Through the Eyes of a Parent

Home » Information » Through the Eyes of a Parent

Elizabeth’s approach to helping our young adult son, and us as a family, has been unique among the many practitioners we have worked with. She has truly ‘learned’ us as opposed to bringing preconceptions or prescribed approaches to growth and skill development. This isn’t to say she doesn’t bring significant experience and technique in her tool box. She absolutely does! But these are chosen and experimented with based on her careful, patient, growing understanding of our son.

Elizabeth understands the real emotional challenges that come with helping one’s special needs child become more independent. She recognizes that children can only grow and change if the whole family can. Her sensitivity and truly collaborative approach to this process honors the pace of our family, while pushing on the edges of the comfort level of each of us just enough to open doors. We discover potential and possibility when before we were understandably stuck in old conceptions and routines.

She is a keen observer of our son and she uses the language of the body to understand and reflect back to him what she sees of his emotions, thoughts and reactions to her words. His eyebrows knitting, his body rocking, his eye contact, his giant smile, his wish to hit in frustration. Helping him come to know about these physical responses, may lead to his one day being able to notice them himself and reflect on what is happening inside him and what to do with that.

I have felt completely cared about and honored as I’ve struggled to let go in certain areas with my son and I have felt heard and taken seriously. Elizabeth is warm, humble, brave and confident. A beautiful combination. I have watched my son learn things that I thought might be out of his reach or cause too much confusion or sense of overwhelm. Things that may seem small to some but are significant in his slow steps to the greater autonomy of adulthood and a sense of agency in the world. I know we have a partner for as long as we need in this push-pull process of letting go that all parents must go through. It can be harder for those of us with special needs children and not feeling alone in it is worth so, so much.

Share this:

Explore more posts: