Professional Special Parents & Communities
The work of convincing others – doctors, therapists, teachers, coaches, day-care centres, community groups – and our own extended families, neighbours and friends – of our child’s potential to learn, begins with us,special parents. It’s hard. It’s time consuming. It’s gut wrenching. Finding other special parents, who have also accessed their own personal agency, broadens our information scope and diminishes our sense of social isolation that we are not alone in our work. Communities of Practice are recognised in many industries, and with the every-growing quantity and quality of information, and the complex administrative burdens of coordinating and managing our special children’s lives, collaborating with other like-minded special parents, can lighten the load.
That collaboration also informs the quality of our personal agency. It encourages alternate ways of thinking and acting. By talking and listening to our special parent peers, we practice the art of speaking about our children - their strengths, their challenges, their identities and their desires - as would a professional special parent. And when we have homed in on our skills, our purely wishful thinking becomes a substantive argument, backed by evidence-based information and the lived experience of other special people.
We can now command attention from those we speak with and seek something from, because we have crafted questions in a persuasive way. We have suited up so to speak. And our children, adolescents and young adults are listening and learning. For when they become adults. For when they will need to take care of themselves. By doing so, our engagement with experts is more efficient, effective and time-saving - business language and all - and hopefully this leads to better and more considered answers. And better outcomes for our children.
As professional special parents, our agency is observed by others in our communities. They may visibly or silently give us a thumbs up. And while we aren’t looking for validation, we can be grateful that some have observed, and some have noticed. A form of education has taken place. One person at a time. Even though our work wasn’t directed at them. And by the time my child is an adult, there will be a few less people holding discriminatory or prejudiced thoughts for those living special lives.
Definition of special: something or someone that is unique, distinctive, different, exceptional, unusual, noteworthy, remarkable, outstanding, significant, important or uncommon. Also used to describe people living with or alongside a medical impairment or social disability.