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Ages and Stages, Similarities and Differences: When Your Child has Special Needs- Part 2 by Robert Naseef, Ph.D. Children don’t come with a user’s manual, and more often than not, parenthood often seems like a land with no clear roadmap. We see countless articles and books about the stages children go through in their development with little insight into how parents develop in their lives after procreating or adopting a child and accepting the challenges of family life. Part 1 of this article was based upon The Six Stages of Parenthood by Ellen Galinsky (New York: Addison Wesley, 1987) and focused on the first three stages of how parents develop as their children grow and their personalities unfold. Part 2 will continue in this vein with a brief description of the fourth, fifth and six stages.
As difficult questions come up, parents are impelled to re-examine and perhaps revise their own theories of child-rearing and parenthood. Over a period of several years new images of the future are formed. If there are developmental challenges, this process can be much more involved. A child with special needs will have an individual educational plan (IEP), may be in special classes, and may have complex medical issues, numerous therapies, and may need medications. Cognitive development may be slower and more difficult. The road will have more twists and turns, and the emotional terrain may be even more difficult to handle.
More than ever parents must understand the deep passions that are evoked in this stage. Particularly challenging is accepting their child as a sexual being. As their teenager establishes his own identity, parents review their own struggles to separate from their parents and their wishes about how it should have been handled. As the separate identity is formed, separation brings feelings of envy, fear, anger, pride, and regret. Parents of children with special needs confront the reality of how far their child may be different from the norm once again, and may have special fears about their child being taken advantage of in the world. Overall, this further redefinition of the parent-child relationship brings to all parents the image of life without children at home which now looms on the near horizon.
At this point, parent and child alike are waving good-bye to childhood and looking out to adulthood, with wobbly knees I might from my own experience with my 22 year old son with autism. We don't know yet what the future holds for living and working. It a scary thought when your child is young. How do we get there? We get there by doing our best. To do that, we have to let go of what might have been. We will need to continue to face the future with courage while we do our best with what we have. This may be far from what we imagined before our child, whether typical or not, was born. Nonetheless, through acceptance and courage and endurance, the road through parenthood brings peace and love. Our special children truly light the way and help us find the inner strength and wisdom we need to do
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After image-making, nurturing, and authority
comes the interpretive stage of parenthood. This stage blooms as
school-age children ask parents about the world and their values. Children are
pushing out and away from the home in school, the playground, and through TV,
movies, reading, etc. Parents must evaluate the past and prepare for changes.
There is increasing separateness while the connection is held onto, and parents
must figure out the right amount of involvement in their child’s everyday life.
The parent is more and more aware of the child’s individuality. Interpreting
the world also involves setting standards for behavior in the world outside the
home. Parents’ images of “family” come into play. Parents must also interpret
their child’s development to their child as well as to themselves. 
With the teen years, there is the onset of
the Interdependent Stage, which can be extremely turbulent as teenagers
challenge parents’ authority. Emotional highs and lows are not far apart.
Strong feelings are stirred up in parents. As their bodies change with the dawn
of their emerging sexuality, parents have to rethink their authority
relationship with their almost adult child. Because teenagers are by
developmental necessity absorbed in themselves, they can be disrespectful,
testing, worrisome, and upsetting to their parents. Images must be revised again
as new ways to communicate must be developed based on the teenager’s emerging
independent identity. Parents must learn to talk less and leave the door open
because their children still need them but on new terms. Limit setting and
guidance are still needed but must be based on the particular child’s needs.
The Departure Stage is something
parents have thought about ever since their eyes first met those of their
newborn. Now parents are faced with taking stock of the whole experience of
parenthood. They are faced with letting go and getting a perspective on their
accomplishments and short-comings as parents. They redefine their identity as
parents with grown-up children. They are again forming and reforming images and
revisited their own lives as they left the homes they were raised in. In
today’s world, economic realities can make this stage extend well into the
twenties after graduate school is completed and careers are launched. The
parents of children with special needs face the possibility that their children
can never live independently and may live with them for the rest of their lives
or in a community living arrangement with supports. But for all parents, it is
clearer than ever that our job is never done for we are parents the rest of our
lives, but our roles with our adult children are different.