Special Children

Chana Scop shares her experiences parenting a child with special needs.

She brought him home to her house full of children, and a few days later, the social worker called.

What happens when that absolutely adorable baby becomes a young adult. What then?

Nechama and Yakov were genetically ill-matched, but deeply in love and consistently kind to one another, even under such duress. They also wanted to expand their family, but not at the risk of having another child who might die.

"I take life as it comes. Every moment is a treasure that I cherish, that we cherish. I do what I need to do. This is the life I was given and this is the life I live with. I do my best. We all do our best."

Now that the twins are eight years old, Michael is fully aware of the painful fact that he and his twin brother are different in many ways.

In 1964 this condition was virtually unknown, still in its infancy. I was overwhelmed, and unsure of how I would cope.

The prognosis was that the boy would never walk, never talk and never develop much.

Having brain cancer is no picnic; having brain cancer during Superstorm Sandy is that much worse.

This This got me thinking about all those simple, wonderful things that go along with having a child with Down syndrome. The stuff they don't tell you when the genetic counselor is sitting there with a flip board explaining chromosomes and whatnot...

Things that come so easily for most children do not come so easily for my child. The confusing, murky world of interpersonal communication remains a puzzle that seems to have a perpetual missing piece...

I had no support from my husband, who was in denial, and kept on insisting that ADHD is not a real disorder. “What she needs,” he insisted, “is an iron hand!” He, like many parents, had difficulty coming to terms with the fact that his child was not like everyone else...

This type of parenting requires walking a tightrope. It requires perfect self-control and vigilance against the small slips of anger and impatience that accompany even the best parenting. It requires abundant giving with delayed returns . . .

I know you asked the school before you left today “if they knew what they were doing to a kid who had really been trying so hard.” And I know they didn’t have a reply for you . . .

They call her "special." But I call you, my dear volunteers, special. You are the ones who are extraordinary, unique, rare, different and so wonderful. You are the ones with special souls...

I used to think that the cliché about children gaining from having a sibling with a disability was just some nice words. Maybe in other people's houses, maybe with a different type of disability, but not in our home, not with Yisroel…

When Jill was born her doctor advised her parents to "let her go." Jill's mother informed the doctor that she would only permit the infant to go one place and that was directly to her heart...

This morning, before she went off to school, I said to her, "Sheina, today is your birthday, you are thirteen years old." She showed me thirteen in ASL (American Sign Language)...

How could I, his mother, not see through him? How could I not appreciate the intense power pulsating in him? How could I not be on his side? “Sorry for betraying you,” I sob, burying my face in his soft curls...

Now that I have been granted the child that I prayed for, and he does have special needs, I am finding that specialness more than I bargained for...

We went back to the psychiatrist and she saw right away what it really was. My beautiful, brilliant, funny, compassionate son was literally climbing her bookcases, screaming like a wild animal...

It was back to basics. Actually, it was back to much less than basics. It was back to virtually nothing...

I remember looking at the doctor and thinking: "You are not G‑d. That is your opinion, but anything can happen..."

As his 13th birthday loomed closer, my husband and I began to discuss what we should do. At first we thought nothing at all. How could we ‘celebrate’ a ‘Bar Mitzvah’ that wasn’t? But then we realized that there was much that we did need to celebrate.

Paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair-bound since infancy, she was at one time in a special school for special kids, on a special bus with a special helper . . .

As a child I believed I sang very well, and this assumption was never threatened until I auditioned for my junior high-school choir...

My oldest son, Gabriel, who just turned six, was born with a rare craniofacial birth defect, called Treacher Collins Syndrome. The past few weeks have been a bit stressful, as we were preparing for Gabriel's ninth surgery...

He kept mentioning “Freedom Rules,” and that’s where he really got me thinking. How can there be rules in Freedom?

"For every ounce of effort we give these children, they give back tenfold." Chaya is the mother of six biological children, including a son with Down Syndrome and three adopted kids with Down Syndrome who were tragically abandoned by their parents at birth or shortly afterwards

Autism is a frightening word to parents. Children can have it, adults can have it. But what is it? Why does it happen? And how do you parent an autistic child?

As a teenager I used to think if I could just see into my crystal ball and know who I am going to marry and what my life would be like, I could understand today better. But would knowing my future have truly gotten me through the day or the experience of that moment?

Chaim was born 13 years ago, a healthy child to healthy parents. Then one day, out of the blue, Chaim contracted a "virus" (funny, how when they don't know what it is, they call it a "virus"...)

My husband and I alternated between feelings of grief, numbness and anger.