As I mentioned in the post “How Much of Our Child’s Disability Do We Share?”, the disability journey has two viewpoints: the parent’s and the child’s. When our children are little we travel the unfamiliar path together. We are their teacher and guide and have the most influence in their lives at this stage. We can teach them to embrace their uniqueness and instill tremendous amounts of self-love and respect in them. But there will come a day when they will need to come to terms with their disability. This is when our paths diverge and we travel different but parallel paths like two sides of the same coin.
Our children will go through the process of accepting their disability. It’s the same process we had to go through when we initially received their diagnosis. Now it’s their turn. Some will accept and embrace their disability from day one. They will have no problems sharing their differences. Others will struggle and prefer to hide it. And some will become adults before embracing it.
Some disabilities can’t be hidden and even if the child doesn’t want to draw attention to themselves they have no choice. But even though their disability is obvious, they will still have to go through the process of acceptance. How long that takes is entirely up to them.
For my son, I’m not sure if he knows he has a disability. We share it often enough but he’s moderately mentally impaired and it might be beyond his understanding. I’m not even sure if he can tell that he looks different. Either way, he doesn’t care. He likes everything about himself. He’s embraced his strengths and limitations.
This isn’t the case for everyone. For some kids acceptance is hard. The disability label brings shame because they equate it with being dumb or inferior. We can encourage them and tell them it isn’t true, but they need to believe it. We can’t travel the path for them. They will need to decide for themselves if it’s something they are ashamed of or something that makes them unique.
So how do we help our children during this stage?
- Answer their questions truthfully, bearing in mind they are also grieving.
- Be open and honest about our own struggles and share the lessons we’ve learned in a way they can understand.
- Extend grace as they find their footing and decide how to move forward.
- Be mindful that we can’t force acceptance on them, they have to do it themselves.
- Above all, pray and ask God for wisdom, love and patience.
What I’ve learned
We can’t take away our child’s disability, and we can’t travel the path for them. They will need to come to terms with it themselves. As parents, we can support and respect their choice while always speaking the truth in love.