Category: Disabilities

Balancing Life and Career When Your child Has Special Needs

Posted on by Gregory Wood
Image via FreePik

by Justin Bennett

Parenting a child with disabilities or special needs demands strategic planning and robust support systems to balance personal ambitions with caregiving responsibilities. This journey equips you with essential strategies for a fulfilling balance, empowering you in your multifaceted role. Ensuring your child’s nurture and your own growth requires patience and a strong support network.

Enhancing Career Through Flexibility and Learning

In pursuing career advancement, consider the flexibility and opportunities provded by higher education, such as enrolling in an online master’s program. This path not olny paves the way for professional growth but also accommodates the unique demands of caregiving.

For example, you can equip yourself to thrive in nurse administration, education, or informatics by joining a nursing master’s program. You can learn how to achieve better results with the righr resources; this journey requires adaptability, foresight, and the willingness to embrace new learning avenues that align with your career aspirations and caregiving responsibilities.

Achieve a sustainable Work-Life Balance

The quest for a work-life equilibrium is paramount, necessitating effectively allocatiing your time between your career and your family. This balance is not a fixed state but an ongoing process of negotiation and adjustment, aiming to prevent burnout. By consciously setting boundaries and realistic goals, you create a sustainable routine that supports both your professional ambitions and the well-being of your family.

Fostering a Positive Living Space

Your home’s ambiance significantly impacts your family’s well-being, so creating a clutter-free, organized space is crucial. Involve your child in decluttering and organizing to make it a fun, inclusive activity that fosters cooperation.

Also, look to storage bins, containers, and shelves when it comes to creating an easy-to-maintain space. This approach improves your home’s environment and builds your child’s life skills, autonomy, and confidence.

Building a Supportive Community

The power of a supportive community is crucial in the caregiving journey for a child with special needs. Connect with friends, family, and support groups to build a circle of understanding that offers practical help, emotional support, and valuable insights. This network will be your backbone, giving strength in challenges and sharing joy in triumphs.

Crafting Stability Through Routine

The cornerstone of a balanced life lies in creating predictable and stable routines. Setting up a structured schedule instills a sense of security and predictability for your child while streamlining your daily tasks to reduce stress and enhance efficiency. This consistent approach helps manage your time effectively, allowing you to allocate adequate attention to your proessdional responsibilitites and family neeeds.

Focusing on What Matter Mosts

In the intricate dance of balancing caregiving with career, indentifying and focusing on essential tasks become crucial. By discerning the critical from the non-urgent, you can delegate or postpone less immediate responsibilities, ensuring that your energy is invested in activities most impactful to your family’s well-being and professional growth. This focused approach aids in managing your responsibilities more efficiently, alleviating unnecessary stress.

Advocating Through informed Empowerment

Arming yourself with knowledge about the resources and legal protections available for your children with special needs is essential. Understandiing your child’s rights and the support services at your disposal empowers you to advocate effectively for their needs. This empowerment through knowledge equips you to navigate the complexities of systems and services, ensuring that your child receives the ncessary support and accommodations.

Committing to Personal Well-Being

The importance of self-care cannot be overstated in the caregiving journey. By carving out time for activities that nurture your well-being, you maintain your resilience, ensuring that you are physically and emotionally equipped to support your child. Prioritizing your health and happiness is not selfish but necessary, enabling you to be your child’s best caregiver and role model.

Wrapping Up

In embracing these strategies, you find yourself surviving and thriving in the dual roles of caregiver and professional. Though fraught with challenges, this journey is also replete with opportunities for growth, learning and profound fulfillment.

Remember that the key to navigating parenthood under these unique circumstances lies in seeking support, prioritizing self-care, and constantly striving for a balanced life. Your resilience, love, and dedication pave the way for your child’s success and well-being, as well as your own.

UNDERSTANDING AUTISTIC BURNOUT:

Posted on by Gregory Wood

       Preventing, Managing and Recovering

by Robert Naseef, Ph.D.

I can relate to this article.  When I was working by the end of my shift I experienced burn out and had to take a nap in my car before driving home.   When I got home I would not come out till the next day. – Greg

When autistic people tell their doctors and mental health professionals that they are suffering from autistic burnout, they get a quizzical look. According to many of the people in my psychology practice, telling them it is not a diagnosis leads them to feel no one is listening to them or believes them. This is awful and needs to change. While autistic burnout is not a current medical term, it is real, and autistic people have been talking about it for years.

‘Autistic burnout’ is a term that originated in the autism community. It is not a medical term as such, but it has captured the attention of researchers, many of whom are autistic themselves. The term captures the intense physical, mental, or emotional exhaustion that autistic people say  emanates from the cumulative effect of trying to fit into a world that was not designed for them.

Autistic burnout varies from individual to individual, much like the presentation of autism itself. Frequently it is an overwhelming sense of physical exhaustion. Some autistics have increased difficulty managing their emotions and may then have outbursts of sadness or anger. Intense anxiety may emerge or develop into clinical depression and suicidal ideation or intent to harm oneself. It may result in an increase in repetitive behaviors, heightened sensitivity to sensory input, or difficulty with change as well as a loss of previously learned communication skills.

Neurotypical, or averagely wired people, who suffer burnout on their jobs feel overwhelmed from the pressures and demands of their work. Autistic, or differently wired, people feel chronically stressed due to the pressures of living and working all day, related to many of the specific struggles that autism entails.

Sarah Deweerdt in Spectrum News discusses how autistic people can recover from burnout, which depends on the individual and what burnout is like for them.  A first step may be taking a break from the situation that is stressing them. The time needed to recover varies greatly. This is why so many autistic children and adults require alone time after a challenging day at school or work.

A key strategy for reducing or even preventing burnout is self-knowledge gained over time by observing which situations are most likely to trigger burnout. Autistic people can watch for signs and symptoms of burnout with this awareness, and they can develop strategies to avoid burnout, such as leaving a social event early or planning a recovery day after a trip before returning to work. They can also ask for workplace or school accommodations that make it easier to avoid burnout, such as a quiet place to work, including working from home as much as possible, or when taking a test.  

Dr. Alice Nicholls, a clinical psychologist and an autistic person, provides helpful resources and guidance to help autistic people live fulfilling lives without sacrificing their mental health. On her website, you can download a copy of The Autistic Burnout Symptom Checklist (ABSC).