Parenting children with disabilities can be an exceptionally rewarding experience characterized by challenges and triumphs. In addition to traditional parenting responsibilities, parents of children with disabilities must also fulfill the disability-related caregiving needs of their children.

Many parents tackle these tasks day after day with little or no caregiver support. Families with special needs are at risk of experiencing the adverse effects of caregiver burnout if parents do not prioritize the necessity to nurture themselves and meet their own needs.

What’s at Risk?
Research on families of children with disabilities indicates several important risk factors for parents to consider. Parents of children with disabilities are more likely to experience major life events, including divorce, surgeries, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience a greater number of daily hassles compared to parents of typical children.

Parenting daily hassles are defined as the ongoing, repetitive, and difficult, but necessary, tasks that must be performed to adequately nurture a child. Daily hassles, like challenging bed-time routines and medication disbursement, often become a source of cumulative stress. This stress compounded with major life events can lead to trouble for parents and children with special needs. Marriages, mental health, and healthy home environments are at risk.

Self-Care
There’s no single remedy to decrease the pressure and stress associated with caring for a child with a disability. Self-care, however, is the most effective way to reduce caregiver burnout and create a nurturing, loving environment. Parents who identify and meet their own needs model to their children what it means to value their bodies, minds, and souls. Constantly facing limits in time and resources, many parents are tempted to regularly sacrifice their own needs in an attempt to prioritize their child’s. This strategy results in a failure to fully meet anyone’s needs.

Self-care offers another lesser-known benefit that is highly prized by parents of all children: a natural energy boost! Recognizing the full spectrum of one’s needs and taking action to meet them offers a new surge of energy to tackle life’s tasks with a more open and clear mind. Parents who make a plan and meet their own needs before deficits strike will also be better equipped to recognize the unmet needs of their children. 

Children and adults share the same six categories of basic needs. These needs are common to all people in varying degrees. What differs is the way that individuals choose to satisfy these needs.

1. Physical needs - Adults need adequate nutrition, water, sleep, and exercise. Clean air, shelter, and human touch are also basic elements of life required to maintain one’s health. A long sleepless night caring for a sick child or the struggles of a parent who tries to feed herself as she feeds her child are quick reminders of the importance of meeting physical needs.

2. Emotional needs - Security, trust, and intimacy are emotional needs that all adults seek ways to fulfill. Everyone shares the need to give and receive love. Emotional needs can be met through the affection parents share with their children paired with quality time spent with adults.

3. Social needs - Adults need time with peers and companions to satisfy their social needs and decrease the risk for caregiver burnout. Building a strong support group and finding community resources that offer respite to parents with special needs can be a bridge to make satisfying this category of needs possible.

4. Intellectual needs - All adults require some level of intellectual stimulation to experience satisfaction and a sense of calm. This need can be met by reading, engaging in healthy debates, and joining lively discussions. Brainstorming and problem-solving are avenues to keep brains active. Active brains are happy brains!

5. Spirituality needs - Adults share a need to belong, live a purposeful life, and believe in a greater power. Meeting one’s spirituality needs does not always indicate participation in an organized religion. It is the pursuit of a meaningful life. Fulfilling this need offers hope, direction, and acceptance.

6. Creativity needs - While it might not be met with finger-paint or stickers, adults, too, have a need to express themselves. Needs for creativity can be met through explorations of culture, unique dress, and expositions of the talents and gifts that we all possess. Creativity involves spontaneity and the inclusion of imagination into our lives. It’s an especially powerful opportunity for children and adults to converge as they nurture each others' needs and grow together.

Before Take-off - As a final reminder of the importance of self-care, consider the instructions given by flight attendants before a plane’s departure: “We never anticipate a change in cabin pressure. Should one occur, however, four oxygen masks will fall from the compartment above. Place the mask over your nose and mouth and breathe normally. If you are traveling with small children please secure yourself first and then assist the child.”

The possibility of postponing a child’s access to air while we secure our own is a terrifying thought for parents. Mothers and fathers on the ground face equally harrowing decisions daily as they fulfill the many needs of their children. Just as we realize thousands of feet in the air, it is difficult but essential for parents to meet their own daily needs first if they hope to nurture their children for a lifetime.