How to be friends with a child with special needs

Being friends with a child with special needs is easy when you understand their needs and your child can adapt how they play. Lifelong friendship can be made. This happened with my son and our neighbors' son.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• patience
• kindness
• a sense of humor
• love

1. Don't put adult judgments onto a child. What you see as a disability, your child may not even notice or just think it is natural for the other child to be that way. Explain to your child in simple terms why their new friend is the way they are. My son's friend had severe lung problems so I made my son aware of what to look for and tell me right away if his friend had any breathing problems.

2. Learn all you can about the child's special needs. This is so important if the child with special needs is playing at your house. Find out what the emergency plan is. If the child has life threaten allergies or conditions you need to know what to do. Have all important numbers next to your phone or in your phone book in your cell phone. Just in case that 1 in 100 chance of something happening does! Ask the child's parent to supply food if there is a food allergy. They won't mind and will be happy to do so.

3. Learn what the child can and can't do. Your child will learn to adapt their play activities to suit their friend's need. My son and his friend would vary their outdoor play with inside quiet activities when needed.

4. Make other family members aware of the child's needs. It may not always be you at home with your children. My parents would often babysit our children and my son's friend would often come over to play. They needed to know what to do in an emergency.

5. Enjoy the wonderful times your child will have with his friend. Take lots of photos and video. You and your child will look back on this wonderful time and smile.

6. Be sure to click on the links in the resources section at the bottom for more information.

Tips & Warnings

• Let your child and their friend choose their play activities.
• Have patience.
• Be grateful your child is learning life long skills.
• Others outside your family may not understand your child's friendship.
• Other children can be cruel and can say hurtful things to your child and his friend.

Resources

• Children with Special Needs
• Very Special Kids

[longhairqueen]

on 12/12/2008 Well said GLeeBourquin. I have a completely different perspective on children with special needs, simply because I'm learning to deal with it first hand.

[knoelle12]

on 10/28/2008 Great and so needed!

[GLeeBourquin]

on 10/21/2008 Great article -- one of the beautiful things about children is they are more likely to see the person before the disability, unless the adults in their lives encourage other thinking.

We all have special needs-- some are more obvious than others

[Felicity]

on 10/20/2008 Lovely article. It is truly wonderful to embrace the wonderful opportunities to be had by sharing a caring friendship with a child who has special needs. We learn as much as they do. Thanks for sharing this with us.

[knewf]

on 10/11/2008 I used to teach special ed kids. This is such a special article and really tells it like it should be! I have kids from WAY BACK that are now adults that are still spcial friends to me.