Living it

When your child is diagnosed with a learning disability, we as parents tend to ask other people- be it doctors, therapists, teachers about our child as we feel ourselves to be incapable of understanding the situation. This is but natural as we are caught in a situation we never thought existed.   The lucky few had been sensitised about it but I was not amongst those. As special parents we get diagnosis/ assessments from various doctors and therapist. I would like to share my journey- started with SPD (Sensory processing disorder), ASD ( Autism syndrome disorder) with speech delay. At one point of time I was told that my child doesn’t have autism but behaviour that is causing speech delay.   I was told that he lacks motivation and intention. This list will continue on and on.  But with time I started believing in my understanding about my child more than others. Now I will share the reason I am writing this- it’s because of something a person working on my ch...

The Kurkure Party No no, kurkure was not the only thing we had to eat, on the contrary it was not there in the list of food served. But I like to call it a kurkure party because of its tagline- theda hai par mera hai. Yes I am a special super mother of a 10yrs old child with labels that has been given to his conditions but for me the labels don’t matter, what matters is that he is my child. Whenever the situation gets a little hard to handle, I remember kurkure and things brighten up just like the bright orange packet. Well my son turned 10yrs this July- it was his first double digit birthday and I am sure I won’t be there for his 100 th birthday so thought of celebrating it with his friends. Celebrating a birthday is a ‘but natural’ thing for parents but for most of the kurkure parents, it’s something that might be over stretching with the kurkure child not enjoying much. But that’s a myth, atleast for me it was a myth. I had to stretch a little and the child enjoyed so m...

The guide and the Apprentice I am a mother about to enter my 40’s with a son who would be entering adolescence soon. My son communicates but is non verbal and I am yet to hear the three magic letter –MOM. He has taught me many lessons and has turned me from a maid, driver, cook, cleaner, lullaby singer to a parent, a mother, a friend and more importantly a guide. The reason I am writing this is to tell parents who are going through similar journey to learn as fast as they can whatever their child wants to teach them and teach them what you would like them to learn the way they can learn. I wasted time to start my learning journey. I don’t want to cry over spilled milk as the spilled milk taught me how not to spill milk again. His diagnosis left me shattered as I did not know what that actually meant, I only knew that there was something wrong. And as any educated parent would do, I started with google, then meeting doctors and therapists. One thing led to another and I forgot...

THIS TOO SHALL PASS Past few days have shocked the parent community in India especially the special parent community. The Bangalore incident had not died out from the mind that now we get to hear about the Mumbai incident. The mother gives in to the pressure of parenting a special child. Parenting is a difficult job with its ups and downs and parenting a special child is more difficult as it needs more perseverance. I am wearing the same shoes and know where it hurts but taking such an extreme step doesn’t seem right. I also understand that the situations the mother might be going through will be much more difficult than most of us but still the extreme step cannot be justified. Destiny seems to have played a cruel game when seen in a short term perspective but when you see the BIGGER picture, the same destiny is helping you evolve as a human being. Every special parent has been blessed with this opportunity. We can use this opportunity to become better human beings as we ...

Live WITH your Child I talked about celebrating children in my last article.   I would now like to share about few gifts we can give our children for their bright future. 1.       Unconditional love - Every parent loves their child irrespective of their health, wealth, status. But I want to talk about is not just love but UNCONDITIONAL love. Loving a child when they are at their best is easy as we feel proud of their achievements but loving a child when they are not at their best is what I want every parent to consciously practice. The child needs the word ‘I LOVE YOU’ the most when they are low. All of us need that when we are low too. The child has to feel loved for their existence and not only for the achievements . The child wants to do well, the child wants to make the parent happy but it is not possible to happen all the time so let’s make them feel loved without any conditions or strings attached to it. 2.     ...