The Special Needs Parent Podcast

Do you feel like there are limitless situations and feelings that come up for you that tax your ability to cope mentally, physically, or emotionally? 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 episode for 5 approaches that will help you to quickly let go of your overwhelm and increase your...

As we walk the path of special needs parenting, judgments of failure come up as a matter of course - both from sources external to us and from within ourselves. In this episode, I consider what experiences and ideas may equate to failure for us at first, and how our experiences and behaviours and mental models shift as we adapt and evolve along our way.

All special needs children and their parents have been on testing journeys. So much is learned that can help others adapt to cope better or understand the special needs context better. In today’s episode I speak with Natasha Carlow, a special needs parent whose book aims to enhance special needs awareness and boost diversity and inclusion among children.

This is Part 2 of a 2-part series focused on sharing insights, tips and approaches that significantly shifted our child’s struggles with constipation. Our plan of attack evolved to include 7 main elements and focused on taking our child into becoming regular as naturally as possible, i.e. with as little dependence on medication as possible. The first, food, was addressed in some detail in Part 1....

Constipation had a debilitating effect on our special needs child and on everyone in our family who had to watch and hear her suffering so often from her 2nd through to her 6th or 7th year. Through trial and error, research, and seeking to learn from others (doctors, therapists, holistic practitioners, online acquaintances, and more) who had walked the path, we were able to shift from the medicati...

Many special needs parents tend to be so overextended that they whittle down their dreams and the breadth of how they live their lives. By necessity, many focus mostly on duty, including the care of their special needs child, and have little energy or time to dream about a bigger holistic vision for themselves. This episode touches on why visioning matters and provides guidance to help listeners g...

Instead of feeling the weight of resolutions I must not fail to uphold, I’ve shifted into giving myself gifts that free me to evolve in the course of living my imperfect life. These include recognising my mistakes and leveling up while being kind to myself, looking the hard emotions in the eye and processing those I feel ready to kick to the curb instead of pushing them down to fester, and making...

In this episode, we reflect on some ways gift-giving to our special needs child can feel really challenging. We explore some gifting perspectives and motivations with a view to recognizing which apply to us. The intention is that getting clearer on where we stand will help us let go of some straining aspects and find ways to create more ease and joy for ourselves and our child. To receive some tip...

Many special needs parents find it especially challenging to navigate the celebration season that comes at year end. How to manage external expectations and judgments while looking out for ourselves is such a critical question. Tune in for some discussion and useful suggestions that can make this time a little easier and maybe even a lot more fun for all of us.

This episode reviews some of the challenges and opportunities of communication with a non-verbal child. It shares approaches that Special Needs Parents can use to tune in to what a child is “saying”, as well as how we can encourage more output from a child in the forms that they are capable of using or might prefer to use. Bonus: Pick up your free copy of the Clarity and Focus workbook at https://...

With our special needs children depending on us so completely, Special Needs Parents can struggle daily with a harsh inner critic that yells about what we’ve done wrong, points out our shortcomings, and constantly demands more.  This episode shares about some of the reasons Special Needs Parents practise so much self-criticism, how harsh self judgment affects us, and how we can start taking small...

Alongside the challenges of our lives walks gratitude. Sometimes it is our special needs child who stimulates that gratitude, but there are other ways to integrate giving thanks into the way we think and function. Visit me at https://www. MarciaNB.com to connect and to sign up for my newsletter and other complimentary resources that support special needs parents. And remember to leave me your voic...

Why I gave this title to the podcast, and why special needs parents are the podcast’s focus.