Raising Special-Needs kids has its rewards.
I was blessed with 3 beautiful girls. My oldest daughter who is now 16 was diagnosed in preschool as having something called Sensory Integration Disorder. Basically she would get input into her brain, but it wasn’t being processed correctly, causing her to have trouble responding appropriately. You could ask her a simple question like “what color is this?” and she would respond with a long-winded description of what she did in school that day. Thankfully she outgrew that.
Later it was ADD, and now we think she may have Asperger Syndrome but that isn’t a definite diagnosis. We kind of came to that conclusion after dealing with our Twins, almost 6-years-old and both of them have mild Autism.
Parents of children with Asperger Syndrome or Autism do not know that their child will have a disorder prior to birth. To me this is a good thing, considering many women who discover their child will have a disability will abort that child in hopes of someday conceiving a “normal” child.
I have to tell you, those women are missing out.
Yes, there are challenges to raising a special-needs child, but there are also abundant rewards, not to mention a few perks as well.
Let me tell you about a few of the perks:
My kids do not whine. I haven’t yet heard a “but Moooommmm…” out of any of them. Ever. Yes, the twins may sometimes screech like Howler Monkeys when they aren’t happy, but I have never been subjected to hours of whining.
My kids aren’t greedy. With birthdays or Christmas, they can get a ton of gifts or just one, and they are happy either way. Things do not even have to be brand-new. Its new to them, and that’s all that matters in their world. We can go shopping, and they may spot something they like and try to put it in the cart, but all I have to do is say “h honey, not today” and put it back, and they’re fine with it. No greed, no whining!
The 16-year-old isn’t hung up on having the latest model cell phone. As a matter of fact, she didn’t even care that she didn’t have one. We did get her one for Christmas, the most basic pre-paid model. She was happy to get it.. There was no tantrum over the fact that it wasn’t what “all the other kids have.”
Clothing is pretty much a non-issue. The twins aren’t old enough to be fashion conscious yet, but the 16-year-old? She’ll wear pretty much anything you buy her. Her favorites though are her older brother’s hand-me-down T-shirts.
I always know where my kids are. Again, the twins are not old enough to go gallivanting around, but the 16-year-old is, but chooses not to. She may take off on her bike and ride around the neighborhood for a while, but she never goes far. She has lots of friends at school, but that is where she chooses to socialize the most. Who knows, perhaps after she completes driver’s-ed (she starts later in June) and finally gets her license, that may change, then again it may not.
My kids have their challenges, the twins have a hard time with communicating, but they are just as smart (if not smarter) than any other child their age. They can, and have, figured out and conquered every single child-lock we have put on cabinets and doors. When we resorted to using actual padlocks, all it took was one time watching me use the key, and they had it down. That happened at age 3!
They are a source of great joy to me. Every day its something new to make me smile or laugh.
Bottom line: I wouldn’t trade my kids for “normal” ones. No way, no how.
The Girl Scouts…My initial thoughts are of my own few years in the Scouts as a young girl. Selling cookies, earning badges, going to campouts, reading Bible stories around a camp fire, spending precious time with my mother who worked 3 jobs and yet still had time for every scouting event. Those memories are probably some of the most precious that I carry with me from my childhood.
Just Say No to Abortion 