Parent Traning Center
The Parent Center network is honored to welcome you to the disability community of those who are raising a child with disabilities. There is a lot of help, understanding, and assistance available, you’ll be glad to know. Disability does not define your child’s selfhood, any more than the color of his or her eyes does. Individuality grows from the rich soil of personality, experience, health, education, upbringing, and more. Know this for fact, and see it unfold in real time, as your child grows and matures. Having a disability is part of the mix, but so are your child’s strengths, humor, talents, and interests.
We humans like to have a name for things—and that includes disabilities. We use terms like “learning disabilities” or “AD/HD” or “autism.” These can seem like labels sometimes, limiting and impersonal. It’s not uncommon for parents to resist having a label hung on their son or daughter. Some parents even resist accepting special help for their child because of labeling. Yet labels are just terms used for a particular purpose. They’re a convenient way of referring to something. And in the case of children with disabilities, schools are required to report the number of students they’ve helped according to specific categories. They have to use labels.
