Pod cast: Raising A Child With Special Needs

Raising A Child With Special Needs

I choose this podcast because I think that this could be a great resource for both parents who do have children with disabilities and those who don't. In this podcast they are talking about how it is okay to allow yourself to ask for help. They also talk about how to help a parent who is raising a child with a disability to not just offer help but do it for them and allow the parent to say if they want it or not. They also talk about how it is okay to say that you as a parent need time. I think that parents put a lot of pressure on themselves to do it all, and especially when they have a child with a disability you as a parent need to have your space so that you don't become burnt out. I have seen this with someone I babysit for. She is a great mom and her kids are great, but she works nights and her husband is on deployment so she puts too much pressure that she put on herself to do it all and keep the house clean. She has finally taken the time to go to dinner with a friend; and this has helped her so much. Her son is just now starting a new preschool for his speech therapy and she is now able to have more mommy daughter time with her youngest. She had even said how grateful she is to have time to do grown up things like going to dinner with a friend. I think that since she has been able to ask for help ad know that she can lean of people this has helped her not be as stressed as she use to be.

So while listening to this podcast I thought about all of the parents I know in my life who have a child with a disability and in what ways I can help them. I think that for may parents reassuring them that what they are do it great and to not put so much pressure on themselves. This is very important and epically for parents of children with disabilities this can be even more powerful. What they talked about in the podcast was that getting that type of feedback and that what you as a parent is doing to help your child is working can be very rewarding. Also what they talked about was as a friend, family member, etc. it's not worth much to say "call if you need anything" but means so much more when you just do it for them. With this though I think that people have to be careful to not make the parent feel incapable of doing it themselves but just be there for extra support every once in a while. They suggested to make dinner that they can freeze so that if they want it they can have it, or to take their kids out for a bit, or anything else that can help ease the strain or stress that they may be feeling.

I think that podcasts can be a great resource for students, teachers, and their parents because they can get an outside idea or perspective of what they may be going though and use their tips to help them get through a difficult situation. I think that for some students though watching and learning from videos could be more helpful so that they don't easily become disinterested. I think that I could also create my own class podcast so that students who have a visual impairment or listen better to directions can access this at home. I did use podcasts in my classroom the UDL guidelines that I think would work would be 7.2 which is optimize relevance, value, and authenticity, 1.2 which is to offer alternatives for auditory information, and 5.1 which is use multiple media for communication. These allow me to make sure that I am reaching my students who may have a visual impairment or understand more when there is an auditory information. Pod casts can be used in many ways and i think that how we use them can be very valuable to our students and their families.