Original content- Manju K Iyer
Rewritten and edited by- Shilpi Mayank Awasthi
This message goes to everyone who is anyway related to special needs kids or working with parents of special needs kids.
The post is meant to provide you some small tips to help your special needs children.
1. Build the right bond-
Please work on observing, building a bond and connecting with your child.
2. Don’t lose the mental peace and happiness–
Our kid is more important than the academics, his behaviours, his stimming or self stimulatory methods, the so-called tantrums as perceived by the society and is inappropriately seen. We need to try working upon mental health, peace and happiness, interests of our child first.
3. Set the priorities and the correct achievable goals –
We should work on small small goals initially as per the child’s age level and his skill level gradually increasing it to multiple and complex goals once achieved the earlier ones. Set the clear priorities what to expect, how much could be done, etc.
4. Trust your child –
Your kid is first a human being… When you start trusting your kid for who he or she really is. Rest everything will fall in place with time and efforts trust me.
5. Acceptance is the key-
By accepting your kid the way he or she is and the capabilities a new world of possibilities will open up. Dont be scared of the tag that is the diagnosis, be it Autism, Adhd, or any other form of disability for that matter. It is a man made tag. Do not indulge in putting a label or correcting others who do so; as God did not create tags and labels for us. He sees everyone equally. So, accept the challenges bestowed upon you by God, use them as a positive force.
6. Teaching them daily life skills-
Yes, agree that we have to teach them how to live in this society, work with them until they are independent, but only after we accept them and give respect and connect to them as another human. Functional and daily living skills are very important and should be taught right from the beginning.
7. Stepping towards Independence
Try achieving independence together with your child at every step of the journey. Be it simply crossing a road together. Be it going to a local market. Be it visiting a mall and watching a movie together in a jam packed hall. Be it attending a birthday party or a marriage. Be it traveling to another city by bus, train or aeroplane. We can achieve independence and comfort in these difficult and chaotic situations with ease, while we have worked upon all the above points successfully.
7. The learning will follow –
The learning will automatically follow once we are ready to accept and trust the child; once we are at peace the child is happy and want to connect and bond with you. The learning will happen eventually.
Thank you for reading the post! Do like and drop a comment.
Original content – Manju k Iyer mam.
Rewritten and edited- Shilpi Mayank Awasthi