Two Coping Skills for Families with Disabilities

by jphilo | Aug 21, 2024 | Different Dream, Encouragement, Special Needs Parenting, Spiritual Support

Two Coping Skills for Families with Disabilities

Kristin Faith Evans understands first-hand the stresses of special needs parenting. In this post, she explains coping strategies she’s used to keep her focused and calm in the middle of the storms of life.

Soon after my daughter with complex needs came home from the hospital, I began struggling to cope with her care needs. I learned that parents of children with special needs must use additional coping strategies more often than parents of children without disabilities. Research shows two skills in particular can help parent caregivers better manage the added stress.

1. Mindfulness

Mindfulness is simply fully participating in the present moment. For example, if you’re washing dishes, slow down and feel the warm water on your skin, focus on scrubbing the dish, smell the soap, and notice your feet on the floor. If your mind wanders to your to-do list, simply come back to your present task.

By being fully present in doing one thing at a time, your anxiety about the future and your painful emotions about the past can lower in intensity. Regularly practicing mindfulness can actually effectively rewire the neural networks in your brain and reduce the negative effects of stress. Practicing mindfulness also contributes to decreased depression and anxiety, improved long-term physical and mental health, higher quality of life, and an easier time adapting. Parenting mindfully can improve your interactions with your child and their development and even reduce your child’s problematic, aggressive, or self-injurious behaviors.

Try this:

Take three minutes today to stop and simply be in the present moment. Notice what you hear, smell, feel, and see. Observe your breathing. Take a slow, deep breath then return to your day.

Here are some free mindfulness apps you can try:

Smiling Mind
UCLA Mindful app
Mindfulness Coach by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

2. Gratitude

I discovered it can become easy to feel stuck and overwhelmed by the stress, making it difficult to see past my challenges. About five years ago, I began making a list of Scriptures about thankfulness. I posted the verses on my bathroom mirror and recorded them in a journal. I now stop during the day, take a slow deep breath, and thank God for the blessings I’m grateful for that day. This brings a smile to my face and gives me new perspective.

Practicing gratitude can improve our physical and mental health, lower our stress levels, and make us more resilient as disability parents. Expressing thankfulness to God can give us new hope and joy and help us see our circumstances in a new light.

These are two easy ways to practice gratitude:

Meditate on Scriptures

Try focusing on memorizing one verse or reading the verse out loud. Here are some sample verses: Psalm 9:1, Psalm 107:1, 1 Corinthians 15:57, 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Start a gratitude journal

Write down one thing for which you are thankful each day or write out your prayers thanking God. On days you feel discouraged, go back and read through your list.

I hope these two coping skills for families with disabilities help lower your stress levels and bring you more joy.

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the monthly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email.

Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash

By

Kristin lives with her husband, Todd, and their two children in the Nashville, TN area. She is an author, speaker, mental health counselor, and a mom of two children with rare genetic disorders and complex needs. Her greatest passion is teaming up with her husband to empower other parents of children with disabilities, mental health disorders, and medical complications. She hopes that you may find encouragement and support on their website www.DisabilityParenting.com

Author Jolene Philo

Archives

Categories

Subscribe for Updates from Jolene

How Can I Be Grateful for Disability

How can I be grateful for disability? The question seems ludicrous, even unfeeling, when I consider what my father, son, and now my mother experienced due to disability.

So how is it, on this day after Christmas, I am grateful for the disabilities that continue to bring sorrow, pain, and loss to our family? The more I reflect upon this question, the more I see that the answer can be found in the smiles of my father, my son, and now my mother. Let me explain.

My father was bedridden for almost 3 decades. My mom was his primary caregiver with my sister, brother, and me playing supporting roles. He was completely dependent on us. We fed him, washed him, dealt with his bodily needs, and kept him company. When we entered Dad’s bedroom, he lit up. Not because of what he wanted us to do for him, but because we were with him.

Our infant son was similarly dependent upon my husband and me. Our baby’s first year was a revolving door of painful surgeries, invasive tests, and illness. Nevertheless, he smiled at us early. When we entered his room in the middle of the night to change his diaper, he smiled. When we talked and cuddled with him during his tube feedings, he smiled. When he was in the hospital and we sat beside his crib, he smiled. Not because we could take away his pain, but because we were with him.

To read the rest of How Can I Be Grateful for Disability, click here to visit the Key Ministry website for special needs parents.

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the monthly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email.

Image by Grae Dickason from Pixabay

By

Jolene Philo is the author of several books for the caregiving community. She speaks at parenting and special needs conferences around the country. Sharing Love Abundantly With Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages® for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities, which she co-authored with Dr. Gary Chapman, was released in August of 2019 and is available at local bookstores, their bookstore website, and Amazon. See Jane Sing!, the second book in the West River cozy mystery series, which features characters affected by disability, was released in November of 2022.