Why coffee mornings are good for the soul

Earl Grey and a restorative chat

Being a parent of children with special needs can be isolating. You may have found that your circle of friends has grown smaller as you've struggled with learning about and coping with your child's differences and finding the best help for them. 

Parents of 'normal' children haven't had to go through this and may find it difficult to understand. You feel like you're banging on about your disabled child and boring them to tears or, worse, making them pity you. So gradually, you withdraw and in time you may have found that you have few people outside your family to talk to - and even they may not understand.
You may even find you barely go out at all, because going out with your special needs child is like preparing for a mammoth trek across hostile terrain requiring such careful planning for unseen eventualities that you're exhausted before you get out of the front door.

Teachers may not properly understand or cater for your child's needs. Other parents, many of whom don't know you or your child, may stand in judgement of your apparently inadequate parenting skills.

You may start to feel depressed or unable to cope with the demands upon you. You may wake up every morning, open your eyes and think, "Here we go again". Some parents have described it as being like Groundhog Day and I can totally empathise with this.

I've come late to the party, but in the last few months, I've embraced a partial antidote - the special needs coffee morning. A place where no one pities you because you're all in the same boat. A place where you can discuss your child's behaviour without fear of judgement and where you may even hear some practical tips that have worked for other mums in a similar position. A place where you can talk with like-minded souls about the absurdities of trying to find the right educational provision and the hoops you have to jump through to get it. A place where friendly ears are guaranteed, along with a reviving cuppa and maybe even a yummy piece of cake.

This week (and it's only Tuesday) I've been to two - one I have been hosting at my house for NAS Surrey in Farnham and the other at St Saviour's Church in Guildford, where I was invited to speak about my Special Educational Needs Statementing book.

The women (mainly) at these groups are welcoming, determined, resilient and caring, despite the battles that they have fought or are still going through and the daily challenges that caring for often unreasonable, sometimes aggressive but always loved disabled children brings.

No one judges you, everyone swaps stories, tips, resources and support and it is such a relief to be able to share frank experiences with others, knowing they're not going to be shocked.

After I spoke at the Guildford coffee morning today, Psychologist, David Wheeler, gave a talk. He spoke about how many problems with children and adults are caused by their 'needs not being met'. We parents of special needs kids, more than most, spend so much of our time trying (and often failing) to meet the needs of our children that we have no time or energy to meet our own.
Coffee mornings like these are a good way to meet some of these needs to talk to others, share our stories and knowledge and let off steam.

If you are a special needs parent feeling isolated, why not join a group that has coffee mornings, some have creches - or if you know other parents of SEN/disabled children, have a meet up. 

If you run or know of such a group, why not leave details in the comments - you may well be helping someone.

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Christmas Cards - a Friendly Gesture or an Eco-Crime?

My friend Hayley has raised an interesting question on her Facebook account. She's trying to be eco-friendly so, should she send Christmas cards this year? Would people be offended if they were just wished Season's Greetings face-to-face or via an e-greeting?
Hayley realises that this just won't do for our old-fashioned relatives for whom getting a Christmas Card is confirmation that they're still alive, but for friends you see frequently?
Personally speaking, just yesterday I ordered my cards from the National Autistic Society as a way of supporting the charity, but having read Hayley's post, it occurred to me that I could have just sent them a donation over an above my annual membership instead. But on the other hand most people I send cards to I don't see everyday (like Hayley!) so for me this route isn't quite so practical.
I suppose sending an NAS Christmas Card is also about spreading the word about the charity because I have been helped very much by their Advocacy For Education Service when we were going through statementing and their Early Bird+ programme after diagnosis and just giving a donation wouldn't have the same impact. I do believe this is such an incredibly helpful charity that we should help in any way we can. (PS you can donate here).
I do believe that Christmas cards are a huge source of revenue for charities - people who might not otherwise make a simple donation would buy a pack or two of cards and provide much needed funds for the charity concerned - this is a trade off because some charities rely on such sources of funds. (though Friends of the Earth only offer free e-cards)
But Hayley does have a good point. Christmas Cards to people we see regularly could be classed as a small-scale eco-crime. And if you then extrapolate the amount of paper and trees used up by everyone in the world doing the same thing, then we're talking millions of tonnes of paper and forests of trees. And then after Christmas, too many people will just bin the cards rather than recycle them.
One solution as already mentioned would be e-cards, another would be buying only cards made from recycled paper and then recycling them afterwards. If you can buy charity recycled cards and then recycle what you receive, even better.
I have to confess to keeping cards I have bought one year but haven't used and sending them the next year - although Sainsbury's 'so-helpful' message about "Recycle cards at Sainsbury's to the end of January 2009" printed on the back of their cards makes you feel very Scrooge-like!
And what about our children? Do we tell them that they must be eco-friendly and they can't send cards to their friends? Well, yes you can tell them that, though for children with autistic spectrum problems like mine, it is a triumph if they actually want to send a greeting to another child and I would feel duty bound to let them. Fortunately, when this happens, they soon get bored of writing so it isn't too big a problem.
For myself, although sending cards to technophobe relatives is unavoidable, I would be happy to receive an e-card rather than a paper card so Hayley can rest assured that a Facebook e-card would be most welcome.

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