Book Review: Planning for the Future

By L. Mark Russell and Arnold E. Grant; 643 pages. Subtitle: Providing a Meaningful Life for a Child with a Disability After Your Death

This huge, comprehensive, example-packed volume seeks to tell you everything you need to know to plan for your special-needs child's future, and probably quite a bit that you can't even process yet. If you think you've got it all figured out, this book may find a couple of loose ends for you to tie; if you know you don't, it will show you where to start.

About the Guide Rating

After finishing this hefty book, I turned to my husband and said, "Honey, I've just read about all the things we need to do to make sure our kids are okay after we're gone, and I've made a decision: Let's just not die."

If only that was an option. Planning for your children's future without you is hard work, and it's easy to put it off, especially when you're busy fighting the daily good fight against school districts and doctors and therapists and insurance companies and your child's ruthless disabilities. Taking the short view sometimes seems like the only way you can get through the days, but the long view needs your attention, too, and this book is a good way to bring it into focus.

There's a lot of information here, maybe too much to take in on one reading. Start with the life plan and letter of intent, and really think about what the people who help your child when you're gone will need to know. The rest may ultimately be left to the assistance of professionals, although this book will serve as a good reference to who you need to consult, what they're talking about, and whether their advice is right for your family.

Most of the advice here is specific to families of persons with special needs, but more general chapters on probate, estate tax, living wills and nursing-home expenses, while important in terms of keeping the most money available for your child, might have been cut to make this big, $90 book a more manageable size and price.

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