Dedicated SN mom or Helicopter mom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to piss you all off with this response, but I spend a bit of time on this forum and generally avoid the SN page because I find you all so over-involved in your kids that it becomes unhelpful. I have asked a few questions on this forum, and the results are from people looking to find "special needs" everywhere. I wonder how many of you have full time jobs, or if this has become your full time job not out of necessity to your kids but because it provides meaning and purpose to your lives. Of course some of our SN kids need extra attention than some other kids, but i am a bit shocked at how all-consuming parenting is for some of you. I wonder what some of you are so scared of happening if you didn't dedicate this much of yourselves to them? And at least in our case, we have found that over-helping our kids can be detrimental (for instance, going to therapies and evals is exhausting and stressful - i think the benefits are often outweighed by teh stress). For the person with the 20 year old in college where she still needs to helicopter: at a point, shouldn't you be figuring out a work-around to the fact that your kid can't finish papers? What's he going to do in 2 years when he gets a job? Maybe he should have majored in math instead, so he doesn't need to write papers? Maybe he just needs to fail a year of college and end up in community college? Point is (and sorry to pick on that person, but the example really jumped out): when does it end? And if it is never going to end, then why make it a full-time life starting at age 3?

When does it end? Never. You never stop being a parent, even when they're in their 40s. You always worry pretty much, NT or SN.

Also: are you serious that Math or any STEM majors don't write papers? Haha, tell it to my kid at MIT. Physics major and he writes a ton of papers, let alone labs.

[Anonymous]

OP, the term "helicopter parent" implies a parent who hovers in her helicopter over the child happily playing at the park, ready to intervene even when the child doesn't need any help.

If your child DOES need the help, then that is the appropriate use of the helicopter.

It will be a delicate dance, though -- helping your child learn the skills to solve whatever problems on his own. As long as the therapies and interventions and manipulations you are doing are furthering that cause of eventual independence, I think you can helicopter away.

[Anonymous]

Heart goes out to you OP. I'm a SAHM with 3 kids with various diagnoses. No one diagnosis will keep them from leading independent lives and they appear NT to the average parent. But they have struggled so much over the years. Thankfully, thanks to all the interventions and supports they are now thriving and we are scaling back on everything. We, too, have appeared over scheduled to the outside world but most of those things aren't ones anybody would choose - speech, OT and psychotherapy dominated our schedule between 3 kiddos. At one point in time, between the kids I had as many as 6 speech sessions and 3 OT sessions a week. Then there are the doctors appointments (I do allow the kids to do some "fun" activities too but you can imagine that they put me over the edge). And I spent plenty of time dealing with IEPs and insurance paperwork. I had more than a few relatives ask me why I was wasting my graduate degree at home. Where would I have found time to work? My mom asked if I was just looking for problems. My dad believed they would grow out of all of it.

I would never trade the sacrifices (career, financial and time) because the end result was far better than I could have ever imagined. I'm glad that I didn't let all the negative and judgmental comments influence my choices. My kids are *independent* and happy today because I did everything possible to support them.

You know your child best. Follow your heart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to piss you all off with this response, but I spend a bit of time on this forum and generally avoid the SN page because I find you all so over-involved in your kids that it becomes unhelpful. I have asked a few questions on this forum, and the results are from people looking to find "special needs" everywhere. I wonder how many of you have full time jobs, or if this has become your full time job not out of necessity to your kids but because it provides meaning and purpose to your lives. Of course some of our SN kids need extra attention than some other kids, but i am a bit shocked at how all-consuming parenting is for some of you. I wonder what some of you are so scared of happening if you didn't dedicate this much of yourselves to them? And at least in our case, we have found that over-helping our kids can be detrimental (for instance, going to therapies and evals is exhausting and stressful - i think the benefits are often outweighed by teh stress). For the person with the 20 year old in college where she still needs to helicopter: at a point, shouldn't you be figuring out a work-around to the fact that your kid can't finish papers? What's he going to do in 2 years when he gets a job? Maybe he should have majored in math instead, so he doesn't need to write papers? Maybe he just needs to fail a year of college and end up in community college? Point is (and sorry to pick on that person, but the example really jumped out): when does it end? And if it is never going to end, then why make it a full-time life starting at age 3?

When does it end? Never. You never stop being a parent, even when they're in their 40s. You always worry pretty much, NT or SN.

Also: are you serious that Math or any STEM majors don't write papers? Haha, tell it to my kid at MIT. Physics major and he writes a ton of papers, let alone labs.