Where Parents Are

Compiled by Helen Jones (former G.E.A.R. staff member) through personal experience.

There are 30-31 days in a month. Here are 31 examples of everyday life for us, the parents of children with special needs!

 

  1. Sitting in an emergency room or hospital with their child, waiting for a bed
  2. At home by the phone awaiting a call back from crisis intervention
  3. Exhausted from lack of sleep from being up all night with their child who doesn’t sleep most of the night
  4. At home awaiting crisis workers to arrive
  5. At a hospital visiting their child in treatment
  6. At a hospital with their child who needed medical treatment
  7. Out of state to be near their child in residential treatment
  8. At home trying desperately to grasp the opportunity for some “quality time” with the rest of the family
  9. At home overwhelmed by stacks of paperwork that need to be filled out for services, wraparound supports, SSI, Medicaid, etc.
  10. At home with the children, waiting for respite so they can get out
  11. At home tending their children who are too fragile to leave
  12. At home yearning for the opportunity to have their voices heard
  13. Making phone calls, only to get yet another answering machine
  14. At home, not knowing who to call or where to start
  15. At home in crisis with no phone or transportation
  16. At home juggling a budget that doesn’t allow for much gas monies
  17. At home, depressed, embarrassed to let anyone know their child needs help. Feeling inadequate.
  18. In the hospital because they didn’t have time to care for themselves
  19. At home, recovering from being in the hospital
  20. Meeting with the child’s case manager
  21. In a meeting to access in home supports
  22. At a Dr’s. Appointment whether it is medical, therapy or other
  23. At their school to a PET meeting trying to develop an IEP
  24. At a meeting for supported work programs
  25. At a meeting for supported living
  26. At home with their child who has been sent home from school
  27. At home with their child who can’t go to school
  28. In court with their child who made a bad choice
  29. In court filing paperwork for guardianship/conservator ship
  30. Visiting their incarcerated child
  31. Visiting their child who didn’t get services in a timely manner and is in foster care