- Parental Guilt and Kids with Special
Needs
- by Gary Direnfeld,
MSW, RSW
For the most part pregnancies
are met with the anticipation of a good delivery and healthy
baby. Upon delivery parents do a quick scan of the child checking
for ten fingers, ten toes and if unknown, a check of the genitals
to determine gender. A positive check is met with a sense of
relief and gracious thanks for such beautiful a child.
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However, for any number of reasons,
not all children enter the world equally well equipped. They
may have physical, or developmental challenges that become immediately
known or known within the first year of life. Such children are
identified as having special needs. These are the kids whose
development will not follow the normal developmental curve and
will require special services to adapt and overcome.
In such circumstances parents
undergo their own psychological and emotional adjustment as they
adapt to the loss of the well-child as expected and learn to
provide for their child’s extraordinary needs.
Some parents may feel or may
actually be complicit in their child’s special needs. Drug
and alcohol abuse are known contributors to developmental disorders
whereas other unforeseen circumstances beyond anyone’s control
may contribute to a child’s special needs. Regardless, there
are a good many parents who whether reasonably or not, feel complicit
in their child’s disorder and suffer tremendous guilt as
a result. This in turn leads some parents to heroic attention
to meeting their child’s needs while others may place minimal
expectations on their child, favouring instead to pamper them
so as to atone for their disability or act with a sense of pity. |
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Those parents who undertake heroic
actions are at risk of burnout themselves. Further, marriages
under such strain are at risk of dissolving thus actually placing
an even greater burden of care on the primary caregiver, which
then intensifies their risk of burnout.
Those parents who opt to pamper
their child with special needs and hold minimal expectations
are at risk of their child not fully developing to potential.
Further and similar to parenting well-children with minimal expectations,
there is a risk of contributing to poor behaviour and poor socialization.
Even kids with special needs can be spoiled, become self-righteous
and behaviourally unmanageable from a lack of reasonable expectations.
Sometimes within the same family,
the parents are at odds with each other. One parent may feel
a need to pamper, or to provide heroic actions and the other
will try to balance things out by taking an opposite approach.
Hence the parent that pampers is met by the other parent with
overly high expectations. Clearly then, there is a setup for
parental conflict leading to a shaky marriage, not to mention
mixed messages for a child with special needs, who more than
anything else, needs a consistent message.
Parenting children with special
needs requires a presence of mind unlike that of parenting children
whose development follows a normal path. As if issues of guilt,
upset and loss weren’t enough, there is also the fatigue
that comes with the continuous supervision these children require,
often in the face of limited support.
Those parents who tend to fare
better in their own right share certain traits. They examine
their own feelings with a view to managing them in a way to avoid
interference with the care of their children and they learn to
pace themselves, even if it means somewhat slower progress for
their children.
While all children need their
parents, kids with special needs often need their parents longer…
a lot longer.
If you are struggling, meeting
the needs of your child or if caring for your child is hurting
your marriage, consider counseling. Look at your feelings with
the view to helping you cope and respond better. In the long
run, as you invest in yourself, you are better able to support
your child, now and for the future. |
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