[blparent] please please read parenting questions the court will want to know.

[Shannan Zinck]

You seem to have a good start.

I know one of the biggest issues that came up for my husband and I when we
were in our adoption process was What will we do to keep our son safe when
he is old enough to go outside but too young to really listen well? Safety
seems to be the biggest hang up for sighted government floks to grasp. We
went online and did a ton of research, googled whatever we could think of
and there are many things we found. We were actually told by our worker if
we didn't attempt to use a harness for our son she might fight our
adoption, we agreed to this and what do you know whit our son we needed one
anyway because he use to bolt away from us all the time. We never took him
out where we were not in a closed in place like a fenced park and if we
walked somewhere he had to wear his harness until we got to where we
planned to go as he got older we would let him off but, he had to hold
hands or stay where we could reach down and touch him to know he was there.
We always explained to him that the harness was for his safety so that mom
and dad would know he was close. As for the pointing at things Myles just
naturally picked up on the fact that daddy couldn't describe things for
him. computers are great tools when explaining things to a young child
because you can usually find a description of something online to show them
like a youtube vid or something like thaat so that when they see it outside
somewhere they can tell you what they are looking at. We never told Myles
what an owl was for instance but, because he saw it in a book or on youtube
he was able to tell us when he saw one for the first time. Kids learn fast
and they don't have to see it in real life first to know what something is.
My husband is totally blind and uses youtube all the time for me son. Kids
become aware of a parents abilities and adjust quite easily. Where we
adopted we are a bit familliar with what is expected from the courts. Our
biggest challenge was explaining how to handle the toddler stage. I never
had a coffee table in our house simply because of how crazy kids can be and
when they fall they almost always hit the coffee table. LOL We are honest
with our son and when he asks us something we give him an honest answer, if
we can't see something we tell him we can't see it. My son is VERY bold
however so will ask someone else he sees and they tell him what it is. Not,
actually most kids are not like him so just continual reading and showing
things to your child will quell much of the curious 3s and 4s. Having
support lists like this one went a very long way in our case. Hope this
helps. If I think of anything else I'll post.
-- 
Shannan Zinck
Survival is letting GOD take over!!!