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It's Not Your Fault
How Parents Can Cope with Their Child's Disability
By Mindy Hudon, M.S., CCC-SLP
In most situations, professionals attempt to gently approach the delicate subject of disability with parents. Nonetheless, their responsibility to the child is to determine if a disability exists and to inform the parents of their findings. Subsequently, the report of findings may ultimately shock parents. Therefore, approaching the subject of diagnosing a child with a disability needs to be handled very delicately by professionals to help lesson a parent's guilt.
How the information is presented is critical to your understanding and acceptance of the disability. If you are not comfortable with the professionals you are working with, then go to someone else.
Establish rapport: It's important to develop rapport with at least one of the professionals working with your child. Contact the teacher, therapists and/or principal to talk about your child and to learn about the evaluation process. This will also help you to develop a relationship with the team of evaluators before a diagnosis is determined. Often it is easier to hear delicate information from someone that you feel comfortable with than from someone you have never met.
Be open-minded: Be ready to hear about your child's strengths and weaknesses. Professionals want to help your child and are not placing blame on you. Try to keep an open mind so that you can better understand and accept the disability, which ultimately will help your child. "Diagnosing a disability can be so emotional," Smith says. "The parents are crying, and the teachers are very upset because they have an emotional bond with the child too."
Ask questions:
