Raising a Child with Disabilities

Hi, for the Salvation Army, this is Bernie Dake. And I'm Sarah Nelson. Thanks for joining us and welcome to Wonderful Words of Life. Hello, everyone, and hey, Sarah. This wasn't planned, but how appropriate for our series. Today is Happy Parents Day.

I agree. It's totally appropriate, but I have never heard of Parents Day. And I was like, what do you do for Parents Day? Like, I mean... Full disclosure, I didn't know it was Parents Day either. I'm sure Hallmark has a card we could buy. I guess, I guess.

But in lieu of me not sending a card to my parents, maybe we both take the opportunity to just say, Happy Parents Day, Mom and Dad, we love you. Yes. And Happy Parents Day to every other parent out there. That's right.

Evidently, this is a thing. So we're doing this today. We're celebrating parents. And you don't have to just be parents of children. Maybe you're a parent of a pet or a parent of a significant other in your life. In a sense, you are the parental figure. Happy you day today.

Yes, for sure. I hope this series on parenting has been a blessing to you. The next three episodes with Terry and Donna are going to be very powerful. In today's episode, they'll be sharing their own testimony of what it's like raising a child with disabilities. And they'll spend the next two weeks discussing the pain of loss.

A parent losing a child has to be one of the most painful things that a person could possibly experience. It's such a blessing to have the Israel's here willing to share their story of how God has carried them through such pain. And it's our prayer that their testimony will reach someone in desperate need of hope. If you know of someone who's experienced such a loss, please consider giving them a heads up about these episodes and share the show with them. And if this is you, let us know how we can pray for you.

Send us an email at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org and be assured there are people praying here for you. Down to my soul, into prayers you will hear. Oh Lord, let nothing be wasted. Let nothing be wasted, not a burden within.

When I face temptation, every fight against it. Lord, I come to you now for the freedom you give. Oh Lord, let nothing, nothing be wasted. We all rest but not crushed, persecuted, not abandoned.

Shut down but not destroyed. Oh my soul, take heart in the child, in the sorrow, for he has overcome the world. Let nothing be wasted, the space in between.

The waiting and answers for a vision not seen. And my blessings are yours, you're a burden of peace. Oh Lord, let nothing, nothing be wasted. We all rest but not crushed, persecuted, not abandoned.

Shut down but not destroyed. Oh my soul, take heart in the child, in the sorrow, for he has overcome the world. Let nothing, nothing be wasted. Let nothing, nothing be wasted. Oh, let nothing, nothing be wasted. Let nothing be wasted.

Let Nothing Be Wasted, The Singing Company. We welcome you back to our series on parenting. I'm Terry Israel with my wife Donna, and we have had this wonderful opportunity to go through the various challenges of parenting, the opportunities, the expressions of love that can be given. Today we speak to a difficult issue for many people, raising a child with disabilities. You not only have the challenge and responsibility that you carry to that particular child, but also seeing how that impacts your family dynamic, particularly when there are other children in the household. Having a child with disabilities impacts the entire family, and parents have to be especially mindful to care for themselves and not forget to take care of themselves as they're caring for their child with disabilities. In our own family we have four boys, our oldest boy Matthew, his brother Timothy, Nathan, and our late in life child Zachary.

All were born healthy with no indication of any disabilities or any impairments, and of course we rejoiced in that. When Nathan was five years old our family was involved in an automobile accident, and from that Nathan suffered a traumatic brain injury which eventually led to disabilities in his life. Some of those were physical, although to meet him you would not be aware of that, but many took place within the cognitive functions and became highly refined and very inbred learning disabilities. He was between kindergarten and first grade when that took place, and so it wasn't long before we began to experience the equivalent of seeing a family member, a child, who we had to raise with those challenges and what many would characterize as his disability. As things progressed and our son was able to return to school I had to take on different responsibilities in my parenting, and suddenly there were many challenges working with the school system and the classroom teachers. And so this became a difficulty in our family and certainly it must be true of every parent with a child with disabilities. You have the issue of dealing with their disability, you have the issue of school and social functions, as well as what's going on in the family.

It can have this sense of overwhelming you and how do you sort this out for the greater good of your child who you want the absolute best for them. For Donna, most of those challenges took place in dealing with the school. We were in the very early days of schools being able to reach out to children with disabilities.

They were just formulating their plan on how they would handle situations. And each child, regardless of their disability, is unique. There are no two children, even if a diagnosis is the same, the disability is unique. So as you go through that you have to have a relationship with people in the school. As well there's this incredible dynamic that you have to take on in parenting. How are you going to raise that child?

In a previous episode we had discussed how Nathan's nature was one of very aggressive, outgoing, almost stubborn, but just a highly active child. And suddenly much of what we knew about him and how we had approached him took on a different meaning. And so we very much had to adapt. How are we going to embrace this child as a family and not make them go through many of the things with which they're stigmatized in society and school? It's important to help them understand that they are unique, but each of us are unique and we are created in the image of God, whether that be a physical disability or an academic disability.

God knows how he's created us and there is a plan for each of us. So we have this wonderful attitude towards it, but there becomes some practical challenges. With Nathan there were therapies involved and so the family life begins to center around these various schedules of therapy and support services. It's important for the other siblings to not feel like they're just the come-alongs with brother's responsibilities and therapies. We had a situation where Nathan had the opportunity to do equine therapy and while we would go and do the horseback riding for him, our other two children would have had to sit for two hours while they waited for brother.

As it worked out, they both became involved in working with the horses and learning to ride and in the care of horses so that they weren't just sitting there waiting on brother. In dealing with children with disabilities, it's also an excellent opportunity for us to establish a real value system within the life of those who don't have the disability. To identify with that and not so much look at your own life of what you're losing, but to say what would I expect if I were the one with the disability? How would I want my family to be involved with my life? And so in our own lives and as we've learned from others, it's really important that you begin to say this is the real role of a family, to support each and every one. While you may not have a physical or mental disability, there's so many things in the family that you're benefiting from and this is our opportunity to express our love and our support because we are a family, because this is our loved one and it's what we want to do through the love of Jesus Christ. There was one time when Nathan was being interviewed for a special on disabilities and the interviewer spoke to one of the other brothers and said, do you have to treat your brother special? And he said, yes. And they said, well, how do you treat him?

He says, I treat him like a brother. It's so important that regardless of the disabilities that they know that they have a place in the family and that they are treated with respect. As you deal with those practical challenges, the real evidence is that that individual, that child is not viewed in the family as with a disability, but rather they have this wonderful experience of being part of the family. Acceptance and support, regardless of what others may perceive as an inconvenience or a burden.

It just simply doesn't play out and the practical challenges are realized because they're expressions of love. Thank you for being with us today. If you are a parent with a child with disabilities, we certainly pray for God's provision to you and are grateful to you for the love and the care that you give and express. Join us in our next episode when we will go through the pain of loss. May God bless you as you join us in this series. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support, and we would love to hear from you. Email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org. Call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at P.O.

Box 29972, Atlanta, Georgia, 30359. When you contact us, we'll send you our gift for this series. It's totally free for listeners like you, one per household while supplies last. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast store and be sure to give us a rating. Just search for wonderful words of life. Follow us on social media for the latest episodes, extended interviews, and more. And if you don't have a church home, we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army Worship Center. They'll be glad to see you. This is Bernie Dake inviting you to join us next time for the Salvation Army's Wonderful Words of Life.