Parenting A Child With Special Needs: A Roadmap To Shine A Light In The Darkness Of The Unknown.: Parenting An Adult With Disabilities

Unless you are raising a special needs child, you do not understand. The daily struggle is real. Try and imagine the work of exhibiting patience, discipline, and love while a child presses into you with challenging behavior day after day.

My daughter Sarah is 25. She is non-verbal autistic. When Sarah was first diagnosed, I felt devastated. The fear of the unknown as to what lay ahead was overwhelming. I was forced to travel a road I had never imagined I would be on, and which was often so hard that I could barely breathe. Yet on that road, I met countless wonderful people who helped and supported me and Sarah, many of whom I have interviewed for this book.

I would dearly love to have read this book at the beginning of my journey as a mother of a child with special needs. It is a collection of interviews with parents of children with autism, sensory processing disorder, Prader-Willi Syndrome, Down Syndrome, epilepsy, Fragile X, cerebral palsy, and Asperger's Syndrome. Finding people who have traveled further ahead on the same road we are on means that we are not alone. Their experience and the knowledge they have gained can provide a roadmap for us - to shine a light in the darkness of the unknown.

This is a book that aims to help those at all stages of the special needs journey. These are true stories from real parents all over the world. These are raw and real stories, woven together with threads of heartbreak and hope, grief and joy, courage and fear, tenacity and persistence, and deep, abiding love.