DR RADICA MAHASE
The following is an interview with Kira, the mother of a 12-year-old child with special needs. Kira’s son Thomas, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He has been on medication for the past four years because he gets seizures. Kira was a dental assistant but she left her job six years ago so she could take care of Thomas. Her husband works in the construction industry and she has two other children – a 14-year-old daughter and five-year-old son.
“When my son was born, I felt that my world was complete. At that time, my husband and I were happily married for ten years and we had our daughter and we felt that we had everything we need in life. We had plans to give our children all the things that we never had – travel, learn new things, enjoy our family. We had all these grand plans of what our lives will be.
Everything changed when my son was about two-years-old. We picked up on all the delays in his development – he wasn’t saying words, he didn’t smile at us, he would rock back and forth. As I had worked in a dentist’s office, I had interacted with children with special needs before so I recognised the signs early. The first hurdle to cross was to get him diagnosed. This took a lot of back and forth – we waited almost a year for the appointment, but once we visited the development paediatrician, Thomas was diagnosed with severe development delays. Getting the diagnosis was one thing, dealing with it was another thing and helping him was a whole other thing.
I think our biggest fears was how we would take care of him – where we would get the money to afford the therapy, etc. It was a little harder for my husband because he didn’t know anything about autism and ADHD but he was very willing to learn. I remembered he immediately went online and started looking for information. He is a very practical person so he was the one to say, 'Let’s sit down and make a plan, let’s see what we need to put in place to make sure Thomas gets the help he needs.' I would have been totally lost without him and the one thing I know – I cannot do this special-needs parenting thing without his support and the support of both our parents.
[caption id="attachment_995981" align="alignnone" width="678"] Sometimes other siblings are not given extra attention because the focus os on the special needs child.Photo Courtesy - Support Autism T&T - Photo Courtesy - Support Autism T&T[/caption]
I have made mistakes many mistakes along the way. I know that I neglected my oldest child many times. In the early days, I was so focused on helping Thomas – driving from one therapy to the other; running down schools – that I missed many parents’ days, sports days, we didn’t have the money for her to do extra-curricular activities. On the days that Thomas was sick, I depended on grandparents to drop and pick her up from school. At one point we stopped going to movies and beach and just going out at all, because Thomas was going through a rough time or having a ba
