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Your child has just been diagnosed with a disabling condition. Suddenly you are surrounded by professionals. Usually they are:

*** Using words so long they give you a headache
*** Wanting permission to do a test you aren't familiar with or
*** Asking you choose between options you don't fully understand

Are you overwhelmed yet? Receiving a diagnosis is almost always a double-edged sword. Part of you is relieved to finally have a name for what you are dealing with, but another part of you is grieving. Even if you knew in your heart something wasn't right -- hearing your fears confirmed is almost always traumatic.

Now you have a choice to make -- should you simply follow their lead and move in whatever direction the nearest expert points you OR should you take the time to learn about this condition and develop your own opinions.

The first choice may be easier in the beginning when you are feeling stressed, anxious, and exhausted, but in the long run I believe you will be happier with option 2. Give me a couple minutes and I'll try to tell you why.

First of all, this has nothing to do with intelligence. You are facing an area you have never been exposed to and your lack of knowledge is all about time not ability.

Why do you need this information?

1 - To make you a better partner in your child's care.

When you understand your child's condition you will be a more effective partner for every doctor, therapist, and case management specialist that you come in contact with. No one knows your child better than you do or has as much access as you do. If anyone is in a position to see subtle changes or identify potential problems -- it's you. But only if you know what to look for and what questions to ask. That "know how" comes from educating yourself. Can't you just learn from the doctors and therapists? No. You will learn a lot of good professionals, but few will have the time to fully educate you about your child's condition. And even if they were willing to sit with you for hours, you couldn't absorb it all at once. You need to learn at a pace that is comfortable for you and to have the control to focus on areas that are high on your concern list. Even if it takes time and effort you don't feel you have to give. It's that important.

2 - To protect your child.

99.9% of all healthcare and social service professionals are wonderful, caring individuals who want to do everything they can to support you and help your child. Having said that, you need to be aware that occasionally you may cross the path of someone who is too overworked, too stressed, or too worried about budget concerns to put your child's need ahead of everything else. If someone like this doesn't tell you all the options available, will it hurt your child's progress toward independence? It's hard to say for sure. The impact might only be minor. Or it could be extremely significant. What if that person decides that assistive technology is too expensive and your child never learns to communicate independently. If you know the available options you are prepared to say, "I think there are some other options we need to discuss".

3 - To make it easier to live with yourself.

Many parents have "closet fears". That somehow, something they did (or didn't do) caused their child's condition. It can eat away at your sense of security as a parent and if you feel your spouse did (or didn't do) something critical then it can eat away at the foundation of your marriage. Factual information is the only way to end this internal debate and put it behind you. Raising a child with special needs is extremely hard on marriages and the last thing you need is an additional (unfounded) stressor to complicate the situation.

4 - To connect you to a larger community
Learning the language of special needs doesn't have to be an added burden. In fact, it can turn out to be a way of finding a community of personal support that will help you through many difficult days and situations. As you research your child's condition you are likely to encounter other parents, support groups, discussion lists, websites, and information centers that are created specifically to help parents raising children with special needs. By drawing on these sources of information and support you can become the kind of parent you always wanted to be -- knowledgeable, secure, and prepared to love and care for your special child.

Article Keywords: Special Education

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Special Education... A Special Education Success Story With ADD and ADHD The Problem In our rapidly moving culture, special education students, diagnosed with ADD or ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) are an ever-increasing challenge for teachers. Having taught in some capacity for nearly 40 years and being a parent of an active little boy, I have studied these conditions with immediate personal interest. Holding Their Attention? Early in my work with the attentionally challenged, I observed that if the learning activity were engaging enough, many of these students could hold attention for long periods. Special Education students diagnosed with ADD or ADHD often have the ability to attend for long periods working with computers or video games. I wondered, could the problem lie more in the pace of the learning activity? Give Them What They Need Subsequently, I began to provide activities in my classroom that had some of the same qualities of the immediate response achieved in those computerized attention-holders. One of the most successful of these was the excavation of fossils. The Setup Fossil excavation was a 6-week class - more of a club, really – in which students excavated a real fossil fish from a soft rock matrix. This time the class was made up of many special education students with various learning challenges, especially ADHD. The outcome of the class was remarkable. Getting Their Interest and Attention We started with a sort of guessing game involving fossils hidden in velvet bags and moved quickly into individual excavation of the fossils. Within minutes, my work was done; the students worked independently for the remainder of the two-hour class. My hardest work that day was to enforce clean-up-the students simply didn’t’ t want to stop working. Tools...