The Special Needs Parent Podcast

This episode focuses on the many answers our guest, Colleen Keefe Faul, has found about the whys and hows of special needs parenting. Her answers have been constructed through intensive exploration and reflection. Parts have been produced from her prayer and deep dive into her faith. Other parts have been surprising realizations that she has had about how some of her unique qualities have outfitte...

Single dad, Gary Martinez Jr. focuses his attention on his child's ultimate happiness. Monica, his daughter with autism, is 17 and enjoys building connections with him and others, collecting shoes, role playing, pushing swings, and much more. Tune in as Gary shares with us with how pushing swings gives a boost to him and Monica both mentally and physically, and inspires us to consider how an every...

When challenges come up for you, are you confident you can deal with them? In this episode, Shannon Peel and I have a vulnerable and open conversation about navigating life through the ebb and flow of brokenness, hope, expectations, boundaries, self love, communication between parent and child, and more. It is a conversation we both would have loved to continue, but it gives a lot of food for thou...

In an episode on this podcast back in November, Erin Ramirez shared about the ADKAR process you should follow to manage change effectively. She warns, however, that a process does not promise the change journey will be smooth. In fact, she expects the journey to be rather full of emotional ups and downs - and says that these emotions can hijack or hinder the change process. Therefore, she's sharin...

No matter what your challenges are right now in life, my guest on this episode has the message and the vibe that you’ll find lifts you up and powers you forward. Elaine Starling has faced big challenges and risen to them, with the help of inspiration received following a stroke in her early forties. Now she uses her own abundance journey to inspire and guide others by revealing the choices they ha...

On your toughest days, what can create your escape hatch? How can you protect your positivity or recentre your energy when it is being bashed by random life pressures in just a short time and with minimal physical effort? Tune in for the advice and demonstrations of Laurin Wittig. Laurin is an intuitive healer and a mentor to those on or just beginning a spiritual path, the founder of the Heartlig...

When Doylene Cooper-Landry had premature twins who both developed special needs, the unexpected challenges led to separation from her husband. She raised her son, who was almost blind, and her daughter, who had mild cerebral palsy, on her own, and acknowledges the constant support of her family during the journey. But the journey was difficult in every way, with medical advice that she disagreed w...

Many a special needs parent has worried over how to support their child's development of social skills. How to get them to fit in at school. How to help them to interact with others, even family members, in ways that show connection, consideration, and even love appropriately. Longing for their child's touch or the chance for their child to look them in the eye. And the list can go on forever, wit...

Locating the right gift for a child with special needs can be challenging. We really need to tune in to their needs, abilities, interests, and more, in order to come up with good ideas or find the right item to become that gift. Brittany Cunningham is both the mom of a 12-year-old daughter with Cerebral Palsy, CVI and limited mobility AND an experienced early intervention specialist who has served...

It is a joy for me to release this 53rd episode of the podcast because it means we have just reached the first anniversary of the podcast, and I have created an episode consistently with many amazing people from around the world for each of 52 weeks! What I’m bubbling over about is that this is the very first episode in which I share listeners’ wonderful voice messages of gratitude in the special...

This may be one of my favourite podcast episodes to date, not only because it is my 52nd episode, and therefore marks a year of The Special Needs Patent Podcast, but also because the episode felt so light and loving as we co-created it. In this season of many celebrations, gatherings and thanksgiving, I talked with two of my past podcast guests, Mary Ann and Vicki, who have faced some big life cha...

Erin Ramirez is a change management coach and consultant who helps businesses and individuals make shifts more easily. In this episode, she shares a 5-step process and illustrating examples that we can all use to smooth our paths when change is necessary.  Visit Erin’s website www.erinramirez.com/resources for your free ADKAR resource. Also, she’s just launched her Instagram page @the_change_guru...

When we are constantly chasing so much, we may pause for a moment and realise that many of our choices are being made on automatic. But living so much based on routine living or unconscious choice-making sets us up to not be creating the life - or the impact - we desire. In this episode, Yvonne McCoy shares her advice and experiences to illustrate why she recommends we pause to consider what we wa...

As a Business Coach for Start-ups, Mary Scott is accustomed to helping communicators find the clearest way to express the value of their offers to potential funders. In this episode, she applies her experience and clarity to exploring how special needs parents could shift the way they communicate in order to get buy in from those to whom they are appealing for consideration and resource provision...

Coming from a corporate background as a chemical engineer, remote work strategist and certified business transitions coach, Victoria Hepburn understands that when the demands on a skilled and experienced person never end, they run a high risk of burnout. Add in her experience as a best-selling author with a new series on the way, and we can see she's also aware of all the pressures of the publishi...

It is a demanding thing, to navigate the ups and downs of special needs parenting. Many a parent speaks of how difficult it can be to manage a life where they are constantly on the watch and on the go, trying to predict and control variables in their lives that cannot be predicted or controlled. The effects can be considerable on your mental, emotional, and physical well-being, for sure. In this e...

In modern times, there so much pressure on all areas of people’s lives that divorce rates are surprisingly high. In special needs families, demands and challenges are ramped up, time and energy are even scarcer, and divorce rates can get to as high as 70 to even 85%. That’s according to the research mentioned by Mary Ann Hughes, a certified divorce coach and divorced special needs parent.  Mary An...

Sometimes, the challenges we face in life can really knock us down so much that we reach our lowest point, emotionally, mentally, financially, physically, and/or spiritually. While we may tell others to open up and talk about it, when we ourselves get to that place, opening up and showing our brokenness and self-doubt, asking for help, or crying to a friend may be just about the hardest course of...

Cassandra Miller is a stay-at-home mom and army wife who speaks, in this episode, of challenges faces as her special needs daughter grew physically bigger - and some of the ways she coped with them. As Cassie shares some of her experiences, she highlights how resilience, adaptability, and positivity have become her constant companions is creating the enablement she needs to provide from her growin...

Some habits die hard, like looking to others to direct what you should be working on, filling your days with, stressing over. Life should be more than a never-ending to-do list, and you deserve to have space set aside on your list to put energy and effort into the things that really matter to you. This episode gives the reminder of the power you have to create the life you want and deserve. So tun...

A hypnotherapy recording on YouTube helped Vicki Smith reconnect to her own power and start rebuilding her life when she was at her lowest point. That's why she went to become a hypnotherapist herself - she explains that she has experienced the life-changing results it can bring and feels called to use the work she does to help others retool and find themselves again. As you'll realise from this e...

What do a Paediatric Gastroenterologist, a stay-at-home-mom, and a coach/trainer have in common? Dr. Anita Ahuja, Ms. Morgan Green, and podcast host, Dr. Marcia Nathai-Balkissoon are all special needs parents who have navigated ups and downs related to coming into knowing of their child's special needs, seeking diagnoses, and trying to adjust their lives and families' lives in response. Tune in to...

Daisy Vasquez Vogt is a special needs parent, biohacker, and integrative health coach who specialises in helping special needs parents to uplevel their health as a foundation for building their best life. Tune in to this episode to discover the 4 hacks Daisy says we should all fit into our daily lives. She promises that we can expect significant positive changes once we do. You can check out Daisy...

For a person attending to many heavy demands, life may feel like it is dragging, with positive changes coming far too slowly in certain quarters. Did you ever pause to reflect on how factors beyond those actual demands might be slowing your progress? You absolutely deserve to be able to improve the experience of life that you have as well as cope better and better with whatever challenges you are...

When you became a special needs parent, do you remember how life’s complexity ratchet up for you? How your time and energy were in demand more than ever before and how the basic routines of managing your life were challenged? Join Cristin Condon - a Decluttering and Life Coach as well as an experienced Speech and Language pathologist and parent to three, including a son with Down Syndrome - as she...