What Should I Expect? What Can I Expect? EVERYTHING!

This is a question many new parents ask of their child born with a disability.  It is a reasonable enough question.  But think about that question for just a minute.  When a child is born into your family without obvious disabilities, does anyone ask, "What will he be able to do?"  I've never heard it.  People don't ask that, do they?  Why? 


Let me be so bold as to try to answer that question.  When a baby is born with as yet, no identifiable disabilities, no one asks that question because that  baby is a blank slate of endless possibilities.  Parents have dreams and hopes and visions for their new baby even before it is born. But when a baby is born with a disability, it's like a black hole opens up in which all the dreams, hopes and visions are sucked away leaving only emptiness, dispair and grief (for most families, though not all).


So what's the right answer? It's not so much an answer as a life philosophy.  When you ask yourself  "What will she be able to do?' you answer,  "She's a blank slate with endless possibilities though the possibilities may be different than what I had thought and now I start to re-dream for her."  Don't worry that old dreams and visions fall away.  Just make sure they are replaced.  One of the biggest mistakes people make is to assume the child will be unable to ... anything, everything.


Every child will reach for what is held before him.  If your expectations are low, his will be too.  Hold those expectations high; look for the child's gifts and strengths and encourage and build on those just as you would any child without a disability.


Start fresh, read everything you can on the disability (as long as it is less than 10 years old), absorb the positive information and throw out the negative. Google the type of disability with the word success and you'll be pleasantly surprised.  And then expect everything.  Don't be afraid you'll be disappointed. That comes with a parent's territory.


Once you've adopted your philosophy of expecting it all, then celebrate EVERY success and push, push, push.  Children with disabilities are years ahead of their counterparts of even 10 years ago and I believe much of it is grounded in parent's expectations and unwillingness to take no (from the child or professional) for an answer.