By Jan Starr Campito; 253 pages. Subtitle: Becoming an Advocate for Your Child With Special Needs.
Learning your child has special needs is daunting enough -- finding out that this means you will have to become your child's case manager, an expert in all his or her needs and strengths and challenges, can leave a parent feeling seriously unworthy. Author Campito has been there, done that, and taken notes to help parents new to the process, and those who just need some reassurance as they go along, take up the task of fighting their child's good fight.
- Friendly and easy to read
- Offers a parent's-eye view of diagnosis, school issues, and therapy
- Gives good advice about understanding and managing behavior
- Author shares her own children's experience to illustrate her points
- Includes listings of resources after every chapter
- Probably best for people who are new to special-needs parenting
- May not be as useful if your children don't have the same disabilities as the author's
- There are personal opinions and decisions that not every reader will agree with
- Stops short at middle-school level, though much advocacy occurs after that
- Chapter 1: Why This Book?
Chapter 2: Pre-Diagnosis: Is It Normal for Everything to Be So Hard? - Chapter 3: Obtaining a Formal Evaluation
- Chapter 4: What Next? What Does This Diagnosis Mean?
- Chapter 5: Beginning Therapeutic Interventions for Your Child
- Chapter 6: Marcus and Asperger's: How the Manifestation of a Disorder (and One's Parenting Role) Can Change Over Time
- Chapter 7: Your Parenting Role, Part I: Promoting Positive Behavior and Reducing Misbehavior in Your Child
- Chapter 8: Your Parenting Role, Part II: Increasing Your Child's Competence
- Chapter 9: The Special Education Process: Formulating an Individual Education or Family Services Plan
- Chapter 10: Monitoring the Progress of Your Child
- Chapter 11: Advocating for Your Child: It Never Ends, or Does It?
Do you remember back when you thought that doctors and educators, the experts, knew everything, and you were happy to just keep your head down and follow instructions?
I do. Those were good days. But they didn't last. As my kids grew and moved into school and developed at their own ideosyncratic paces, it became more and more apparent that the only expert around was me, and I'd better speak up if I wanted the right treatment and education and therapy and understanding and follow-through.
I had some supportive parents in email groups to get me revved up for advocacy, but I wish I'd had Supportive Parenting, too. It encapsulates a lot of information on what you need to do, why you need to do it, and how it's going to look and feel. The text is friendly and nonthreatening, as author Campito serves as our guide to a process for which there are not nearly enough guideposts.
Having been down the road already now -- and a little further down it, as the book stops around middle school and my daughter's now in high school and facing the transition to adulthood -- I enjoyed the fact that Campito has made many of the same decisions I have, and come to many of the same conclusions about behavior and homework and school interactions. Nice to know I'm not the only overinvolved mom out there.
The book's real value, though, is in supporting parents new to the process, and most particularly those whose children are similar to the author's -- Asperger syndrome, ADD, CAPD, and significant academic abilities. If making sure your kid can succeed in advanced classes is not high on your list of concerns, your experience may veer off pretty sharply once the book gets into the later school years.
