Meredith Louise Swift

How Do I Do This? The Real and Raw Truth About Raising A Child With Special Needs - Interviews With Parents Meredith Louise Swift

Are You a Parent of a Child With Special Needs?Are You Feeling Overwhelmed By What This Means?Are You Needing Encouragement and Hope For the Journey Ahead?




My daughter Sarah is 25. She is non-verbal autistic. When Sarah was first diagnosed, I felt completely devastated. The fear of the unknown as to what lay ahead was overwhelming. I was forced to travel a road I had never imagined I would be on, and which was often so hard I could barely breathe. Yet on that road, I met countless wonderful people who helped and supported me and Sarah.

This is a book I would dearly loved to have read at the beginning of my journey as a mother of a child with special needs. It is a collection of interviews with 22 parents of children (and adult children) ranging in age from 7-47. Some of these parents have more than one child with special needs. Autism, sensory and auditory processing disorders, epilepsy, deafness, Prader-Willi, Down, Tourette and Asperger's Syndromes, ADHD, cerebral palsy and Fragile X are all covered.

Finding people who have journeyed on the same road that we are on can provide a road map for us, and shine a light on the darkness of the unknown.

These are raw and real stories from parents all over the world, aiming to help at all stages of the special needs journey, woven together with threads of heartbreak and hope, joy, courage and fear, tenacity and persistence, and deep, abiding love.