INTRODUCTION
Many parents of children with exceptionalities describe the difficulties of hearing that their child has a permanent disability that will impact the entire family for the rest of their lives. Often it is just as difficult for those of us whose children are all healthy and typically developing to understand what these families are going through. One parent chose to write about how it felt.
PROMPT
Turn in your textbook to Chapter 9: Partnership With Families to page 223 (8th ed) and read the essay written by Emily Perl Kingsley called “Welcome to Holland”. Or you may access it at the link here Welcome To Holland just point to the title and click to go to web-based copy of the essay. Read it thoroughly. Think through what it says and the kind of emotions that are stirred in the families of children with exceptionalities. Think about how you would feel if this happened to you. You pictured a perfect and beautiful baby and wonderful nursery decorated with all the latest baby-themed decor. Then you find out your baby has Down’s Syndrome, or Fragile X Syndrome or Cerebral Palsy. Imagine how you would feel at that moment.
Describe for your classmates how you would feel if you found out your child had a disability. What emotions would you be feeling? Disappointment? Surprise? Denial? Anxious? Upset? How do you think your feelings would change over time, after you had adjusted to the idea of a disabled child? What emotions would you feel at that time? Would they be the same or different? What do you think parents could do to help them deal with all the emotions stirred up by this unexpected event/news? How can we as early childhood professionals help parents of newly diagnosed children with exceptionalities to work through these emotions and get to a place of acceptance? Give several ideas for what you could do to help them.
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