Category Archives: advocacy

“What Can I Do?” a Note for Special Needs Grandparents

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familyToday I got a lovely note from a reader of one of my books, who asked for advice about how to have a better relationship with her daughter and the daughter’s adolescent child, who has special needs (unspecified). Her daughter didn’t really open up to her about what life was like, and the reader asked, “What can I do? Do you have any advice?”

Here is what I said:

Here are a few things I wish someone had told me when I first got my kids, that this woman can pass along to her daughter:

  1. Raising special needs kids can be exhausting – both physically and especially emotionally. Get as much rest as you can, and take care of your body as carefully as you tends to your child’s. It’s easy to turn to coping mechanisms like alcohol and sweets – and they do feel good going down. Balance it out with salads and water, to have the strength to keep going. Embrace  opportunities to nap.
  2. Don’t forget to enjoy your child. Every challenge has its silver lining – and your child has gifts, too. It can be tempting to focus on the things they CAN’T do so you can find work-arounds and supports. But be intentional about seeking out and affirming the things they CAN do well, whether it’s singing or joke-telling or running or coloring. They need to hear this from you, because if it’s all about the “you can’t,” they will give up trying.
  3. Celebrate the small steps and successes. This is probably one of your biggest jobs of a grandparent. Cards, phone calls, outings, babysitting (parents need down time, too), little gifts, making cookies together – whatever ways you can connect with your grandchild, do it. Do it as often as you can. Show you are as proud of THIS grandchild as you are of all your others.
  4. Pray regularly for your daughter and her family. There is a loud voice going off in her head (if she’s anything like me) accusing her of all the things she isn’t doing for her daughter, all the things she SHOULD have done and didn’t, and all the bad choices she thinks she made, based on the information she had at the time. Catch her doing good for your granddaughter, and admire it out loud. Affirm her ability as a mother – both to her special needs child and to her other children (if she has any). She may not be able to see it sometimes, and she needs you to encourage her.
  5. Don’t offer advice unless asked. This is a hard one for parents. Special needs parents tend to be great researchers, and have reasons for doing the things they do that may appear strange or even neglectful to you (my parents couldn’t understand why I didn’t turn my son over my knee when he misbehaved – and there were several reasons for this, including it is illegal to use corporal punishment on a foster child). Twenty years later, the kids still struggle, but their teachers and others tell me they are good kids. Twenty years from now, no doubt your granddaughter’s “circle” will say the same thing. So continue to affirm the good you see her doing, and keep your mouth closed in the tough spots. Follow her directions carefully, as the mom. It’s okay to ask questions for clarification or understanding – but not to second-guess her mothering.
  6. Did I mention, pray for your daughter and her family? Pray for her marriage, too. In fact, offer a rosary every day for her and her husband. That is the one most important thing you could do.

 

I hope that helps!

 

Heidi

Healing Childhood Trauma

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This week on CatholicMom.com, my column deals with the signs parents should watch for in their children that may indicate they are experiencing trauma and need professional help. The source of the trauma varies from child to child and from family to family: divorce, death, separation, neglect, abuse, financial stress, the list goes on. For children touched by adoption or foster care, unresolved trauma from the circumstances that caused them to be separated from their birth families can affect them into adulthood, even if they are loved and supported by their new families. Love, in and of itself, does not always “conquer all.”

What I wish someone had thought to mention to us when we first got our children, is that unresolved trauma can lie dormant for a time — only to bite you in the glutes as the child approaches adolescence. So parents need to keep a watchful eye, especially in children who have been diagnosed with “invisible disabilities” such as autistic spectrum disorders, ADHD, ODD, attachment issues, and so on. And parents of children with a history of abuse and neglect must never let their guard down entirely. Sneakiness and deceit — even with children who are otherwise good and truthful — is part of the disorder.

Another thing I wish had been pointed out to me is that trauma affects parents, too. After years of dealing with acting-out behaviors, your parent brain may not catch the more subtle signs of “something is not right here.” Not only do your kids need help in healing . . . You may also need help in dealing with the stress.

This week’s Gospel, in which Jesus gives dire warnings to those who cause one of his “little ones” to stumble, predicting millstones and a watery destruction, also provide a faint hint of hope to those who hear with the ears of faith. For the Christian, “death by water” has an entirely different connotation than it does for those who have not experienced the “dying with Christ” and “rising to new life” that baptism represents. Through our baptism, we do have all the graces we need to complete the journey. The path is not without suffering, for we follow in the steps of the Savior who suffered and died for us. But as we travel the road together with our children, we can persevere in faith, trusting in the perfect healing that is to come.

Save Our Children!

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A wise man once said, “The greatness of any civilization is measured by the treatment of its weakest members.” America has always been a great nation. We enjoy unrivaled personal and civil liberties. And yet, we are now a nation in undeniable decline. How did we get here?

To put it simply, we have forgotten ourselves, where we came from and where we’re going.

* We have abandoned spiritual principles that brought us greatness, turning “freedom of religion” into “freedom from religion,” poisoning decency and sacrificing the common good in the name of “tolerance” and “individualism.”

* We have robbed our children of their right to take their place as vital members of society, having abandoned and neglected them on one hand, and and overindulged and under-disciplined them on the other.

* We have wasted our natural abundance and vast resources, allowing those less fortunate — both around the world and in our own backyard — to die of poverty.

* Above all, we have sacrificed millions of young lives — both born and not-yet born — in the name of freedom.
Today my friend Sarah posted this YouTube video that is a must-see for any woman — especially any African American woman — who has ever considered abortion. It is profoundly ironic how the abortion industry has waged “Black Genocide,” legally, by swathing itself in red-white-and-blue bunting and calling it a “choice” rather than a “child.”

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

Our two Democratic presidential contenders have the blood of thousands and thousands of preborn children on their hands. Senator Obama has gone so far as to argue in favor of actually denying medical care to children who survive abortion. (For more information about “Democrats for Life,” click here.)

Five hundred thousand children across our nation are being herded together into group homes, or are kept in permanent “limbo” without a family to call their own. (Here is information about how to become a foster or adoptive parent.)

Four hundred thousand children are in a state of embryonic suspended animation, abandoned by the very people who were willing to go to any lengths to have a child — even if that meant sacrificing their own flesh-and-blood. (If you would like to rescue one of these little ones, click here for more information on the “Snowflakes” program.)

In the first four centuries of Christianity — when the Catholic faith was considered a dangerous Jewish sect, and our leaders were routinely rounded up and executed by the Roman State — history records that thousands of Roman citizens nevertheless converted because of the witness of the lives of these ordinary Christians. In particular, they were admired for tending to those in prisons and hospitals … and because of their efforts to rescue and raise as their own countless abandoned Roman infants (infanticide was legal in the Roman Empire up to eight days of age).

There is a lesson for us here … The question is, how will you respond?