What about kids with special needs, and their parents?

Lockdown has its own challenges when dealing with able-bodied children, but imagine being the parents who must now do the work of trained specialists.

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Photo for illustration. Ellen Glen Special Needs Eco Centre principal Boitumelo Mogaleni, centre, with some of the children at the facility. Pictures: Nigel Sibanda

Parents of children with special needs, especially those locked out of school, how are you coping? Are your children well? Have you been able to take care of yourself during this lockdown in between the mountain of challenges brought on by the coronavirus? How I wish someone was there for you, reassuring you that things will be okay and that somebody cares about you and your child. Before, there was not much issue with your daily existence in a humble apartment or house which you inhabited a few hours a day, mostly for sleep. That home has now become a...

Parents of children with special needs, especially those locked out of school, how are you coping? Are your children well? Have you been able to take care of yourself during this lockdown in between the mountain of challenges brought on by the coronavirus?

How I wish someone was there for you, reassuring you that things will be okay and that somebody cares about you and your child.

Before, there was not much issue with your daily existence in a humble apartment or house which you inhabited a few hours a day, mostly for sleep. That home has now become a prison for you and a child who is possibly used to a very specific routine, which has now fallen by the wayside.

While parents of “normal” children have struggled with finding the time, technology and money to school their children from home, you parents of special-needs children have likely been dealing with an entirely different beast.

Cut off from your usual support system, you are now left to man the impossible task of recreating the services offered by several specialists in your home, which no doubt feels so much smaller.

I only think of you now, to be honest, because while I generally don’t categorise myself as a struggling parent of a special needs child, I can safely say that I too am struggling now.

There is no way I can explain to my 11-year-old boy why we can’t go swimming, can’t go walking or play in the park, and why we cannot visit his favourite relatives.

All he knows is that one day he came home from school and never went back.

I have accumulated a hoarder’s worth of toys and gizmos to keep him occupied. Having not received any form of instruction on what we could do with them at home to replace their daily school routines, I enlisted the help of YouTube and other online resources to see what parents around the world are doing to make life a little bit more comfortable for their special kids.

I acknowledge my privileged distance from those parents who have even fewer resources than I do. What of those special needs children who have more immediate urgencies than just boredom and a thirst for familiarity?

Athena Pedro, Dr Bronwyn Mthimunye and Ella Bust from the University of the Western Cape, recently offered wisdom to these parents in an article published in The Conversation.

Highlighting the specific ramifications for parents of special-needs children of the lockdown, the trio noted the long-term effects this period could have on such children in their learning process because, for them, education needs to be delivered time-sensitively and appropriately for their development.

They point out that because face-to-face contact lessons with caregivers and teachers are not available during the lockdown, parents bear the extra burden of having to fill the gap.

That has its own challenges when dealing with able-bodied children, but imagine being the parents who must now do the work of trained specialists. Some children will have lost access to networks of support, leaving them vulnerable to isolation, the article points out.

A concern for children with special educational needs and disability during the lockdown is the educational capacity of their parents, write Pedro Mthimunye and Bust.

While government is providing resources such as the Covid-19 pupil support initiative, educating South Africa’s children now becomes the parents’ responsibility … a responsibility I doubt many parents are ready for.