disability

Empowering Kids with Disabilities, Part Two: The Need for Love and Belonging

Empowering Kids with Disabilities, Part Two: The Need for Love and Belonging

In part two of Empowering Kids with Disabilities, Jolene Philo focuses on love and belonging. What can you do or change so your children with disabilities have more opportunities to feel loved and increase their sense of belonging?

Empowering Kids with Disabilities, Part One: Meet Basic Survival Needs

Empowering Kids with Disabilities, Part One: Meet Basic Survival Needs

If my experience of raising a child with special needs is anything like yours, empowering my kid with disabilities rarely reached the top of my parenting priority list. In part one of this five-part series, Jolene explores how to empower kids with disabilities by using William Glasser's Choice Theory.

A Prayer for the First Day of School

A Prayer for the First Day of School

This month, schools will open their doors to begin another year of academics. There can be a dozen anxiety-producing scenarios that my mind can create when “new” enters our lives. In these situations, I have two options: I can sit under my stress or I can pray.

Crying When God Gives What I Need and Not What I Want

Crying When God Gives What I Need and Not What I Want

I thought I'd hidden my tears. Until the woman to my left scooted a few inches away, and my husband gave my shoulder a squeeze. He knew what the woman did not. He knew the pastor had said something that touched the tender spot in my heart, the place where I long for the healthy father I never had.

Diagnosis, A Defining Moment

Diagnosis, A Defining Moment

Except for posters on 9/11 saying “We Will Remember,” life has returned to normal for those who were not directly impacted. For those of us with a child impacted by disability, there is another date that is cemented in our minds. We each have our own twin towers moment, that moment when our world came crashing down.