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Being able to talk with another parent who has ''been there'' provides invaluable support to parents of a newly diagnosed child with special needs -- and the knowledge that they are NOT ALONE.
An important part of my own grieving has been to reach out to other parents.
Contact with other parents is the resource first sought by many families when confronted with the news of disability in a child. This parent-to-parent connection fosters hope, offers support, and affords rapid, informal dissemination of news, pragmatic problem-solving, and other resources.
The Parent to Parent Network is by far one of the best run and most effective operations of its kind in the nation.
It was a very helpful experience from the perspective that you realize that you're not alone, dealing with problems; that you have someone there who as I said, has similar experiences and therefore is very empathetic and very capable of being supportive. So the common thread there is your child and the problems that they have and how you have to cope with them.
Once I got connected with [my supporting parent], I don't know. It was just like a close connection. She knew what I wanted to hear and she knew everything that I wanted to know... She knows what we're going through with sickness and all. I don't know.... It's a special friend that I never had.
It really did help to know that some of the things we were thinking and feeling were perfectly normal; that there wasn't anything wrong with it.
Hearing the stories. There's always worse case scenarios out there, and you just have to be thankful for what you have.
Being reassuring, you know. Sometimes like my son doesn't walk yet. You know, just a positive voice that will come. Even though he is three years old; it will come. It's just taking a bit longer..... There's a light at the end of the tunnel; You just have to know that it's there.
I do take my child to behavior specialists.... and that's nice and good to talk to them, but they don't have to deal with the child that has these problems. And I think a parent going through similar circumstances can sometimes tell you how they handled something and you think, oh that's a good idea, I haven't tried that. And you aren't going to get that from a doctor.
So that really lightened the load for me. In other words, if I didn't feel confident in going to someone else, I knew that I could always pick up the phone and call my support parent and discuss some things with her. Whenever I needed something, it was like I can always turn to her.