Day 26
READ: "Good families — even great families — are off track 90 percent of the time! The key is that they have a sense of destination. They know what the 'track' looks like. And they keep coming back to it time and time again." -- from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families by Stephen R. Covey • 
REFLECT: Is my family "on track"? Do I panic when we're not? Do I feel that my child's special needs have thrown us permanently "off track"?
RESPOND: Making checklists of things that need to get done -- both on a daily basis and at longer range -- is a good way to stay on track, or at least feel like you are; deliberately taking a day off from all of that doesn't hurt, either.
Day 27
READ: "One of the great strengths and joys of a committed family life is that there is no room for ambivalence. Your purpose and direction is providing for your family. While that may sometimes seem like a limitation or a burden, recognize its power as a motivator and a map to your future." -- from 100 Simple Secrets of Happy Families by David Niven •
REFLECT: Do I appreciate the fact that my children's challenges provide me with motivation and mission in my life? Can I allow that to take some of the pressure off in other areas?
RESPOND: Consider any day successful in which you get your kids from wake-up to bedtime without major mishap. If you need a little more inspiration to get you through, here are eight places to turn for some extra insight.
Day 28
READ: "Your job as a parent is to help your child grow and develop and learn and thrive, and to do that job properly, you have to understand your child as an individual, quirks and all." -- from Quirky Kids by Perri Klass, MD, and Eileen Costello, MD •
REFLECT: Do I value my child as an individual? Do I understand the way he or she acts? Do I try to work with the quirks, or just blast them away?
RESPOND: Behavior analysis is a good way to start understanding why your child does what he or she does, and to work with those preferences and phobias instead of against them. Reading up on your child's disability can also give you some ideas.
Day 29
READ: "Good parenting requires more than intellect. It touches a dimension of the personality that's been ignored in much of the advice dispensed to parents over the past thirty years. Good parenting involves emotion. -- from Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman •
REFLECT: Do I value the emotion I bring to parenting, or wish I could suppress it? How can I aide my child's emotional development?
RESPOND: With so much information to process about our child's special needs, and so many painful feelings surrounding them, it's easy to switch to all-head-no-heart mode. But suppressing emotions is unhealthy for us, and unhelpful for our kids, who may have trouble identifying and dealing with emotions themselves. To help kids learn about emotions, discuss your feelings often, and try some of these games and tools for identifying emotions and sharing them together.
Day 30
READ: "Anger is OK. Parents too feel angry. Every time we express our own anger positively we give our children a lesson in anger management. As parents, we can help our children by learning to understand our own feelings better." -- from A Volcano in My Tummy: Helping Children to Handle Anger by Éliane Whitehouse and Warwick Pudney •
REFLECT: Do I talk about my angry feelings, or sweep them under the rug? Does my child have trouble handling anger?
RESPOND: Staying emotion-neutral in difficult or tense situations can often be the best way to deal with kids who freak out in the face of strong feelings. But that doesn't mean you have to shut out emotion altogether. When someone around you loses their temper -- whether it's you, your child, or another family member -- use it as an opportunity to talk about anger, how it feels, and what you can do about it.
Day 31
READ: "Recently I asked a small group of mothers, 'What makes a mother priceless?' One woman responded, 'Nobody but a mom can tell when her child is about to throw up!'" -- from The Power of a Positive Mom by Karol Ladd •
REFLECT: What special abilities do I bring to parenthood? Do I give myself credit for the special ways I know my child?
RESPOND: For better or worse, you know your child better than anyone. Own that expertise, and make sure that the doctors and educators you work with give you credit for it, too.
