When your Special Needs Child Becomes an Adult
Exactly when does your Special Needs Child become an adult? 18? 21? 26? 30? When s/he moves out of your home? And when is it that your adult child moves out to live elsewhere? When s/he goes to college? When s/he stops being financially dependent on you? And when do you stop financially supporting your adult child? When do you”trust” that your adult child can handle life on his/her own.....the money, the paying bills on time, the problem solving that is required by the complexity of life, his/her nutrition, his/her health issues, knowing when someone is trying to take advantage of him/her, dealing with drugs and alcohol responsibly, dealing with roommates, and on and on.(I am going to use the term “child” here, even though the age is 18 on up, because the person is still a child of the parents).
There are no models for this. There are no classes to teach life skills on an as needed basis. It seems that the stakes are so much higher when s/he is not under our own roof. And yet, isn’t the goal of parenthood to let our children go; to fly....or not. And don’t all children have their setbacks?
I wish I had the answer to these questions. Unfortunately, they have to be answered and discussed on an individual basis, child by child and family by family. I would love for others to share their stories about dealing with this issue.
We know that our children develop on a different time line than typical children. In my experience in my practice, I see parents who expect way more than the “child” can actually manage, thereby creating a great deal of anger, judgement and shame in the “child”. Ruptures in the relationship easily happen at this point. This time period of early adulthood is not an easy road to navigate because our children need support and encouragement from us, yet at the same time they may still need to be financially dependent on us. The double standard, if you will, is that parents of typical children frequently pay for their child to go to college for 4-6 years; or the child gets student loans and still the child is supported in many ways financially by the parents. Our Children with Special Needs often are not ready to go to college at 18 or 19, and they certainly don’t get any loans or services to help support them (unless they qualify for SSI...which helps). Still they aren’t ready to support themselves financially. But they are ready for emotional and psychological independence from their parents and ready to not be living at home. They ARE ready for individuation, the need to find out who they are apart from their parents. This is such an important step in their development of navigating the adult world. Will they make mistakes? You betcha! Will they fail at some tasks? Of course! But how else will they learn? If they stay under the roof of their parents, there will definitely be rebellion and anger on their part. Parents will feel angry and resentful, unappreciated and exhausted. The process of individuating can be excruciating.....complete with saying horrible things to each other, and even physical fighting. Supporting these children financially for a while is not necessarily indulging them. It will be a process until they can go to school to learn a skill, go to college to get a job, or be able to find a job on their own. But this may not happen in a timely manner, not on the cultural timeline for when independence is supposed to occur. There are no models for how to navigate this important life stage with CHildren who have Special Needs. Individuation is different than independence. Both are goals for our children. But they do not necessarily come at the same time. What a balancing act this requires for parents!
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