special education or special needs means. It is important to keep
an open mind as you move through the process of finding your
child the help he needs.
Practice Your Game Face
In the beginning you might need to fake your excitement
when your son engages in a therapy session, or when your
daughter puts her hearing aids on in the morning; force your-
self to smile as you answer your friend’s questions about your
daughter’s diagnosis; or rehearse what you are going to say at
your child’s IEP meeting. Do whatever it takes so that your
child views her diagnosis as a positive moment in her life. In
the beginning, it will seem as if your child’s special need is all
you can think about, but as you grow and change it will slowly
begin to fade into the background. Don’t worry, talking about
your child’s diagnosis will become easier with time!
Find Help for Yourself
It’s important to acknowledge where you are at the mo-
ment. You are not expected to have this all figured out by the
time you leave the first appointment. This is where the experi-
ence of others, especially parents who have already entered this
world, can begin to share their advice, expertise, and can iden-
tify with the emotions that you are dealing with.
Stability in the Home
When your child is first diagnosed it can change the dy-
namics of so many relationships in your life. It’s important to
keep things as normal as possible when you are moving through
things with your family. Friends, neighbors, relatives, siblings,
all of these people are looking to you as to how they should in-
teract with your child. For the most part, you don’t really have
to change anything. There will be the need to educate and in-
form friends and family as to what needs to be done regarding
specific equipment, accommodations or communication strate-
gies if necessary, but for the most part there is no need for any-
one to treat your child any differently.
Next Steps
Whether you are just beginning your journey, or if you have
been on the road for a while, this was just a quick overview of
the emotional sticking points that parents often find themselves
trapped in when they first begin to respond to the reality of hav-
ing their child diagnosed with a special need.
Raising your child is a marathon, not a sprint. Do not think
that you need to have everything figured out in the first week
after a diagnosis, or even in the first year.
Krystyann Krywko, Ed.D. is an award-winning education writ-
er and researcher, who specializes in hearing loss and how it
affects children and families. Her focus is on the emotions that
are involved in working through a child’s special needs diag-
nosis. For more of her writing visit her blog, www.kidswith-
hearingloss.org.
March 2019 WNY Family 65