Caregiving
The Caregiving section contains articles on supporting caregivers, coping, acceptance, organization, home care, recreation, and community, as well as commentaries and articles by children and young adults.Supporting Parents, Acceptance, Feelings and Coping
- Just Five Minutes
- Are Caregivers Happy?
- Saving Your Sanity through Respite Care
- Coping with Neurological Impairment
- Cultivating Relationships: Relating to Your "Typical" Friends
- Acceptance is a Rollercoaster
- Coping Lessons from a Reed
- Finding Peer Support as a Parent
- Dealing with Negative Reports and Evaluations
- Taking Care of You, Part I: Treat Yourself to a Massage
- Taking Care of You, Part II: Keeping Yourself Healthy, Physically and Emotionally
- Claiming Your Holiday Cheer
- Christmas on the Wards
- The Importance of Respite
- Using Children's Books to Support Siblings
- How Do You Do It?
- Raising Children Who Don't Eat in a Food-Centered World
- Beating the Odds: Making Your Marriage Work
- Family Matters: Seeing with the Heart
- Raising Healthy, Happy Siblings
- Remembering Sebastian with Joy: Rituals of Remembrance
- Living Your Best While Preparing for the Worst
- A Process of Grief: The Reality of Grieving a Child with Complex Health Care Needs
- Teens and Mitochondrial Disease
- Seasons of Love
- Swinging the Illness Pendulum
- It Will Be OK: A Primer For the Newly Diagnosed
- Why? My Personal Journey with Faith and Raising a Child with Special Needs
- Fully Rely on God: Christopher's Story of Hope, Faith and Healing
- "Just Five More Minutes!" A Look at Chronic Sleep Deprivation in Parenting Children With Special and Medical Needs
- Feeding Tube Awareness Week
- Alleviating Stress
- When did Marital Bliss become an Endless Seesaw Ride?
- This Stresses Me Out!
- Stigmatize Me: Why I'm Now Taking Antidepressants
- PTSD in Children with Special Needs and Their Caregivers
- Finding Joy in the Midst of the Battle
- One BIG Miracle in Such a Small Girl
- Learning to Live with Labels
- Tommy's Life: It's the Legacy that Matters
- I Am a Warrior; I Am a Mother
- My Extraordinary Little Man
- Finding My Muchness: Silencing My Inner Imposter
- Learning to Enjoy the Inchstones
- What You Least Expected: Rewriting the Parenting Book
- Living at Natalie's Speed: The Joys of Slowing Down
- Quality of Life: Tubes, Lines, and Other Attachments
- Empowering Your Child
- Learning to Cope
- You Will Be OK
- Climbing: Love, Fear and Letting Go
- Happiness: The Most Remarkable Present of All
- Optimism
- Jealousy
- Mamma in the Pressure Cooker: Being a Mom, Caregiver, and Expected Miracle Worker
- Feelings About My Brother
- Hope
- Rolling with the Special Needs Certified First Responders
- Loving and Hating Your Child's Condition
- Every Little Inchstone
- Celebrating a Lifetime in a Year
- Celebrating with Meaning
- Whap! Right Upside the Head! The Road to Acceptance
- Not Quite Rock Star Status: Moving Beyond the Public Perception of Caregiving
- Tips to Thrive for Parents of Children with Special Needs
- Zumba Mom: Using Exercise to Manage Stress
- Making Time for Yourself
- Asking for Help: The Unexpected Results
- The Many Parts of Me: Parenting with Mental Illness
- New Normals
Organization and Preparation
Home Care and Waivers
Medical Care at Home
Recreation and Travel
Community and Organizations
Perspectives
- Creating a Care Notebook for Your Child
- Tips for Coping with Extended Hospital Stays
- Preparing for a Doctor Visit
- Creating a Medical Summary for Your Child
- Strategies for Organizing Medications
- Organizing Supplies: A Pictorial Essay
- Keys to Organization: Maintaining Communication, Time and Sanity
- When No One Is Listening: Advocating Successfully with Your Child's Medical Team
- Choosing Clothing for Children with Special Needs
- Organizing and Preparing to Leave Your Child With a Caregiver
- Wearable Medical Alert Options
- Organizing Your Child's Lab Results
- The Hidden Financial Costs of Having a Child with Special Needs, Part 1: The Problem
- The Hidden Financial Costs of Having a Child with Special Needs, Part 2: The Solutions
- Keeping Track of Medications Using MyMedSchedule.com
- Surviving a Sleep Study
- Website Review: Nathan's Chart, a Meal Planner for Tube Feeding
- Surviving a Power Outage with Complex Medical Issues
- New Year's Resolutions: Let's Get Organized!
- Creating an ER Protocol for Your Child
- Color-Coded Syringes: A System for Sleep-Deprived Parents
- Trached and Traveled: The Trach To-Go Bag
- Conquering the Medical Supply Monster
Home Care and Waivers
- Living with a Nurse in the Home: Suggestions, Stories, and Solutions
- How to Evaluate and Choose Therapies
- Keeping Your Child Out of the Hospital: Treating Serious Illnesses at Home
- Why Are So Many Home Health Companies Incompetent? How Negligent Practices Impact Our Children
- Working Together for Change: Addressing Nursing Reimbursement
- Federal and State Assistance Programs for Children with Special Needs
- Medicaid Waivers Must Be Transferable from State to State
- Obtaining In-Home Services
- Patient Centered Care in Home Health Care Companies
- The Importance of Respite
- Organizing and Preparing to Leave Your Child With a Caregiver
- Breathing Easy: A Trach at Home
- Being a Kid: Thriving with a Trach and Vent
- An Introduction to Pediatric Palliative Care
- Funding Sources for Home Modification
- Universal Design: Accessibility for All
- Bedroom, Bathroom, and Ramp Project
- Deck and Lift Project
- Deck and Ramp Project
- Bedroom, Bathroom, Nurse's Area and Multisensory Area Project
- Should Children with Severe Neurological Issues Be on Monitors During Sleep?
- Getting Paid to Care for Your Child
- Nursing and Respite Care Benefits
- Surviving a Power Outage with Complex Medical Issues
- Diaper and Incontinence Product Coverage Through Medicaid and Insurance
- 40 Questions to Ask a Potential Nurse or Other Caregiver
- Ventilator Alphabet Soup
- Respite Nursing for Rookies
Adaptive Equipment
- Achieving Independent Mobility Regardless of Disability
- Lekotek and Other Toy-Lending Programs for Children with Special Needs
- Introducing Switches and Augmentative Communication Devices to Very Young Children
- Adapting Your World for Play
- How to Get a Communication Device for Your Child
- Holiday Craft Ideas for Your Child with Fine Motor Impairment
- Choosing Clothing for Children with Special Needs
- Why You (and Your Insurance Company) Need to Get Your Child Standing
- Inexpensive and Easily Available Toys That Work for Children with Special Needs
- Playgrounds for All
- The Wheelchair Runaround: Oh, the Bitter Irony
- Trunk Support Options for Children with Low Trunk Tone
- Car Seats for Children with Special Needs
- Exchanging Special Needs Equipment and Supplies
- Special Needs Beds: Getting Insurance or Medicaid to Pay
- Facts about Weighted Blankets and Directions to Make Your Own
- Being a Kid: Thriving with a Trach and Vent
- Bedroom, Bathroom, Nurse's Area and Multisensory Area Project
- Should Children with Severe Neurological Issues Be on Monitors During Sleep?
- Surviving a Power Outage with Complex Medical Issues
- Home Feeding Pumps and IV Pumps
- Diaper and Incontinence Product Coverage Through Medicaid and Insurance
- How to Bathe Your Kid with Medical Issues
- All About Standers
- How to Make a Floor Mat for a Child Who Loves to Kick and Stretch Out
- Reviews: Tumble Forms Feeder Seat and Full Support Outdoor Swing
- Life on a Tether: Why Can't Kids Get Portable Oxygen Concentrators?
- Adapting Toys for Play
- Inexpensive Options for Sensory Play
- Solutions for Temperature Regulation Problems
- Interpreting Your Child's Lab Results
- Normal Vital Signs in Children: Heart Rate, Respirations, Temperature, and Blood Pressure
- Recognizing and Treating Fevers in Children with Complex Medical Issues
- Vibration for Pain Control and Calming
- Finding Primary Pediatric Care for Your Child with Complex Medical Needs or a Disability
- Helping Our Kids Communicate Their Health Care Needs
- Organizing Your Child's Lab Results
- Avoiding Erroneous Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy Allegations
- When Your Child Won't Sleep
- Flu Shots for Kids with Medical Conditions or Vaccine Reactions
- Sleep Problems in Children with Special Needs
- Puffy, Dry, Why? Fluid Balance Issues Explained
- Quality of Life: Tubes, Lines, and Other Attachments
- Home Feeding Pumps and IV Pumps
- Ventilator Alphabet Soup
- All About Blood Gases
- Color-Coded Syringes: A System for Sleep-Deprived Parents
- Non-Invasive Ventilation: When a Trach Isn't the Best Choice
- How to Keep Your Area Clean for Preparing IV Infusions or Tube Feeds
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Children with Complex Medical Needs
Recreation and Travel
- Guide to Holiday Shopping for Your Child with Special Needs
- Holiday Craft Ideas for Your Child with Fine Motor Impairment
- Non-Food Stocking Stuffers
- Using Technology to Alleviate Boredom---Educationally!
- Christmas on the Wards
- Using Fun, Humor to Help Children through Hospital Stays and Procedures
- Inexpensive and Easily Available Toys That Work for Children with Special Needs
- Special Recreation is About Fun! Thoughts from an Adapted Recreation Coordinator
- Playgrounds for All
- Your Child CAN Go To Camp
- An Insider's Guide to Morgan's Wonderland: A Park for Kids with Special Needs
- Yes, You Really Can Take a Family Vacation!
- Inexpensive Options for Sensory Play
- Adapting Toys for Play
- Growing Up with Rachel: Play from a Sister's Point of View
- Ballet is for Everyone
- The Getting Started Guide to Your Next Family Vacation
- Preparing to Travel with a Child Who is Medically Complex
- A Family's Adventures and Ideas for Travel with a Kid Who is Complex
- When Your Child Can't Travel
- Party Planning for Kids with Special Needs
- Celebrating with Tommy! Ideas for Children with Vision Impairments
- Celebrating a Lifetime in a Year
- Celebrating with Meaning
- Please, No Stuffed Animals: Buying Gifts for Children with Significant Special Needs
- Taking a Much Needed Break: The Center for Courageous Kids
Community and Organizations
- Community Award: Katy's Closet, a program of Team Up! With Families
- Fundraising/Research Award: Josie Mazzo Children's Charities
- Support Award: George Mark Children's House
- A Unique Church
Perspectives
- Christmas with an Autistic Twist
- How to Thwart a Cook
- From Fear to Freedom: One Very Special Service Dog
- Looking Normal
- The Pregnancy Journal of a Mito Mom
- Lessons Learned...Lives Changed
- The Perfect Child: On the Path to Acceptance
- Temperature Instability: Isaac's Story
- Outside Voice, Please!
- Pancakes and Lemonade
- Lauren's Story: Tube Feeding at College
- Our Tube-Weaning Roller Coaster
- Trystyn's Story
- Adult Diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome
- Caregiving: 12 Years of Lessons We've Learned
- Balance
- A Life Turned Upside Down: Parenting Children with Special Needs When You Also Have a Disability
- Alize's Story: How Alize Earned His Wings
- You Don't Have to Yell: Handling Inappropriate Comments
- Glimpses of Italy: When Your "Typical" Child Faces Medical Issues
- What Truly Makes a Child Special...And Not Extra Special
- Monitoring Love on the Pulse Oximeter
- How Do You Do It?
- Breathing Easy: A Trach at Home
- Being a Kid: Thriving with a Trach and Vent
- Family Matters: Seeing with the Heart
- Lessons from Eric
- Trying to See Clearly
- Channeling Dan
- The Magnificence of Disability
- Seasons of Love
- A Break from Mito
- "I So Tired"
- Swinging the Illness Pendulum
- The Poop Chronicles
- Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work I Go!
- A Unique Church
- Lessons in Contradiction
- Why? My Personal Journey with Faith and Raising a Child with Special Needs
- Fully Rely on God: Christopher's Story of Hope, Faith and Healing
- Selective Abortion of Fetuses with Non-Fatal Disabilities: Progress or Discrimination?
- Patent Law and Children with Genetic Mutations
- The Last Nap for a Sleepless Child
- Surviving a Friend's R-Bombs
- Stress is My Constant Companion: Living with Partial Trisomy 18
- One BIG Miracle in Such a Small Girl
- Not Knowing: Thoughts on Being Undiagnosed
- Give Me Some Damn Oxygen!
- Living with Primary Immunodeficiency Disease
- Teeth: The Poor Man's Motility Study
- Growing to Accept and Love the G-Tube
- My Irrational Fear of Feeding Pumps Explained
- The Story of Fred
- Epilepsy Three Years Later
- Trusting Your Instincts: The Adventures of Isabel Hernandez
- Epilepsy and Our Journey to a Diagnosis
- Tommy's Life: It's the Legacy that Matters
- Mary's DynaVox
- I Am a Warrior; I Am a Mother
- My Extraordinary Little Man
- Finding My Muchness: Silencing My Inner Imposter
- Learning to Enjoy the Inchstones
- What You Least Expected: Rewriting the Parenting Book
- Living at Natalie's Speed: The Joys of Slowing Down
- The Blessings of Fostering Children with Medical Needs
- Our New Grandbaby is Deaf, Now What?
- Punk Rock Toddler: Loving Music with a Hearing Impairment
- The Missing Smiley Face: A Journey To Hearing Loss
- Flipping a Coin
- You Are Your Kid's Voice: A Parent's Guide to Advocating
- Up with Down Syndrome
- Mom Knows Best: A Journey to Cystic Fibrosis
- You Will Be OK
- Climbing: Love, Fear and Letting Go
- Stop Me in My Tracks
- Loving and Hating Your Child's Condition
Articles by Children and Young Adults
- Being a Teenager with Cerebral Palsy
- Sharmiki's Story
- Sibling Stories
- Young Children's Voices
- Helping Kids with Autism
- A New Perspective on Life
- Talents & Friends
- What's the Difference?
- To the Parents of Kids with Special Needs Who Have Grown Up
- From One Kid to Another
- Stranded in Space
- Drawings of a Degenerative Disease
- Riley in Her Own Words
- Hayden and Friends
- All About Me: Mary Talks with Her DynaVox
- Growing Up with Rachel: Play from a Sister's Point of View
- Feelings About My Brother