Book Review: Empowering Your Child Who Has Special Needs

Some time ago I discovered the book "Empowering Your Child Who Has Special Needs" by Debbie Salter Goodwin.  Since I was blessed with the great ideas and resources within the book, I wanted to share about them in this post.  


The Chapters are as follows:

1. Something to Live With
2. Something to Grieve
3. Balancing Family Needs
4. Surviving School
5. Negotiating the Medical Maze
6. Finding Help
7. Empowering Prayer
8. Flying Lessons

Also included in the Appendix:

• How to Start a Faith Based Support Group
• Tips for Running a Faith-Based Support Group
• Starting a Special-Needs Ministry
• Ways to Prepare Your Church for a Special Needs Ministry

There are many great ideas and prayer points for your child in this book, but a few that struck me are how the author discussed the Diagnosis (beginning and after the diagnosis) and the strategies she used for empowering her own special needs child.  She discusses the grief spiral which I found to be the perfect example for explaining how I felt at certain milestones that were different for me than for other parents.   In the grief spiral, you continue to have moments where you are touching on the grief of living with a chronic illness, instead of a straight line moving away from the grief.  She talks about parents' feelings of loss, how to move through anger and guilt and how to help our children process their own grief.  

I have always been especially sensitive to the effect of chronic illness on the healthy sibling/s, so I was glad to see a whole chapter on balancing family needs.  Ms. Goodwin gives great ideas on how to have family balance and how to help the healthy sibling/s.  She notes what siblings wish their parents knew and gives ideas for how to nurture positive siblings relationships.  She also addresses the needs of single parents caring for special-needs children.

Although this book doesn't deal with Diabetes specifically, I feel the ideas and strategies will help anyone who has a child with a chronic illness.

You can find the book for sale at Ms. Goodwin's website and learn more about her work.  http://www.debbiegoodwin.net/

Happy reading!

Jessica