These articles are opinion pieces or general reflections on parenting a child who is medically complex. It also includes first-person narratives by children and young adults with disabilities and narratives by siblings.
- Painting Her in Color
- Communities of Grieving
- On Parenting a Tightrope Walker
- Climbing the Emotional Caregiving Mountain
- Sit With Me in the Dark
- Floating with an Incurable Condition: What They Do Not Tell You
- From Resistance to Acceptance and Back Again
- The 6 Human Emotions of Parenting a Child with a Disability
- Unseen and Unheard: The Complex Emotions of Parenting a Child who is Medically Complex
- Do Not Say I’m Sorry!
- A Disability System Designed for Defeat
- Fear Metamorphosis
- The Allegory of the Broken Vessel Garden
- Coping with a Rare Trisomy: Prayer Can Change the Situation
- The Love of a Special Sibling
- Helping Siblings Thrive with a Brother or Sister with Complex Medical Needs
- Dear Jackson, Let’s Not Talk About Your Brother’s Autism
- The Resilience of Siblings
- Our Medical Foster House is a Happy House
- Finding Your Child’s Gifts
- My Declaration as a Medical Special Needs Parent
- A Change in Perspective: How a Nurse Shaped My Parenting Approach
- The Beauty Behind the Diagnosis
- Mother’s Day for Parents of Children with Disabilities
- The War in Holland
- Fighting for Answers
- The Grief of Caregivers: A Religious Perspective
- Seeing Her Value
- Poster Child
- Changing How You View Date Night
- Pregnant with a Diagnosis: The Birth of a Mama Bear
- Balancing Act
- When Hope Begets Tears: The Task of Letting Go Just a Little
- A Walk I Would Take Again…
- Being Okay with No Answers
- From Rare to Extraordinarily Rare in an Everyday Kind of Life
- Blur: Inside My Life as the Parent of a Child with a Rare Disease
- Our Big Messy Life
- Moving Forward
- Wanting Answers but Living with Uncertainty
- The Seat You Find Yourself In: Being New to Special Needs Parenting
- Don’t Pity Us Because My Child Has a Disability
- Parenting a Child with a Life Threatening Illness: The Best Mindfulness Practice of them All?
- Don’t Blame Children for Their Medical Conditions: A Christian Perspective
- Self-Actualization and Mothering a Boy with a Disability
- Faith and Miracles in the Midst of Disability
- We’re Not There (Yet) Spiritually
- To the Doctor Who Told Me Not to Get Attached to My Baby
- “Is My Brother a Doll?” Explaining Special Needs to a Sibling
- Help a Caregiver Today
- A Letter to My NICU Self
- The Many Jobs of a Parent-Carer
- The Survivors: Caregivers of Adults with Disabilities
- Guardianship of a Sibling
- A Letter to My Son on His 5th Birthday
- A Mother’s Mission Statement
- Why You’ll Never Beat Me at 20 Questions
- When the Special Needs Siblings Don’t Play Nice
- The Slow Decline
- Anticipatory Grief
- Finding My Voice by Using It
- Lessons from a Feeding Tube
- Gastro Interruptus
- Who Understands Your Child with Special Needs Best: You or a Healthcare Professional?
- Life on a Roller Coaster
- Everyone’s Disability: Fear
- To Know Joy
- Crippling Doubt
- Coping Emotionally with a Special Needs Diagnosis
- Parent or Carer?
- How My Son Lost His Childhood and What I Did About It
- The Smell of Thanksgiving
- Just Make the Pizza!!! The Reality of Dystonia
- A Different Type of Perfect
- The World Through Disabled-Colored Glasses
- I Watch Her
- Journey into the Unknown: Questions in Early Childhood
- When Everything is a Fight
- The Unexpected: Where are the Rest of the Chapters in the Book?
- Everything DOESN’T Happen For a Reason
- “I’ll Pray for You”: Faith, Religion, Spirituality
- The “Man” in the Sky?
- From Sadness to Gratitude: The Spirituality of Special Needs
- A Complex Journey
- “At Least It Isn’t Cancer!”
- What I Need…But Don’t Really Want You to Know
- A Life with Few Answers: Questioning in Rare Diseases
- When Your Child Isn’t Just Rare But Probably One of a Kind
- Dying from Nothing: When You Never Get Answers
- From Birth to Death, With a Smile
- Preserving Memories of Unconditional Love
- 5 Things Every Special Needs Parent Should STOP Doing
- The Informed Caregiver
- 5 Gifts of Parenting Children with Special Needs
- More Difficult or Less Difficult? The Path of Choosing to be a Parent
- Dealing with “It Won’t Happen To Me” Syndrome
- God’s Got This: Embracing Respite
- The In-Betweens: A Parent/Nurse Perspective on Children with Severe Disabilities
- The Long Road Ahead
- More than a Mom
- A Letter to my Daughter on Finding Your Voice
- My Real Child
- Giving Them Wings: A Boy and His Powerchair
- True Love
- The Gift of Speech
- Individuality: Living with Turner Syndrome
- The Word Normal
- New Normals
- Loving and Hating Your Child’s Condition
- Every Little Inchstone
- Stop Me in My Tracks
- You Will Be OK
- Climbing: Love, Fear and Letting Go
- Up with Down Syndrome
- Flipping a Coin
- My Extraordinary Little Man
- Learning to Enjoy the Inchstones
- What You Least Expected: Rewriting the Parenting Book
- Living at Natalie’s Speed: The Joys of Slowing Down
- I Am a Warrior; I Am a Mother
Articles by or about Siblings, Children, and Young Adults
- The Love of a Special Sibling
- Helping Siblings Thrive with a Brother or Sister with Complex Medical Needs
- Dear Jackson, Let’s Not Talk About Your Brother’s Autism
- The Resilience of Siblings
- Sisterhood: Supporting Other Young Adults with Similar Conditions
- Handling a Medical Condition in Middle School
- Here’s What I Learned from Talking with Older Kids With Disabilities
- The Right Way To Teach Social Skills: The Disability Community at its Finest
- Growing Up with Rachel: Play from a Sister’s Point of View
- Feelings About My Brother
- From One Kid to Another
- Children’s Voices
Articles from the Archives
These articles from the archives have not yet been transferred from our old website. They will open in a new window.
- 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
- One BIG Miracle in Such a Small Girl
- Teeth: The Poor Man’s Motility Study
- Trusting Your Instincts: The Adventures of Isabel Hernandez
- Epilepsy and Our Journey to a Diagnosis
- Tommy’s Life: It’s the Legacy that Matters
- 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