Parenting a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder: A Family Guide to Understanding and Supporting Your Sensory-Sensitive Child
In raising children with or without special needs, nothing is more important than the family unit. This book will enable you to enhance your child’s sensory development. Additionally, it will help you ensure that your child and all family members not only survive, but, indeed, THRIVE! When your whole family thrives, you can best ensure your child’s optimum development over the short and long range of life. -Ann Turnbull, Ed.D., Co-Founder and Co-Director, The Beach Center on Disabilities – University of Kansas
Auer and Blumberg have lent their insight, passion, and compassion to this workbook. In so doing they have also provided a guidebook—and a preamble of advocacy for children and their families.
—Morton Ann Gernsbacher, Ph.D., Vilas Research Professor and Sir Frederic C. Bartlett Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
It has been said that a family of five is akin to five people lying side-by-side on a waterbed: whenever one person moves, everyone feels the ripple. A child with sensory processing disorder can have a devastating impact upon the day-to-day functioning of a family. There are several books available that provide data and information on the nature of this puzzling disorder, but Auer and Blumberg have written a valuable book that finally provides parents with specific strategies and practical solutions to the daily challenges faced by these special children and their families. While other books define the problem, Auer and Blumberg offer techniques to minimize the effect of the disorder on the child's daily life. I strongly recommend this book to any adult who is parenting a child with a sensory processing problem—and to the professionals who are assisting moms and dads on this challenging journey.
—Richard D. Lavoie, M.A., M.Ed., author of It’s So Much Work to Be Your Friend and executive producer of How Difficult Can This Be? The F.A.T. City Workshop
Finally a book that treats SPD in the full context that it deserves: not as a co-condition or as another obstacle but as a full fledged challenge to the complete inclusion of individuals with unique learning styles. The collaborative integration of the senses accounts for your picking up this book, examining it and deciding on whether to make it part of your library. Auer and Blumberg walk you through how that process is both derailed and rekindled.
—Rick Rader, MD, editor-in-chief of Exceptional Parent magazine and director of the Morton J. Kent Habilitation Center
Read this with a highlighter in hand, because you will want to refer many times to the wise and wonderful ideas in this splendid how-to book. The authors are not only sensitive and resourceful parents of kids with SPD, but also articulate, honest, and sensible writers.
—Carol S. Kranowitz, MA, author of The Out-of-Sync Child
More Info: Sensory Processing Disorder: A Family Guide to Understanding & Supporting Your Sensory-Sensitive Child
|
Communicating about your special needs child - How to avoid the two most common traps
Relatives can often be the most valuable resource to aid the family caring for a special needs child. A caring and genuinely interested relative can be like having a guardian angel.
Just because people share the same bloodlines, however, does not guarantee that they will share the same beliefs. I believe that every family has some family member that either likes to 'stir the pot', or just has a very small comfort zone. If you do have a relative that you find difficult to communicate with, I offer some traps to avoid, and some suggestions to make communication more meaningful.
Extended family members can often trap unsuspecting parents with two positions. One, the disbelief of any disability that cannot be seen - if the child isn't in a wheelchair, then the child should 'buck up' and work harder. Two, parents are using whatever disability that cannot be seen as an excuse for their lack of parenting skills in general.
Some might suggest that sharing information is the best way to get through the first trap. I personally take a slightly different approach. I verbally state what I know about the disorder and then suggest that if they want additional information, I'd be happy to send something. If they are truly interested in receiving the information, they'll ask. If I send information without their request, I assume that it will end up being a waste of my time. In my opinion, by taking this stance, I present that I standing firm to what I know, and am not put on the defensive.
The second trap is perhaps the most hurtful trap in which to be placed. It is extremely painful to be working tirelessly to provide the best for your family, at the brink of emotional exhaustion, only to be told by someone you know that you aren't doing enough, or aren't doing things well. Again, I try to avoid being placed on the defensive. Instead of rattling off everything I am doing, I think it's sometimes best instead to respond with a statement such as, "What suggestions do you have? I'd be glad to listen to your suggestions with the understanding that I will do what I think is best for my child and my family". You never know, it is possible that someone will have an idea that you haven't thought of. As well, if they offer loony ideas, you have already stated that you may not follow their advice.
Over my life experience of living with people with special needs, I've come to realize that some people will never accept or feel comfortable around those different from themselves. Unfortunately, you may find that this turns out to be a close relative - even your mother or father.
This does not mean that it's not worth trying to bridge the knowledge and cultural gaps that may exist between a specific disability and what is considered to be typical. Instead, identify the cost/benefit of working with a particular person to achieve greater understanding. For some relatives in which the relationship is not strong, it may not be worth extended efforts and dialog to bridge understanding - they may not care about understanding disabilities and you may not care if they do or don't.
The desire to have certain relatives understand may be of great importance to you. In these cases, it may take many years to bridge understanding. A good start, however, is to be open, honest, share strengths and challenges, and keep holding onto hope. If the relationship is strong, I believe bridges can and will be crossed - love is immensely powerful.
Look for Chris' New Book -
Parenting a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder: A Family Guide to Understanding and Supporting Your Sensory-Sensitive Child
Parenting a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder: A Family Guide to Understanding and Supporting Your Sensory-Sensitive Child (Christopher Auer, MA with Susan L.Blumberg, Ph.D., New Harbinger Publications, December 2006) www.newharbinger.com
Sign up for our free newsletter !! www.spdresources.com
More Special Need Children Articles
Back To School
Diagnoses - What's the Point? - Special Need Children
The Nobel Prize for Parents and Families with Special Needs Children
Gifts, Toys, Educational Toys and Crafts for Special Need Children
Five Tips for Keeping Families with Special Needs Children Strong and Healthy
|
About the Author
Christopher R. Auer is the Board President of the KID (Knowledge in Development) Foundation, founded by Dr. Lucy Jane Miller, Ph.D.,OTR and was appointed by the Governor of Colorado to the Interagency Coordinating Council , which oversees disability services to children birth to three throughout the state. He is the parent of three incredible children, one of whom is diagnosed with ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder. Chris is also a sibling to person with an autistic spectrum disorder. Visit his website at www.spdresources.com/.
|
Bookmark this at Del.icio.us 
