Parental guilt and respite care

Abstract

The impact of a handicapped child on a family is immense. As parents of a child with severe learning disability, my wife and I have gone through all the usual stages of bereavement reaction - shock, disbelief, anger, and gradual acceptance. Outsiders sometimes seem to think that our lives have been enriched by Tom, our 7 year old son with the fragile X syndrome. I don't know about enriched; the courses of our lives have been altered, and we have perhaps become more sympathetic to the plight of others, but I could think of many more pleasurable ways of having my life enriched. * “I could think of many more pleasurable ways of having my life enriched.” Tom at first glance is an ordinary looking boy. If it were not for his large ears I think that he would pass for normal. It is only in his behaviour that he is obviously different from the rest. His hyperactivity, while usually just keeping us on our toes, can sometimes be heart stopping, especially when he shoots out of the house, …