My latest read has been Building a Joyful Life with your Child who has Special Needs by Nancy J. Whiteman and Linda Roan-Yager. This delightful book is so practical for parents trying to work through their feelings about parenting a special child.

The book is structured to include fabulous quotes and stories from parents of children with a wide variety of disabilities. Each chapter also includes exercises to help you explore your thoughts and feelings and develop the tools and a plan toward building a joyful life. As the authors noted, they designed this book as a workbook because parents need to “do the work”. What they mean is that we need to do the work…or ourselves. That’s what the book is about – helping ourselves.

Topics range from resilience and self care to reframing our beliefs to finding personal meaning in the challenges we have been given.

Sure there are lots of self-help books out there, and many are very useful when trying to come to grips with parenting special kids. But this one was written by and for parents of special kids. The authors are raising children with two entirely different disabilities – Down Syndrome and Bipolar Disorder. They also interviewed numerous parents of children with physical, mental and emotional disabilities. While each story is different, many of the feelings are so similar.

For me, one of the most eye-opening chapters was “Shrinking the Balloon: Seeing Your Child as a Whole Person”. I’ll admit my balloon is huge. I can’t begin to see around or past LuLu’s disabilities. In fact, I'm stuck on the disabilities as my main thought most waking moments. Case in point: I was asked on a profile recently to write down some things I like about my child. Given that the area for writing the answer was about 1/3 of a page, I realized I had a problem. Could I really think of enough positive attributes to fill that space? If the question had been reversed, 1/3 of a page would never be enough space. YIKES! Time to reframe a few things!

Yes, I love her. Yes I find things I like about her. But they all pale in comparison to that huge balloon of disability. Nancy and Linda gave some practical exercises to help me shrink that balloon. To start looking at my own expectations and through my child’s eyes. To identify and celebrate her strengths! So, I'm working on it!

The chapter on asking for help was also convicting. Although I’m light years better at this than a few years ago, I still struggle with asking for, or even accepting, help. Nancy and Linda pointed out that we need to get over the idea that we have to return every favor we’re given in kind. That others in our family/community don’t always see it as a burden to help our families – they want to do something meaningful. They want to be able to connect with us and with our children in ways that build their relationship with us. They often don’t know what that help would be, so asking for specific areas of help is a way to bridge that gap.

Finally, I found their last chapter on Finding Personal Meaning to be a fabulous way to conclude this workbook. Personal meaning of what I’m supposed to do with all these challenges is a much-needed exploration. Changing that question from "why me" to "what can I learn from or how can I grow from this experience" is a healthy step toward finding this meaning. Awareness, gratitude and giving back to others are all topics covered here.

This is the kind of reference book that parents of special kids can use over and over, tracking the changes and growth in their lives. Get a copy for yourself.

And it would make a great gift for other special parents you know, too!