By Liseth Anaya | Project Psychologist
Parenting a child with a special need, whether a physical disability, a learning delay, an emotional challenge, or a developmental disorder, may require the acquisition of specific skills, such as specific caregiving and demand a commitment of time and energy that can jeopardize careers, marriages, and parents mental health. And this overwhelming demand for changes in family and each parent's personal life can create great distress for both them and their child.
This is the case of Kyliam, a three-year-old boy, highly desired and awaited by the family, even before he was born both parents had dreams and goals for him, and with the diagnosis they received last year, these hopes were shattered, generating anguish and despair in them. As expected, each parent lived their grieving process in their own way, since to cope with the news, each one had to adapt to the new family reality and regain emotional stability. The father assumed an attacking role with his partner, unconsciously blaming her for everything that happened with their son, psychologically harming her without realizing the magnitude of his actions, and with his son, he did the opposite, overprotecting him and allowing him everything. For him, his son was an eternal baby whom he had to protect, and that generated behavioral problems and aggressiveness in the child. In the case of the mother, she fell into a depressive state due to guilt, grief, and the stress of raising her child while her partner worked; everything she felt she kept to herself for fear of being judged, ignored, or blamed, as a reaction to her internal emotional phenomena, she developed excessive anger and frequently lost her patience, especially with Kyliam.
They knew that they were not well, they felt like bad parents, their son was uncontrollable and their relationship had deteriorated too much, but they did not give up and went to the psychology department. There in family therapy, little by little, they started unloading their emotions, freeing themselves from grudges, forgiving each other, and finding new ways to raise Kyliam better. The benefits of family therapy include improved communication skills, enhanced bonds between family members, support during tough times and major life transitions, increased understanding and empathy and effective coping strategies for dealing with individual and familial challenges. While every family with children with disabilities particular need may be different, the the biggest recommendation will be not let their own physical and mental well-being decline, and that was the focus of the therapy provided to this family, the mother and father were intervened, both together and separately, work was also done with Kyliam, and in each session there was a little more improvement from everyone.
By Liseth Anaya | Psychologist
By Rubi Gutierrez | Project Psychologist
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