Stress and Special Needs Kiddos (autism, adopted, medications, child)

[Pinkmani]

I recently just watched a documentary on stress from National Geographic. It was extremely interesting to me because I love learning about how and why humans do the things that we do. I thought I'd share with you some of the things that I gathered from the video regarding stress and parenting.

-Aging & Raising Special Needs Kids: For every year that a parent spends raising a special needs child, they age 6 years.

-Theory as to why kids have special needs (especially the spike we've seen in the past years): After long-term stress, the telomeres on our chromosomes shorten. Telomeres are the proteins at the end of our chromosomes within our DNA cells. Telomeres stop DNA from unwinding and prevent deterioration of the genes. Cells with shorter telomeres within their DNA die quicker and are more likely to develop “mistakes” during replication.

Obviously, life has gotten more stressful because we do more.

-How to repair telomeres: Both parents need to decrease the stress in your life before conceiving

[willow wind]

Thank you for posting that. The telomere link to health is very important. It has even been found that physical violence in childhood, including bullying, can cause telomere length to shorten and adversely impact lifespan in susceptible people.

You're very right- we've all got to de-stress. Anyone interested, it's a good topic to research on Google.
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[AnywhereElse]

Let's see, I have spent 26 years raising my son with Down syndrome/autism who functions at a pre-school level so 26 X 6 = 156 years and we adopted him when I was 33 years old so I am equal to 189 year old. Maybe I didn't understand the math. I have spent every night and most days with him too since I homeschooled most of his school age years. He now attends a day program for adults. I guess I find it offensive that this is said. Both my husband and myself at 58 years old have no health issues, take no medications, etc. and a lot of that probably has to do with our son. Our son had to have no-fat everything, yuck, we got used to that. Our son has to limit sugar and yeast products so, boo, we had to eliminate most of those. A million times a day I have to get up and check on him which gives me more exercise than most people get. I have learned by negotiating the special education system and every state about a disability to be able to apply that elsewhere in my life so less stress across the board once you get that down. The years my son was in school, it was never him that caused any related stress but of the educators, wrong term, high-paid sitters in the school system so I pulled him out and he actually learned at home. You'll find that it isn't the child with special needs that causes the stress but because of the ignorance of those adults you have to work with to try to get what your child needs. I believe in the world today that the stress caused by my son is really very low. I learned to be assertive and aggressive if I needed to and did not just sit back and stress out so that was my cure for stress! Special needs is being caused by all the poisons in the world, the water, the soil, the food supply, the materials used in building - a toxic world.

[PoppySead]

Originally Posted by AnywhereElse

Let's see, I have spent 26 years raising my son with Down syndrome/autism who functions at a pre-school level so 26 X 6 = 156 years and we adopted him when I was 33 years old so I am equal to 189 year old. Maybe I didn't understand the math. I have spent every night and most days with him too since I homeschooled most of his school age years. He now attends a day program for adults. I guess I find it offensive that this is said. Both my husband and myself at 58 years old have no health issues, take no medications, etc. and a lot of that probably has to do with our son. Our son had to have no-fat everything, yuck, we got used to that. Our son has to limit sugar and yeast products so, boo, we had to eliminate most of those. A million times a day I have to get up and check on him which gives me more exercise than most people get. I have learned by negotiating the special education system and every state about a disability to be able to apply that elsewhere in my life so less stress across the board once you get that down. The years my son was in school, it was never him that caused any related stress but of the educators, wrong term, high-paid sitters in the school system so I pulled him out and he actually learned at home. You'll find that it isn't the child with special needs that causes the stress but because of the ignorance of those adults you have to work with to try to get what your child needs. I believe in the world today that the stress caused by my son is really very low. I learned to be assertive and aggressive if I needed to and did not just sit back and stress out so that was my cure for stress! Special needs is being caused by all the poisons in the world, the water, the soil, the food supply, the materials used in building - a toxic world.

Truly a great post! If raising a special needs child isn't challenging and exciting enough the experts can always add a nice phrase or two about it killing you early. That takes the gift out of the bundle doesn't it. ha ha ha

In all honesty if the studies about "the aging effect of taking care of aging parents"," the aging effect of taking care of people with Alzheimer's" and "taking care of special needs children" are true, I should, by all logical conclusions, be dead as a door nail by now.

I agree, the only true stress I encounter with all these situations is mostly due to the outside world. Inside we work it out. It's amazing what chores can do for muscle tone. Nothing like 500 trips up a stairway to tone those legs. Cooking and cleaning with head phones and some nice tunes can be like taking a mini trip to the Virgin Islands. lol Nothing like meditating to the sound of my child's constant voice. You should see how a hyper active youngster can load and unload the cart at the grocery store, scan it all and even pay for it!

Most of the time I feel we are a buffet, all you can eat family until society lets me know we are the sandwich family and I'm stuck in the middle and should be about dead by now. lol

Most of the time I see my son dancing around life as a free for all joy until another parent lets me know there's medication for that. lol

Most of the time I think of walking my mother arm in arm through the store is a bond I'll never forget until her doctor tells me there are places for people like her. lol


Most of the time I'm thankful my daughter didn't have the trials of teen hood until someone tells me she's not of the social norm. lol



I could go on and on but I think you get my point. I try and keep perspective, and let the world roll off my back. I think anything can get to you if you let it. Dust off, pick yourself up and "change the meaning within my sons".

Thanks for the article and I will include my telomere in there as good measure. If only I could find a cure for others lack of tolerance I'd be all set!