Does a Disabled Child Equal a Disabled Family?

6 Tips for Preventing Family Stress

By Melinda Copp

Parents of developmentally disabled children know that the disability affects everyone and everything in the family. The stress of uncertainty and lack of control can cause marriages to suffer and even end. Parents immerse themselves in caregiving and often neglect their own personal needs and the needs of their other children. And the situation often forces other children in the family to take on the role of baby sitter, which can sometimes cause a loss of personal identity for that child.

These are common occurrences in families with disabled children. What most parents don't realize is that raising a disabled child doesn't mean that the whole family has to be "disabled" as well. This tendency for families to focus everything they have on their disabled child is why author Wayne Hower wrote his new book, Does a Disabled Child = a Disabled Family? (Author House, 2006).

"Many books address how to handle and care for your disabled child, but there aren't as many about how parents can take care of themselves and their other children when there is a developmentally delayed child in the family," Hower says. "It's so easy to get caught up, and other siblings get lost in the shuffle just because the disabled child needs so much care."

Hower, who has helped raise his now 25-year-old developmentally delayed stepdaughter since she was 6 years old, runs a group home with his wife for disabled children who are contracted by the state of Nevada. He understands, on both a personal and professional level, the challenges that families with disabled children face.

"We've seen the wrong things that happen in a family under the stress of raising a developmentally delayed child," Hower says. "My wife got divorced."

So what can you do in your life to prevent the needs of your disabled child from disabling your entire family? Hower offers the following 6 tips:

Want to see more?

• Beyond Surprise and Shock: Learning Your Baby Has Special Needs
• It's Not Your Fault: How Parents Can Cope with Their Child's Disability
• Check out our Article Library.
• Talk about it!