Why It’s Time to Look Up Even If You Don’t Really Want To!
What will happen to my child when I’m no longer around? is the thing most parents of children with additional needs worry about most. It’s so scary most of us want to be like the proverbial ostrich and put our heads in the sand. And the reason why most of us don’t have a long-term plan? Simple. We don’t know where to start.
Whilst our children are in school there is a plan and people to make things happen. Teachers, professionals, and therapists with the training and practical experience get on and teach our children the skills and strategies they need. But they’re only with us for the short term. The five or so years of school life that a professional might work with our children is still short-term in relation to our child’s entire life.
We need a longer plan.
No one gives us a longer plan. Worse, no one seems to know a whole picture to give us a long-term plan about where they might live, how they might travel about, how they might look after themselves on a daily basis. No one tells us who or how we are going to pay for their lives as they get older.
Hence, we are confused and worried.
But in the end, it’s us the parents who are left to come up with the long-term solution. This means carving out a long-term plan for our children’s futures. The gains our children make with any of the professionals who pass through their lives need to be joined together into a more holistic life plan that takes them through their young adult life to middle age and finally to retirement. This also needs to weigh against considering how the costs of this life plan might be met.
A plan starts with a vision. At its most basic, a pen and paper, and then writing our thoughts down. What could be simpler than that? Getting started is always the hard part but once we have started then it always becomes easier.
Even the ostrich needs to look up sometime; they will find it a lot less dangerous if they already have some idea of the best direction to start running.
To help you plan out your vision, take our Free Creating A Vision For Your Childs Future Course at https://redgiraffesolutions.com/visionstarter