This and that

Over 70 per cent of 1,148 respondents to an online survey by the UK's Contact a Family said they've experienced mental-health problems such as anxiety, depression and breakdown as a result of the isolation they experience raising a child with a disability. According to Forgotten Families, British parents report "a lack of social interaction due to difficulties working and not having the time or money to do family activities others take for granted; a fear of how people will react when they go out with their child; and a feeling of being alone, even when surrounded by people, because no one else shares their experience."

I heard four-time Canadian Olympian rower Silken Laumann interviewed on CBC about raising a daughter with autism a couple of weeks ago. Silken lives with her partner GoodLife founder and CEO David Patchell-Evans (known as Patch). They each have two children, and Patch's daughter Kilee, 15, has severe autism and requires 24-hour care. This is a beautiful blog Silken wrote about the impact of attending a dance with Kilee and other youth with disabilities:

Just start dancing
These teens and adults live everyday in a world where they don’t “fit in” not because of anything that they are doing, but because of our own discomfort with looking different, acting different, speaking too loudly. These young people have the real gift, the gift of expressing themselves authentically, without a self-censoring process that sifts out so much of the joy. It is we who have the disability, the inability to express ourselves authentically in our life, the attachment to fitting in that is so near and deep inside us that we rarely can let go of it.

If your child has seizures and developmental disability, don't miss this webinar Dec. 13 moderated by parent and BLOOM contributor Elizabeth Aquino and hosted by the National Center for Project Access of the Epilepsy Foundation.

Webinar: Communicating with Your Developmentally Disabled Child During Adolescence and Puberty