The Special Needs Parent Podcast

Quite simply, resilience is concerned with our ability to bounce back from a challenging event. For special needs parents, the challenge is not an event experienced for just a short period, that they are the. able to move on from. In their case, they need to be resilient to keep functioning and fighting their good fight - day in and day out - for years or even decades. So, what marks resilience in...

We set boundaries in all areas of life as they communicate the limits within which we interact with others in various situations. Sometimes boundaries have existed for so long that we don’t question them, even when they make life difficult for us. This episode shares a true story of significant boundary shifting that happened only after limits were crossed too many times and feelings and behaviour...

Our love relationship can be one of the first things affected when our lives are under pressure. This can mean that conflict increases, or our ability to maintain or even establish a love relationship declines. In the midst of a non-relationship-centric challenge, many people may say they really don’t think to take stock of the state of the relationship, and by the time they do, they are surprised...

As we navigate life’s ups and downs, we experience different feelings. Does our experience of any one feeling mean that the feeling defines us, after a certain amount of time leaning into that feeling? How does the way we feel influence how we are seen by others or how we portray ourselves? Tune in for a brief reflection on this, and please let me know what you think.

When we feel swamped, it’s often because there are so many demands on our time that we can’t seem to get a handle on the tasks we are being overwhelmed by. Today’s episode shares four steps that I work through with my coaching clients to help them sift out what’s important from what’s eating up their time and energy with little value being given back to them. Undoubtedly, you already apply some of...

Life is so full of ups and downs, and when we feel broken we sometimes feel it’s impossible to keep going. In this episode, you’ll learn an approach that helps you take stock of how you’ve grown and adapted based on the highs and lows of years of your life. You’ll see how you’ve grown and become wiser, and how that outfits you to face each challenge that will come your way in the future. Don’t for...

Sometimes we find ourselves up against big life challenges without any tangible support. Sometimes we feel truly abandoned and unloved. Sometimes, we reach a point where we’ve been hurt so badly that we say, “No more!” and we hunker down and decide to stay away in order to keep ourselves - and especially our hearts - safe. No matter why we’re experiencing isolation, the fact is that being alone is...

As a special needs parent, you may find it challenging to get all the ideal equipment and materials to repeat therapy at home, whether because of financial, time, or other constraints. Undoubtedly, you also want to help your child feel more supported or comfortable or make therapy feel like more fun and less work, while staying effective. That's why, in this episode, experienced physiotherapist an...

Sometimes big challenges appear before us and can really shut us down. If we feel like we don’t have others to lean on, or if our own negative emotions and thoughts swamp us, it may be near impossible to motivate ourselves or find any positivity. In those situations, life can feel quite dark and hopeless. Tune in to explore this, and pick up 3 tips that will make a difference. There's more support...

Tune in to let life coach, Jenn T. Peterson walk you through her 5-Step Fear Release Formula. This approach has helped many of her clients let go of the limiting fears that held them back. Jenn takes us in detail through her own first fear-transforming journey, and this will help you start your own work to make the transition too! Reach out to Jenn at email hello@jenntpeterson.com to learn more ab...

Jenn T. Peterson's daughter started adaptive horseback riding at age 4, because she had seen it support so many other children while she volunteered at a centre. Her daughter faced challenges with understanding as well as expressing words, sometimes even words Jenn had heard her say before.  Tune in to learn about what made horseback riding just what her daughter needed: how it supported her physi...

Anniversaries can immerse us in a mix of tough and joyful emotions and memories, many of them steeped in our experiences with our special needs children. In this episode, I open up about some challenges I experienced this week, that were sparked when I celebrated my birthday. I talk a bit about my inner struggle to juggle the pressure to present a pretense to the world and the need to be honest ab...

Two episodes ago, we learned about the ways in which Special Needs Parents can experience grief, not only due to an event but repeatedly as a part of everyday life. In this episode, Natasha Carlow returns to take us through 5 important ways we can manage that grief more effectively, so we can open up ourselves to move beyond its effects. Have we left some critical tip or tool out? Do you have a bu...

Mandy Hughes has dyslexia and has experienced challenges with learning, reading, writing, and the judgements of others since childhood.  She is the parent of 3 children, including her daughter who has complex care needs. She opens up about her own self-judgements and challenges, as well as her evolving relationship and ability to cope with dyslexia as an individual, a parent, and an advocate of an...

Many special needs parents carry a weight that they feel challenged to let go of - grief. Join our guest expert, grief counsellor and special needs parent, Natasha Carlow as she: 1) helps us to understand some of the unique characteristics of grief as experienced by our community, and  2) explains why it’s okay, and indeed natural, that we allow ourselves to acknowledge, accept, and process our gr...

In Part 2 of this 2-part interview, we work our way past acknowledging the challenges Special Needs Parents face and into the space of starting to create a progressive way forward. In this episode, Michelle Boshard encourages us to start creating our roadmap to take us to the financial destination we envision for ourselves and our family. Her tips are straightforward and concise enough to allow yo...

Special Needs Parents must manage many financial demands on top of the regular financial demands of routine life. In this first of 2 consecutive episodes on the subject, Michelle Boshard, co-founder of Parent Dashboard, discusses several sources of our community's financial pressures and begins sharing some of the approaches that have helped her and her family to cope better. In addition to acknow...

When your special needs child must undergo surgery, how taxing the experience can be for the parent, the child, and the rest of the family! In this episode, I chat with Tova Redmo, a special needs parent, advocate and blogger, who is once again preparing for surgery on her child. We discuss the emotional and physical experiences she has in the time leading up to the surgery, what she has felt duri...

Asking is hard! It requires us to be vulnerable and reveal we don’t have the ability to manage everything in our own. It can be terrifying to risk being judged and handed a resounding NO as the response. So why should we allow ourselves to ask? How can we get to a place where asking feels easier? How can we cope better if we do get a no? Tune in to hear about the ask that had my knees shaking and...

Breathing can be an easy, quick, and highly effective tool to incorporate into your self care toolkit. Don’t overlook it just because it costs nothing and you do it constantly and automatically. Instead, reflect a bit. Are you breathing effectively? Are there other breathing approaches or patterns that might be more effective, especially when you need to calm down or shed some emotional or mental...

This episode explores a different approach to self-care. We explore some exercises aimed at bringing awareness of how our emotions might influence the way we experience life during short-term or long-term challenges. We also discuss some useful ways we might make shifts to do better for both our own sakes and to give better care to our children. Become a part of the conversation: leave me a voice...

Like most other activities focused on themselves, many Special Needs Parents say that they don’t carve out the time and energy to fit enough intentional movement into their days.  This means not just moving to care for your children and family and job, and then dropping exhausted into a chair. Instead, it is about reconnecting to the joy of moving your body to enhance your ease, reduce your stress...

When overwhelm is creeping up, it is important to spot it and help ourselves return to balance before it gets out of control. By learning to do that, we can experience more joy in our daily lives, even if our days bring many a challenge.  When the demands on us exceed our capacity to cope, we can spiral into overwhelm. Our situation steadily feels heavier from that point. Tune in to this epis...

Special needs parents have shared that life can become especially overwhelming as they juggle an unending stream of demands. Their unending to-do list is focused on the needs of their special needs child, the rest of their family, their home, their job, and all their other commitments. They must stay on top of all of their child’s changing needs and support them, in many cases, even into adulthood...

Overextension and overwhelm can become a given in the experience of a special needs parent. In this episode, learn about four main styles that may influence the way you experience the world. Also tune into some additional considerations to bear in mind to help you tweak your approaches (even in tiny periods of time) to vent some of the heaviness and stress of daily life. Which of the many approach...