One of my parenting challenges is being a special needs adoptive parent who is raising a special needs adopted child. My special need is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was the result of growing up in an abusive environment. My adopted child’s special needs are asthma and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), both of which are challenging for parents. Combining a special needs adoptive parent with a special needs adopted child can be quite a challenge.

For example, one of the symptoms of my PTSD is insomnia. I have a difficult time getting a good night’s sleep, and I have to jump through several hoops to get that to happen. (The addition of my weighted blanket has really helped with falling back to sleep after I jolt awake at 2:00 a.m.) So, about the last thing I need is a kid taking ADHD medication that makes it difficult for him to sleep. Having two sleep-deprived members of a family can be a real challenge.

However, I find that, because of my special needs, I understand my adopted child in a way that many people do not.

As I have shared several times, my adopted child has special needs. We did not know this when we adopted him as a newborn, so hub and I received no special training or education on how to handle these special needs as part of our home study process. I have pretty much had to figure it out as I go, educating myself by talking with other parents of special needs kids, reading books, researching on the Internet, and meeting with multiple professionals.

First, our adopted child was diagnosed with asthma. Then, he was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The ADHD has been the more troublesome special need to learn how to parent because it causes all sorts of behavioral and developmental issues. I pushed for and got him an individualized education plan (IEP) when he was in second grade. Thank goodness for this because, without that IEP, I would be completely panicking right now.

As I have shared many times, my adopted child has some special needs (ADHD and asthma). Let me tell you firsthand – parenting an adopted child with special needs doesn’t come cheap.

Hub’s job does not provide good health insurance for his family. Believe it or not, it is less expensive for my son and me to buy our health insurance “off the street” than through the plan offered through his job. So, we are paying a pretty high premium.

Both Nicholas and I each have a $250 prescription deductible to meet before we move into only paying the co-pays. Nicholas always meets this deductible before January ends. (Our plan runs on a calendar year.)

Have you noticed that your adopted children who were abused and/or traumatized prior to adoption seem to have a higher incidence of asthma than other children do? I have noticed over the years that children new to my home tend to get sick frequently, especially during the first year of placement. While I hadn’t thought about asthma specifically, shortly after becoming a foster parent I became the owner of a nebulizer. Over the last 14 years, that nebulizer has had quite a workout, so I suppose there is something to it. New research in Puerto Rico indicates that children who have suffered sexual and/or physical abuse have double the average risk of developing asthma. In Boston, Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Juan C. Celedon and his colleagues want pediatricians to screen victims of child abuse automatically for asthma. More importantly, they want pediatricians to be aware that children with asthma may have suffered, or be victims of, child abuse.