Parents and guardians of a child with chronic illness have it very hard, much harder than most people understand.
Listening and reading your stories, I have come to understand that I too can’t understand what your lives are like.
Gathering resources, navigating your child’s medical journey, appointments, treatments … the list goes on.
But what if your child and family are trying to balance chronic illness with school?
Whether elementary school or higher, there are tasks and expectations that fall under the umbrella of “educating a child.”
It’s incredibly easy to get used to a life without homework, deadlines, or final exams. Your child’s health always takes precedence, but what if the time has come to try school again? Regain a sense of schedules and student life?
Tests, homework, and presentations may have been a distant memory because your child has been too sick to attend school or even fathom completing school assignments.
But, there’s an opportunity for us to learn from one another and gather our resources. Although the resources listed may be about various disease states, the common thread is apparent—the voices of parents trying to steer their way through the difficult task of balancing a child’s health and educational needs.
- School Transitions: To help guide you and your child through school transitions, people with cystic fibrosis (CF) and their families share experiences and advice on how they’ve adjusted to challenges of growing up with a chronic illness.
- Keeping Up With Your School Work: You have a lot more responsibilities in middle school and high school than you did in elementary school. Some ideas on how to manage the transition.
- Coping and Hoping: Learning that your child has a lifelong chronic disease feels life-shattering. It is certainly life-changing. But you can now begin to equip yourself and your family with the tools you will need to manage your child’s condition
Change takes more than desire; it takes collaboration, communication, and a common goal. Let’s dabble with the idea that there are common threads among parents, guardians, and caregivers who have children with chronic illnesses. Pooling our resources may be helpful.
