Child / Person first language

You’ve probably heard these words: impaired, handicapped, retarded, suffers from ___, crippled, etc. We want everyone to remember that children or adults with disabilities are like everyone else—except they happen to have a disability.

How have you learned to handle comments that degrade persons with disabilities? What do you say in response?

Love

Advocates at PACER are also parents of children with disabilities ourselves. We know the joys and stresses of raising all of our children, those with and those without disabilities. But focusing on the stressful part of it for a minute, one of the advocates told her husband, “The hardest kid to love is the kid that needs the love the most.”

Wow! What do you think? What has been your experience?

Fathers

When the world talks about rearing children, the tone is decidedly feminine. Despite the growing number of fathers in traditional or single parent families who participate in caring for children, resources and support specifically focusing on fathers are often missing. It is especially true for fathers of children with disabilities.

As PACER advocates, we also find that fewer fathers than mothers participate in IEP planning. Yet one father told us, “It is hard to explain, but there is a different dynamic when the father comes to the IEP meeting.”

What ideas can you share to support the involvement of fathers of children with disabilities as they help raise their child and advocate for him or her?

Holidays

Holidays will soon be here. Family get-togethers and celebrations in community places can be lots of fun – but sometimes also a big headache, even heartache, for families of children with disabilities. Sometimes it’s hard to know how much we can realistically expect our child to participate or behave in these situations. It can also be hard to know how much to expect from our extended family members and members of the community at large. 

What have you learned from your experiences at family or community get-togethers that might be helpful to other families?