Select Page
Special Needs Parenting: From Coping to Thriving Giveaway

Special Needs Parenting: From Coping to Thriving Giveaway

Special Needs Parenting CoverDr. Lorna Bradley is the mother of an adult son with Asperger syndrome.and she’s an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church. If that short description rings a bell, perhaps you read her Different Dream guest post about beauty in brokenness. Now she’s combined her personal and professional expertise to write an invaluable new book for parents of kids with special needs. I’m excited about how much this book will help families, the book and am eager to tell you more about it.

Special Needs Parenting: From Coping to Thriving Addresses Issues

Special Needs Parenting: From Coping to Thriving addresses many spiritual questions parents ask when their children are diagnosed with special needs. It discusses difficult issues like dealing with grief and guilt with compassion and candor. And it also offers practical advice to makes life easier for parents. A sneak peek at the table of contents to see what it covers:

  1. God and Special Needs
  2. Understanding Chronic Grief
  3. Breaking Free from Guilt
  4. Tools to Increase Patience
  5. Self-care for Caregivers
  6. Building Healthy Relationships
  7. Hope and Healing

Appendix
Notes for Small Group Leaders
Blessing of the Parents Liturgy
Resource List
Self-care Inventory
About the Author

As you can see, Special Needs Parenting: From Coping to Thriving has something for every parent of a child with special needs. Each chapter ends with a list of questions for personal reflection, prayer helps, and Scripture references. The questions can also be used for small group discussion, which makes Bradley’s book a natural for Bible study or support groups.

To read the rest of this post and enter the give away, please visit Down the Gravel Road’s sister site at DifferentDream.com.

Different Dream Vlog Series: What Did I Do Wrong?

Different Dream Vlog Series: What Did I Do Wrong?

Different Dream Vlog Series Guilt

Thank you for stopping for a visit on my gravel road. I taught elementary school from 1978 until 2003 and still miss reading aloud to students. So I decided to revive the practice with the Different Dream vlog series, now a regular Friday feature at my other website DifferentDream.com. Once again I’ll be reading from my book A Different Dream for My Child:Meditations for Parents or Critically or Chronically Ill Children.

This devotional is called What Did I Do Wrong? and deals with a powerful emotion that many parents wrestle with: guilt. If you’ve never experienced guilty thoughts, would you leave a comment about how you avoided that struggle? For the rest of you, which I’m guessing is the vast majority of parents, now’s your time to sit back, enjoy story time, and perhaps identify with what you hear.

To listen to to the vlog, this link will take you to the DifferentDream.com link where it’s posted.

Photo Source: Stuart Miles at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Saint Valentine’s Day

Saint Valentine’s Day

There are some days when all you can be is grateful. Today’s one of them for me. Not because I’m anticipating a Valentine’s gift from my husband. We’re pretty low key about those things. I’m grateful because I’m not doing what I did every Valentine’s Day for twenty-five years which was to supervise a classroom crammed with love-crazed elementary students eating their ways to a sugar high. The kids in the picture above are high school seniors this year. When I see them at their graduation celebrations, they’ll barely recollect how goofy they were on Valentine’s Day.

For me those high energy days are unforgettable. So I’ve been thinking of my friends who are still in the trenches in the district where I once worked. For them, this is a triple whammy day.  It’s Valentine’s Day, it’s the beginning of a three day weekend for kids because of teacher inservice tomorrow, and the temperature is dropping like a rock as the wind shifts from south to north. Weather changes make kids crazy.

And here I am in my very quiet living room, working at my keyboard, living my dream. Every now and then, little bubbles of guilt rise to the surface of my consciousness. I try to pop the bubbles by offering prayers of gratitude. My method is marginally successful.

I’m looking for new ways to ease my guilt. I’ve toyed with the idea of nominating all elementary school teachers for sainthood and write the Vatican. If the pope spent one day, preferably a party day, in a classroom he’d see teachers working miracles by the minute. Approving the nominations would be a no brainer. But since I’m not Catholic, he might not listen to me.

Maybe you can help. Today, do something nice for the elementary teachers you know. Tell them thank you. Speak softly as they are suffering from PTVS (Post Traumatic Valentine’s Syndrome). Give them chocolate, lots of chocolate.  If you’re married to an elementary teacher, give your spouse flowers and lots of chocolate.

But don’t tell them I put you up to it. Just show them how much you appreciate them. They deserve to know.