Autism, Caregiving, Challenges, Hope, Special Needs Parenting, Spiritual Growth
Sunita Theiss
Discovering What God Already Knew About Me, ...

I first suspected I had ADHD as a teenager, but finding the right professional to take me seriously was much harder than I expected. Previous attempts only ended in frustration and tears.

Discovering What God Already Knew About Me, Through My Children’s Diagnosis
Caregiving, Challenges, Living Life Daily
Jolene Philo
Enjoying the Holidays with a Food Allergy

Enjoying the holidays with a food allergy sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it? After all, eating together is an integral component of the holiday season. I looked forward to making our traditional holiday foods until I was diagnosed with a dairy allergy in 2012. What was to enjoy about the holidays when the foods associated with it were off limits to me?

Enjoying the Holidays with a Food Allergy
Caregiving, Challenges, Grief, Hope, Special Needs Parenting
John Fela (Felageller)
A New Home

It was a short, ten-minute drive from the hotel to the residential facility. I maintained composure while I navigated the busy public roads, and then residential streets. I had a whole range of emotions racing through my body, mind and spirit as we pulled into the campus. This was not just a pleasure drive or a routine errand, this was a significant milestone in the life of my son and our family.

A New Home
Autism, Caregiving, Challenges, Special Needs Parenting
Mark Arnold
Halloween & Special Needs: How to Make it ...

While Halloween is a fun time of year for many children, it can be a really difficult time for some, including many children with additional/special needs. For them it can be a confusing, anxiety-inducing, or even utterly terrifying time. But it doesn’t have to be like that. If we stop for a moment to think about the things they might find hard and how to put things in place to help them, children with special needs can safely join in the fun, too. So what are some of the things about Halloween that children with additional needs can find hard?

Halloween & Special Needs: How to Make it Fun for Every Child
Caregiving, Hope, Living Life Daily, Marriage, Special Needs Parenting
Joe and Cindi Ferrini
It’s Not Just “Us” 

“While we’ve had many years of travel speaking together on marriage, discipleship, and other topics, we are seldom alone and ‘just us’”Joe & Cindi Ferrini write on the struggle of never truly being along as special needs parents, and the importance of making time “just for us.”

It’s Not Just “Us” 

chiari malformation

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More Than Just A Parent - Part 2

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More Than Just A Parent - Part 2

Whether at the doctor’s office, with our child’s therapy team, in the classroom for an IEP meeting, many times we are just not considered experts on our children. We are relegated to being just a bystander while the real “experts” make proclamations over our children. While they may be truthful many times, they still don’t define our children totally. It is in those moments that we must step in and be the voice in the gap between the understanding of the experts and the knowing of our hearts, and speak out the value of our kids that only we can communicate as parents.

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What's the Big Deal About Summer Camp?

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What's the Big Deal About Summer Camp?

I was brought back to the realization that families like mine have all the time. My friend really knows my family and our situation, but he just doesn’t know what family retreat means to us. How could I even begin to explain what really goes on there? I just relegated it to the usual experience of “he doesn’t get it,” but I really wish I could’ve had the “it’s not like that” speech with him.

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The April Only God Could Plan

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The April Only God Could Plan

I had been pondering the High Priestly Prayer since our son was diagnosed with a chiari malformation. I realized that Jesus not only surrendered His physical body so that we might be saved, but He also offered up His glory, His spiritual being for us as well. He literally poured out everything He had, physically, emotionally and spiritually for His children. I shared with my wife how I prayed a similar prayer over our son, that I would surrender everything, every grace, blessing and favor given to me by God so that my son might be healed. It hit me that this is exactly what we celebrate at Easter, a miracle of sacrifice so profound that we can only scratch the surface of how deep it goes. Sunday was coming, and this year we would quite possibly have an Easter miracle just a few days early.