Finding the Right Caregiver for a Child with Special Needs

Finding the Right Caregiver for a Child with Special Needs

by | May 2, 2018 | Different Dream, How-Tos, Special Needs Parenting

Finding the Right Caregiver for a Child with Special Needs

Parents want to find the best possible caregiver for a child with special needs. They want to be hands-on all the time. But there are times that getting an extra hand to help is practical choice. That was that route that my sister took, who is a single mom.

I was still in college when my sister had her child. She was born with Down Syndrome. I naturally got involved in taking care of her, and I owe that experience for my deeper understanding of taking care of children with special needs.

When my sister decided to hire a caregiver, I understood why she had a tough time deciding on the right one. Finding the person who perfectly fits the role in handling such responsibility is not as easy as looking for the cutest baby bows or dresses. And I was there to lend a hand in the selection process. We were eventually guided by our own experiences with her child and good advice from other parents of children with special needs. We were blessed to find good caregivers. The more experiences we had working with them, the more we gained insights about which caregiver traits worked for us.

Finding the right caregiver started with a needs assessment and our knowledge of my niece’s needs and personality. They helped narrow down the choices and guided us through the interview process. The following caregiver criteria guided our selection process:

Physical and Mental Health

  • Healthy, active, and able to keep up with the child’s activities.
  • No history of alcohol and drug abuse.
  • Physical strength and agility to lift and carry a child when needed.
  • Alert and attentive enough to monitor the child and her environment.
  • Good personal hygiene and grooming.

Social Skills

  • Enjoys working with children with special needs.
  • Effective oral and written communication of feedback regarding the child’s progress.
  • Interacts well with the child and the rest of the family.
  • Respectful and has a keen sense of responsibility.
  • Displays professional ethics regarding confidential information
  • Handle conflict with emotional maturity, maintains emotion control, and calm disposition.
  • Uses good judgement in problem-solving.
  • Handles emergencies and unforeseen situations wisely.

Knowledge Base

  • Trained in First Aid and CPR.
  • Understands nutritional requirements for children with special needs.
  • Has knowledge of child growth and development.

Finding the ideal caregiver for a child with special needs requires the work and involvement of every family member. If needed, parents should seek advice from experts and other parents to find a caregiver with experience, patience, skills, and genuine love and compassion for children with special needs.

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

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Angelica Beers is proud mom in her early 30’s who embraced the life of freelancing just so she could have more cuddle time with her kids. She is a writer at babywisp.com. She loves to write about her motherhood journey, and hopes to travel with her family someday.

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Beneath the Surface Is the Precious Gift of Hope

Beneath the Surface Is the Precious Gift of Hope

by | Apr 25, 2018 | Different Dream, Self-Care and Stress, Special Needs Parenting

Beneath the Surface Is the Precious Gift of Hope

When circumstances forced guest blogger Amy Felix to look beneath the surface of her daughter’s autism, she was surprised to discover hope. Perhaps her story will encourage you to find signs of hope beneath the surface of your child’s special needs, too.

I had surgery yesterday. I knew going in that I’d be bedridden for a week. Like many moms, I believed that everything would fall apart if I wasn’t around to hold it all together. The whole thing made me cringe and sent me into a frenzy of cleaning and prepping for my recovery time. I wanted to make sure that anything that could be done before I went into the hospital was done, and then some. This situation would make any mom feel a little crazed but, as parents of kids with autism know, it translated into sheer panic.

How would I keep her routine going from the confines of my bed?
What could I do to ease her anxiety?
Could she afford to miss a few therapy appointments?
Would her babysitters be able to handle her if she had a meltdown?

As much as I wanted to prove I could go with the flow, I was anything but at peace about it all.

Then, as usual, God showed up.

I came home from the hospital to my daughter being in a mood she’s almost never in: calm. She rose above my every expectation to show that, not only was she able to handle a new routine, she was able to show she cared in ways I didn’t know she could. As I laid in bed in extreme pain, she sat by my side, quietly, with a look of concern on her face. She asked me questions about my surgery, wanting to know if the doctors had taken good care of me. She made me a get well card. She offered to help my husband bring whatever I needed to my bedside. She asked me what she could do to help me feel better.

And then she came up with her own idea.

“I know the perfect thing to help make you feel better!” she said, running out of the room. She came back carrying a stuffed Jesus doll she’d gotten at Vacation Bible School last summer. She laid him on my lap and looked at me. Really looked at me with the coveted eye contact is something we don’t take for granted around here. She shot me her trademark grin, beaming with pride. And, for the first time in a very long time, I felt connected to her.

I felt her love.

I didn’t have to just believe in it, trusting that somewhere inside she cared. It was right there for me to see. She knew, better than anyone, exactly what I needed to heal.

Jesus.

When I was choosing to worry, she chose to turn to the One who had it all in the palm of His hand. What I had made complicated, she made simple…when you’re hurting, turn to Him.

I’m ashamed to admit that I so often focus on caring for my child’s disability that I forget to focus on her abilities. Abilities that far outweigh anything that she can’t do. Abilities given to her by her Maker. Today, she reminded me that she’s in tune with the needs of others, cares in her own special way, and knows the deep need that we all have for the Healer. While God reminded me that His ways are mysterious and amazing, His plans far greater than anything I could ever come up with on my own. He reminded me to look beneath the surface. That He can use each of us, regardless of any label this world would give, to make a difference in this life.

Today, He gave me the precious gift of hope.

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My name is Amy Felix. I’ve been married for 10 years to a guy who’s totally out of my league. I’m a homeschooling mom to 4 kids, ranging in age from 9 to 2 years. That’s really enough work on it’s own but, because I love it, I’m a photographer as well. And, in my spare time, I write. My faith is the driving force behind my special needs blog: Appointed To Hope. I’m a firm believer in being real, transparent, and using the gifts of this journey as a way to relate to others in their joy as well as their sorrow. To read more about my adventures in special needs parenting, visit my website at www.appointedtohope.com.

Author Jolene Philo

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Unbroken Faith Is Not Just for Parents of Kids with Special Needs

Unbroken Faith Is Not Just for Parents of Kids with Special Needs

by | Apr 18, 2018 | Books and Resources, Different Dream, Special Needs Parenting

Unbroken Faith Is Not Just for Parents of Kids with Special Needs

Different Dream concludes the three-part series from guest blogger, Diane Dokko Kim. Today, Diane shares about why she wrote Unbroken Faith: Spiritual Recovery for the Special Needs Parent, and whom it was written for.  (Heads up: It’s not just for parents of children with special needs.)

Why did you write Unbroken Faith?

When our son was diagnosed in 2004, my husband and I were fresh off the mission field and had committed ourselves to full-time ministry. Then, we got hit with this. Feeling trapped and chagrined, I felt as if I had nowhere to go with my shock, grief –and quite honestly—my outrage. So I poured out my anguish into a password-protected journal. For years, I wrestled privately with God: How could He do this to us? How can I trust Him after this? After about five years, rather than healing our child of his developmental disability, God healed me of my spiritual disability. The very thing I thought would destroy my relationship with God was the very thing that drew me closer to Him, and to understanding His heart, anew.

Why is Unbroken Faith needed?

Unbroken Faith is the book I wish had existed for that crucial time, immediately post-diagnosis. Like most special-needs parents, I Googled everything I could get my hands on. I found many resources that targeted my son’s disability, but few that addressed my own spiritual needs. Nothing scratched where I itched – or, more accurately, where my soul ached.

After God healed my heart through His Word, I was asked to lead a special needs parent support group. As I got to know other families with a wide range of diagnoses, I marveled that regardless how rare a diagnosis, no matter how different our cultures or socio-economic backgrounds, we all shared the same core struggles: How could God let this happen? Why us? Is He going to fix this?  If not, how will I get through this? How can I trust Him again?

We all felt spiritually disillusioned, our faith “broken.” Especially when 90% of our families are unable to attend church, who else hungers more for hope and encouragement that God has a plan for our children and our families? In a world that devalues those who are different, who else needs to hear the Good News that our children are wonderfully and fearfully made?

God was calling me to comfort others with the comfort I had received from Christ. The pain that once wrecked us, God had redeemed and repurposed into a calling to minister to others.

What’s different about Unbroken Faith?

I intentionally wrote Unbroken Faith to not be about my family’s story, but about the collective, universal experience of ALL families affected by disability. The illustrations in the book speak to the most common denominators that all special-needs families face: feeling devastated by unexpected news, having to recalibrate our expectations, feeling overwhelmed, unqualified, fearful, and isolated. No matter what the diagnosis, we all feel this way. But no matter what the disability or special need, Jesus is an equal opportunity healer and Redeemer.

Unbroken Faith spends a significant amount of time giving parents “permission” to grieve the loss of expectations. When God devotes half the book of Psalms to validate and honor human grief and doubts, then we can know that our grief matters to God. If we cannot grieve, we cannot heal. And if we cannot heal, we’re unable to open our hearts or hands to receive the new, unique blessings God wants to reveal in and through our children.

It’s also unique in that it’s written in a hybrid devotional-Bible study format. Each chapter is short (because special needs parents are busy!) and includes cross-referenced Scriptures, a prayer and application questions. It can be used for personal reflection as well as group study and discussion.

Who (else) might be interested and why?

Unbroken Faith: Spiritual Recovery for the Special-Needs Parent is for parents, of course. But it’s also for the extended family, friends, neighbors and church community who love them. I consider the closest concentric circles to a family affected by disability as “first responders.”   These also include the wonderful circles of therapists, clinicians, educators who work directly with special needs families, as well as church staff and ministry team volunteers (e.g. pastors, children and student ministry leaders) and counselors and therapists who can wrap around to provide needed emotional and spiritual supports.

In particular, I wrote chapter 18, Compassion: Suffering With (available in the free extended preview by subscription to her website) to help others understand and know how to support a family affected by disability: What to say or do, what not to say or do.  Because our closest friends and family want to help, but they often don’t know how, and may fear getting it wrong.

I hope and pray that Unbroken Faith can serve as a translator or tour guide to the complex and delicate world of special needs, to equip “non-native” speakers with understanding, empathy and compassion.

Lastly, Unbroken Faith is for anyone who’s been crippled by anything. We all live as residents of a broken planet. None of us are exempt from getting pierced by its jagged edges. At some point, all believers must contend with “How could God let this happen? Is He going to fix this?  If not, how will I get through it? How will I trust God again?”  Whether it’s a diagnosis, disorder, divorce, death –or the death of a dream– everyone has to reconcile our faith with disappointment. But no matter what our spiritual condition, we can all have the same solution.  His name is Jesus.

Part 1
Part 2

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

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Diane is the mother of a child with multiple disabilities including autism and ADHD. Since 2008, she has served as a special needs ministry consultant, partnering with Joni and Friends as a national speaker, trainer and ministry ambassador. Author of Unbroken Faith: Spiritual Recovery for the Special Needs Parent(Worthy, April 2018), her work has been featured in Orange’s Parent Cue, Parenting Magazine, Dandelion Magazine, and Not Alone. Diane’s passion is to encourage weary parents and empower them to experience the timeless relevance of God’s Word applied to the gritty realities of special needs family life. She and her husband, Eddie, live in the heart of Silicon Valley with their two sons. Connect with her on Facebook or www.dianedokkokim.com where she blogs on being wrecked, redeemed and repurposed.

Author Jolene Philo

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8 Lessons from My Kids about Life

8 Lessons from My Kids about Life

by | Apr 12, 2018 | Different Dream, How-Tos, Special Needs Parenting

8 Lessons from My Kids about Life

The lessons from my kids just keep coming. My youngest turns 30 this year, and I am continually surprised and delighted by what they have to say and how they have improved upon what their dad and I taught them. This morning, I sat down and brainstormed a list of the wisdom and richness they’ve brought to my life.

  1. How to keep house in a tornado. Which was the general condition of our home when they were kids. Now that we have an intergenerational living arrangement with our daughter’s family, our grandkids create tornadoes whenever they visit our part of the house. Thanks to my tornado training, I can keep up with them–most of the time.
  2. How to foster creativity and individual uniqueness. My kids taught me that fostering creativity requires only a few key ingredients: time to mess with art supplies, tape, blank paper, scissors; imaginative time with dress up clothes; reading books together; time for Legos, Lincoln Logs, and blanket forts; time alone to think and imagine; and time outside to explore and get dirty. Both kids had access to these ingredients, and their individual uniquenesses emerged as they gravitated to the ones that piqued their interests. The same pattern is emerging with our grandkids. Warning! This strategy will result in a house that looks like it was hit by a tornado.
  3. What matters to kids is different than what matters to adults. My kids often talk about their favorite childhood memories and what events impacted them profoundly. Usually their fondest recollections spring, not from planned events like vacations or big, but from little things–songs we sang in the car, the radio shows playing while we cleaned house and folded laundry on Saturdays, the stories their dad told at bedtime, and learning to cook simple meals.
  4. How to make a good latte. My daughter did the barista thing while her husband was in graduate school. She did some research and convinced my husband and son to join her in purchasing a refurbished latte machine for me one Mother’s Day. She taught me how to use it, and we now take turns making lattes for one another–sheer bliss for two coffee snobs on a tight budget and miles from a good coffee shop.
  5. How to safely peel an onion. My son taught me this skill the last time we visited his farm. It’s not just safe, it’s quick and easy. I am eternally grateful!
  6. How to protect privacy. I’m thankful social media didn’t exist when our kids were young. I would have plastered pictures of our son’s surgeries and recoveries to keep people up-to-date. Now that he’s an adult, I realize that practice would have been an invasion of his privacy that could never be erased. Both are parents themselves who post few pictures of their children, and I post none at all.
  7. Endings are new beginnings. Each time a phase of my children’s lives ends, I am a little sad. But I also get a little excited because my kids have showed me that each ending—including the ones I was pulled into kicking and screaming–is also a new beginning. Each new beginning contains disappointments and delights, and God continually uses both for good in unexpected and amazing ways.
  8. Let go of all but prayer. God allowed my children to mature and become adults. They are no longer the baby boy in a NICU isolette recovering from surgery or the little girl whose dyslexia kept her from learning her math facts. They are adults who have made the most of their strengths and can cope with their weaknesses. My job is no longer to pick them up when they fall. My job is to let go of all but prayer. To pray that when they fall, they will have the strength to pick themselves up, and to cry out to God when their strength fails.

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

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Jolene Philo is a published author, speaker, wife, and mother of a son with special needs.

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How Is Disability a Blessing?

How Is Disability a Blessing?

by | Apr 4, 2018 | Books and Resources, Different Dream, Special Needs Parenting

In her new book "Unbroken Faith," Diane Dokko Kim wrestles with a question parents ask after a child's diagnosis: How is disability a blessing?

How could God let this happen? I can’t do this! How can my child have a meaningful life? Where is God in all this? When a parent hears that their child has a disability, hearts and hopes are broken. But faith doesn’t have to be. A Different Dream welcomes guest blogger, Diane Dokko Kim, author of Unbroken Faith: Spiritual Recovery for the Special Needs Parent, for a 3-part series. Today, she graciously shares an excerpt from her new book. Enjoy!

“God won’t give you anything you can’t handle.”
“Special-needs children are a blessing!”
“Trust God. He is good!”

Just stop. Please. In the face of “Severely disabled. Mentally retarded. Prognosis unknown,” how is disability a blessing? How is God still good? Our son was cognitively disabled; and I was now spiritually crippled. That single piece of paper severed all existing connections between my head and heart. Any preexisting conditions, convictions, and even feelings went numb as disillusionment and spiritual death hovered near. My faith was flat-lining. We both required urgent and intensive intervention.

God Understands?

Spiritual surgery is not without pain. Pat Sunday-school answers are as helpful as a Band-Aid plastered hastily over a stab wound. Superficial solutions don’t stick. Shallow treatment doesn’t mend torn tissue or flush out the emotional pus festering deep within. Sometimes you have to cut deep to really deal with what’s going on inside.

But what does the Bible have to do with the modern-day, gritty realities of raising a child with a disability? How is this antique, archaic book relevant? What does God know about special needs parenting? His Child was perfect, wasn’t He? An impenetrable, omnipotent Being didn’t have to contend with chronic fatigue, isolation, or a lack of resources and support. After all, He has all the power of the universe at His disposal. What does God really understand about this?

Consider This

In Genesis, He knows the joyful anticipation of beloved children. He prepared lavishly for their arrival, too, just like every eager parent. He also understands the heartache when those children don’t turn out as expected, despite having done everything right to guarantee they do. And His heart was filled with pain.

In Isaiah, He’s the Father of a wounded Son who was bullied, misunderstood, rejected, and scorned. He shares my outrage, feral protectiveness, and demand for justice. He advocates for us. Oh, how He fights for us! He knows when we are unable to fend for ourselves. His strength is perfect in our moments of abject weakness. He vindicates
to make our righteousness shine like the noonday sun.

At Gethsemane, He felt completely alone, carrying a burden no one could understand. He experienced utter disappointment when trusted people weren’t there for Him at His time of need. He cried out prayers in blood, sweat, and tears . . . that were met with silence. He, too, pleaded for deliverance but received the answer no. He even uttered the same words I’ve cried out in times of darkness and despair: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

At the cross of Calvary, for all His power and authority—being in very nature God—He demonstrated submission to “not my will, but thine” (Luke 22:42 KJV). He proved “my grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Corinthians 12:9 KJV).

Ultimately, He demonstrated His power over death and despair. He proved that what the enemy intended for evil, God can redeem for good (Genesis 45:5). He proved that He is a redeeming God, the only kind of God He knows how to be.

Part 2
Part 3

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

Diane is the mother of a child with multiple disabilities including autism and ADHD. Since 2008, she has served as a special needs ministry consultant, partnering with Joni and Friends as a national speaker, trainer and ministry ambassador. Author of Unbroken Faith: Spiritual Recovery for the Special Needs Parent (Worthy, April 2018), her work has been featured in Orange’s Parent Cue, Parenting Magazine, Dandelion Magazine, and Not Alone. Diane’s passion is to encourage weary parents and empower them to experience the timeless relevance of God’s Word applied to the gritty realities of special needs family life. She and her husband, Eddie, live in the heart of Silicon Valley with their two sons. Connect with her on Facebook or www.dianedokkokim.com where she blogs on being wrecked, redeemed and repurposed.

 

Bringing The Darkness Of Mom Guilt Out Into The Light

Bringing The Darkness Of Mom Guilt Out Into The Light

by | Mar 28, 2018 | Advocacy, Different Dream, Special Needs Parenting

Bringing The Darkness Of Mom Guilt Out Into The Light

Amy Felix has been experiencing an uptick in the mom guilt that plagues many special needs mothers. She explains how God is using recent unexpected and disappointing events to help her overcome it.

A year ago, my family joined a team in planting a new church. God had been clear that we should leave the comfort and security of our home church in pursuit of His mission which, we were sure at the time, was for me to start a special needs ministry. Yet, a few days ago, we notified the church plant team that we were leaving the church we’d helped build…before my ministry ever left the ground. It was a painful decision for our family and I felt as though people would see me as either a failure or a quitter. Yet, we strove to be obedient to God as He made it very clear that this was no longer His plan for us. It was time to move on.

This experience brought to light the mom guilt I didn’t even know I was carrying, the belief that being a special needs parent means I need to carry all the weight, all the time. Not just my own struggles, but the struggles of others who share a similar journey. If I don’t, I’m not living out my calling.

God has used this transition to speak into one of the dark places in my heart; the place where I hide my “mom guilt”. Mom guilt tells me that I’m not enough. Though I give my all to champion my children, this ugly lie I’ve been holding onto said that living out loud the love, acceptance and support I felt for the special needs community in my daily life didn’t count. I was convinced that being transparent about our family’s struggles and joys on this journey had no power to impact the world. I believed that I needed to be over-extended, weighed down and treading water, or I wasn’t making a difference.

The truth is, I am enough. We moms are enough. Sometimes, we are called to go above and beyond to advocate, educate or support. Other times, we are simply called to navigate this journey the best that we can. In the way that parent our children, in our interactions with those society deems “different”, in how we respond to trials along the way…God can use all of these and more to influence our communities in a positive way.

So, if you’re like me, and you’re hanging on by a thread right now…don’t believe the lie that you’re not enough. Don’t count yourself out. Your purpose can be found in the little, daily things just as much as it can be in the grand gestures. God can use it all.

 

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

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My name is Amy Felix. I’ve been married for 10 years to a guy who’s totally out of my league. I’m a homeschooling mom to 4 kids, ranging in age from 9 to 2 years. That’s really enough work on it’s own but, because I love it, I’m a photographer as well. And, in my spare time, I write. My faith is the driving force behind my special needs blog: Appointed To Hope. I’m a firm believer in being real, transparent, and using the gifts of this journey as a way to relate to others in their joy as well as their sorrow. To read more about my adventures in special needs parenting, visit my website at www.appointedtohope.com.

Author Jolene Philo

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