Welcome to Cerebral Palsy:
Simple Notes on a Complex Problem
Good Morning to You!
Here in New Brunswick (that's in Canada, of course!!!) it's finally
stopped raining. I hate the rain! It makes me feel somewhat like the
Wizard of Oz's Tin Man - all seized up.
I think it's important for parents to understand that in not following
through at home, they are only delaying their child's development -
development that is necessary if the child is to successfully advance in
the real world. Because of parents lack of participation, children
remain sort of in limbo - still being treated in a clinical setting. That
leads to some problems in that clinical settings often denote
"sickness". The child will begin to see himself as "sick", and when the
time comes to leave the shelter of the regular clinical setting, the
child is lost. His best learning about the value of
self-exercise/therapy is at with the tutelage of his primary care givers
- the parents, not the therapists.
Parents must understand that therapists have many children to case
manage on a daily basis, while they, the parents, have only one, or
rarely two, children with special needs to manage. It becomes a question
of time management and a commitment to spending that 20 minutes in the
evening physioing the kid in the bathtub. Or, plunking the toddler down
in the living room, and saying, let's play bicycle, and peddle those
legs. I couldn't exercise myself, as a toddler, and young child, or even
an older child. I had to be passively exercised. My mother, and even
some of my brothers and sisters got involved in my program. I was not
treated as a "sick" child. I was not treated as a disabled child. As a
matter of fact, I didn't know I was disabled until I was around 18, when
I went to university, and realized just how difficult things were -
getting to classes, etc. Then, I became the spokesperson for a group of
disabled students back in 1974. Many changes have been made since then.
Today's parents of disabled children, no matter what the disability,
need to appreciate that their children are not going to be children
forever, and the time to start their involvement is from day one.
Getting over the shock of having a disabled baby is important.
Cheers!!
Carla MacInnis
(editor's note:) Carla has written several articles for Ability Network.
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