take up a lot of time and energy. Let me encourage you not to forget the other relationships in your life. They need your time as well. I am learning that John will be just fine if he doesn't have my undivided attention 8 hours a day. In fact, he will probably become a much more independent child if I didn't provide that for him.