I’m always asked what advice I would give people just starting out on the special needs parenting journey. I used to try and provide these profound words of wisdom but after awhile, it’s gotten more and more simple.
Anymore, I answer that question with this..
Stop caring what other people think…
When you have a child with special needs, you can’t afford to care what other people think. You must do what’s best for your child, regardless of what the people around you are saying…
UPDATE
Just to clarify what I mean by stop worrying about what other people think .
This message was meant to refer to the judgemental people of the world.
As an example..
You’re out at the store and your child is having a hard time. Before you know of it, you’re knee deep inside of a very public meltdown.
Oftentimes, in my experience, people stare and make rude comments about my parenting ability or about my child being a brat. If I were to let what they think or say bother me, I’d probably go over an punch them in the face. At the very least, it would cause me undo stress, anxiety and likely impact how I’m handling my child in the moment.
Because I’ve learned to not worry about what others think, I can focus on the task at hand without having things like embarrassment, affect my ability to work with my child.
I suppose it’s more of a survival skill.
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i like the title of the post “unsolicited advice” because when i post, i am always wary (not anything you have said) that i am giving unsolicited advice but you have a good handle on it because i think people just want to give everyone assistance and the good news is we all can take it or leave it.
I agree with this in one sense, but if you retreat into isolation and lose connection to the world, then that’s a bad way of not caring what people think. The harder thing is to let go of caring about what people think while still remaining in human contact with others. If you give up on making connection to others (if you allow yourself to stop making and preserving friendships) then the resulting isolation will be so much worse for everyone, including your kids. So somehow, you have to not only not take in the criticism, but you have to connect to people anyway. This is not easy, I can attest, and at times seems impossible. So much easier to cut everyone else out. But if you kids don’t see you having connection to the world, how can they? And, frankly, you need friends to call on in times of need.
Dot… I think you read a bit too much into this or I was just not clear. The message was meant to refer to the judgemental people of the world.
As an example..
You’re out at the store and you child is having a hard time. Before you know of it, you’re knee deep inside of a very public meltdown.
Oftentimes, in my experience, people stare and make rude comments about my parenting ability or about my child being a brat. If I were to let what they think or say bother me, I’d probably go over an punch them in the face. At the very least, it would cause me undo stress and anxiety.
Because I’ve learned to not worry about what others think, I can focus on the task at hand without having things like embarrassment, affect my ability to work with my child.
I suppose it’s more of a survival skill.
I’ll update the post to reflect this comment. Hopefully, that will help to frame this post in a better context. Thank you for pointing this out. ☺
We all read into something what we are dealing with ourselves, right? Funny. The judgments that I have trouble with (you might have noticed) is not strangers so much as my own community. Including family, teachers, friends, neighbors. For me, the strangers are pretty easy to ignore (I don’t have any relationship with them), but the judgment of the community is a tougher one to overcome.
This may just be my issue, I accept that. Lucky you.
Nope. You aren’t alone. I totally agree.. Well said.