Скачать или смотреть Resources for parents of children with special needs Episode 66 of Transition Tuesday

If you’d like to receive our Episode 65 bonus PDF on resources to support parents of children with special needs, click this link http://tensigma.org/episode66bonus

As we know, parents play an important role in the education process. Learning about a child’s disability can be a challenging time for parents and it is important that educators support parents, so they can partner to help the student. Even if a parent knows their child has special needs, they often struggle when they begin to learn more and realize the potential impact on their child’s life. It is also important to remember that every parent may react differently and that is perfectly normal.

Here are a few common reactions and emotions parents may experience:

• Denial – “This is not happening” and they may act like as though their child does not have a disability.
• Anger – “You can’t help us”. This reaction can be very intense and is connected by grief and inexplicable loss that some parents experience in this process.
• Fear – “What will happen to my child?” This reaction can sometimes lead to parents disengaging because they think “Why bother?” if they feel their child’s condition will worsen or not improve.
• Guilt – “What did I do wrong?” This reaction leaves a parent feeling that may have “caused” the disability or they are sometimes worried that their involvement may make it worse. In some cases, guild may cause a parent to be overly involved to help make up for what they think they did to cause the disability.
• Confusion – Parents may become overwhelmed with feelings connected to the situation or the amount of new information they are dealing with. Because of this, some parents may have difficulty in making decisions.
• Powerlessness – Because of their unfamiliarity with the disability, the laws, or the options; some parents may not trust people involved in helping their child and feel like they can’t help their child themselves.
• Disappointment – For some parents, having a child who is “different” may pose challenges to the family’s value system. In some cases, a family may hesitate to see their child as a person who can develop into a valuable, contributing member of society.
• Rejection – Unfortunately, some families or cultures may reject a child with a disability or they may reject the professionals (and their help) who tell them their child has a disability.

Here some ways that educators can help parents of children with special needs to process their feelings and emotions:

• Understand that these parent reactions or states are common across disability areas
• Understand that processing these reactions takes time and some parents move through this quickly while others may take longer or possibly never get through them
• Do not judge the parents
• Encourage parents to see the positives in their child which may take time to happen, but celebrate it when they do
• Keep communicating with parents about the positive things you see in their child and whenever possible use data to back up your feedback
• Understand that parents may show a variety of emotions about their child – even in one meeting and that each parent may have different reactions
• Remain professional, empathetic, and compassionate
• Encourage the parent to talk with other parents and consider providing opportunities (and resources) for parents of children with disabilities to talk with each other

As part of each episode of Transition Tuesday, we provide additional tips, teacher tools, and resources related to the topics we cover. For this week’s bonus, Ten Sigma is providing a pdf that contains links to resources to support parents, which you can access by clicking the link at the top of this description.

To learn more about Ten Sigma’s educational resources for teachers or parents, please visit our website http://tensigma.org and you can also connect with us on social media at:

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We hope you enjoyed this episode and that you use this information on supporting parents of children with special needs.