YOUR SPECIAL CHILD
A Summer
of Transition
for Your Child With Disabilities
by Erica Rimlinger
Kennedy Krieger’s
Daniel Hoover
recommends parents
keep a “regular
schedule with bedtime,
wake-up time,
meals, schoolwork
and play—yes, even
screen time built in.”
Be honest, but keep it simple
Daniel Hoover, a clinical child and
adolescent psychologist at Kennedy Krieger
Institute’s Center for Child and Family
Traumatic Stress, advises parents to be hon-
est about the situation without sugarcoating
its seriousness. “Give simple, factual infor-
mation about the virus, including the fact
36 Washington FAMILY MAY 2020
that a lot of people are sick and it is a serious
illness,” Hoover says.

In addition to telling children the truth
about the underlying cause of their changed
routines, parents should pair this informa-
tion with a sense of urgency in the solution.

For example, parents can say, “We are all
doing everything we can to stay safe.

Handwashing and social distancing do
really help,” offers Hoover. Parents know
best what their children are able to han-
dle but should consider the child’s level
of vocabulary and comprehension, emo-
tional reactivity and anxieties.

Address their stress
Children may react to the situation in
several different ways. Some will “imme-
diately jump to the conclusion that their
family members will get sick and die,” says
Hoover. “Some may be oblivious and more
concerned with immediate activities and
routine. Some may stay up nights worry-
ing about a vague, threatening sickness
that they don’t understand and have bad
dreams. What we are seeing most in clin-
ical practice at the Center for Traumatic
Stress at Kennedy Krieger right now with
our young clients and their families are
fears and anxieties about the virus.”
No matter how a child is behaving in
response to the situation, active commu-
nication will help reduce stress. Children
can read silence as scary, says Hoover. “They
may not say anything out loud if they think
it’s not a topic that is being readily dis-
cussed.” Or, children “may falsely sense that
it is a subject that should not be discussed.”
Because children “lack experience medi-
ating what information they receive, they
are more likely to have big emotional
responses that are beyond their logical
capacities to cope,” Hoover says. “They are
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“I never thought I’d use the ‘F’
word in front of my daughter. I
did on Monday,” says a mother
of a child with ADHD, who (not sur-
prisingly) asked not to be named in this
article. “That was my worst day.”
The loss of normalcy and routine
impacts everyone, but children with dis-
abilities face additional hurdles coping
with the changes that have upended their
lives and interrupted their education. For
parents of kids with disabilities, the burden
is even greater. Parents must reassemble
their child’s disrupted life: homeschooling,
navigating virtual doctors’ appointments
or therapies, creating new schedules
and routines that address their child’s
emotional, physical and educational needs.

“I spend four to five hours a day homes-
chooling,” the mother says. She describes
the experience as overwhelming. “It’s hor-
rible. I’m just not good at this. At school,
her teachers help her. That’s why they’re
teachers. They know how to help her.”
Meanwhile, job situations are in flux,
there’s no time to work from home and the
sudden “new normal” that descended on
the country in mid-March has no defined
end date. The mother says she misses her
old life. She misses her daughter’s teachers.

Her daughter does, too.

How can parents who have children
with disabilities cope and help their kids
cope as well during this stressful time?