Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs (2 page)

Mark’s family: Patty, Elisabeth, Melanie, and his grandchild Seth Reilly Delgesso, for once again sharing and lovingly supporting us in creating yet another book.

Heather’s family: Rick and Kyla, who were very patient while Heather burned the midnight oil during the final stages of production.

Karen’s family: Her mother, Mitzi Briehn, for teaching her perseverance, and Jim Sicoli, her patient husband, who is also the father of her six children, Kimberly, Matthew, Christina, Jonathan, Stephen, and Alexander.

To Chicken Soup Enterprises: especially D’ette Corona, Russ Kamalski, Patty Aubery, and Patty Hansen for being there on every step of the journey. They provided insight throughout the entire process.

Our publisher Peter Vegso and his entire company, Health Communications, Inc., for their vision and commitment to bringing Chicken Soup for the Soul to the world.

A special thank you to all who run Jack’s and Mark’s businesses with skill and love.

To the “Autism Today Team” of Shane Lamotte, Larry Draut, Larry Clyman, and Rebecca Epp, for all their “overthe-top” hard work.

We have two panels of volunteer readers to thank. We received more than 5,000 submissions to our website, and more than 200 people donated their time reading blocks of 200 stories each. A special thank-you to the New York State Rehabilitation Association and Patricia Dowse for providing us with so many of the volunteer readers. We wish we had the space to mention all of you.

Thanks to our second panel of readers, who helped us make the final selections and made invaluable suggestions on how to improve the book: Willy Ackerman, Madge Brown, Reverend Kathryn Cardinal, Gail Conceicao, Patty Dobbins, Pat Dowse, Concetta Ferguson, Larisa Gamble, Mary Ingersoll, Sandra Killian, Barbara LoMonaco, Alishia Mackinnon, JillMcElyea, KarriMcManus, KatyMcNamara, Michael Mihaley, Heather Minnick, Micole Ongman, Lakshmi-Rao Sankar, Betsy Valnes, Nadine Vogel, Marguerite Waldron, Debra Williamson, and Kim Wilson.

To Janice Friedman, who read the final manuscript and gave critical feedback. We appreciate your coming through at the eleventh hour.

To everyone who submitted a story, we deeply appreciate your letting us into your lives and sharing your experiences with us. For those whose stories were not chosen for publication, we hope the stories you are about to enjoy convey what was in your heart and in some ways also tell a story.

To everyone who weighed in on the title. Each and every opinion mattered and was discussed at length.

Because of the size of this project, we may have left out the names of some people who contributed along the way. If so, we are sorry, but please know that we really do appreciate you very much.

Introduction

If we had a nickel for every time we heard, “Love the book idea, but I’m uncomfortable with the term ‘special needs,’” we’d all be chaise-lounging while counting our
riches in five-cent increments.

Choosing the right title has been a difficult and delicate task. In all of our years of compiling Chicken Soup books, we have never had such a reaction to any of our other titles. Since it is our mission to make this book accessible to anyone who might receive comfort or be empowered from it, we needed to go with a title that most people will recognize. So, it is with great pleasure that we present
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs.

If you’ve picked up this book, you most likely know a child who has “special needs” or a disability. This book is for moms, dads, grandparents, foster parents, teachers, doctors, social workers, friends of the family, and everyone else who is participating in the raising of a child or children with a disability on a day-to-day basis.

Perhaps we should warn you that there is one thing you won’t read: a pat answer for the challenges of life. Throughout this book, families of children with disabilities will meet other families “who have been there,” identify with their struggles, and read of their victories along the way.

You’ll read how one mother overcame her fear when her eight-year-old daughter with Down syndrome was asked to her first slumber party. And what one father said to the dentist who scolded him after learning he allowed his daughter with limited vision to roller-skate. Plus, read what one teacher did to help her students grieve and commemorate one of their classmates.

Parenting is challenging. Parenting a child with a disability has its own set of challenges. Recent statistics show that more than 20 million families in the United States have a child with a disability—that’s nearly one in three families.

After reading the more than 5,000 submissions received for this book, we have come to the realization that we don’t have a monopoly on the world’s problems. Others have their share, often far bigger than any of ours. This has helped us to see our own tribulations in truer perspective. And by learning how others have faced their challenges, we’ve been given fresh ideas about how to tackle our own.

It is our hope that through reading
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs,
your heart will be lifted and your journey made lighter as you come to know you are not alone. If this book does either of these for you, we can finally put all those nickels to good use.

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