Social support, the emotional and caregiving support provided by family and friends, has been found to be important in everything from mental health to recovery from illness to prevention of child abuse. One reason that low-income families have less social support is they have less of the kind that you buy. Having a nanny, a babysitter, a child care center all provide parents a break from the non-stop stress of parenting a child with special needs. No matter how much you love your child you still need to sleep, to go to the doctor or dentist for yourself, to buy new clothes.
Ask for all of the help you need! This is often difficult for parents, regardless of age, education or experience. Evelyn Klimpe (shown at left), in her article You don't know what you don't know in the Miniwakan Tiyospaye (Spirit Lake Family) on detection of her son’s disability says,
“Did I walk down the hall to the Infant Development Program and ask for help? No.”
Why? Because she was afraid they would think she was a bad mother, because she was afraid what they would say, that her little boy was crazy, because she thought she should be able to handle his problems herself, after all, she was his mother.
As Evelyn says, her life would have been much easier if she got help sooner. What types of programs might provide assistance for a family of a child with a disability?
Head Start – we know that many reservation Head Start programs have a waiting list. However, did you know that federal regulations require Head Start programs to enroll 10% children with disabilities regardless of income. It is possible that your Head Start program staff may not think of this right away when they tell you that your child needs to be placed on the waiting list. (There is a tendency to assume this is because the staff is incompetent or favors their relatives. We tend not be so pessimistic and assume that really, Head Start staff like most people don’t carry around all federal regulations memorized in their heads. We don’t. Do you?)
Parent Education - Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.), System Training for Effective Parenting (S.T.E.P.), Parents as Teachers and other training programs are invaluable for teaching parents about normal child development. These may be offered free through your child's school, Even Start, Head Start or even simply as their own programs in some communities.
Home Visitor Programs – These include programs such as FACE, Even Start and some reservation Early Childhood Tracking Programs. Most home visitor programs will provide all of the following:
Screening for behavior, mental and physical problems
Fact sheets on what is normal development for the child’s ageTraining in activities that are recommended for the child’s age, including to teach language, problem-solving and social skills.
NEXT: Understanding your special needs child