LINKS ON PROVIDING PERSONAL CARE FOR CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
TOILET TRAINING
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There are loads of websites and books on toilet training. Here are a variety, from teaching your doll to be potty-trained
- Dr. Phil McGraw teaches first a doll and then a child to be potty-trained. Includes a potty party and a superhero. You can even order potty-training dolls on the Internet if you click here. You can probably get a much cheaper one at Wal-Mart. Any doll that wets will do and you can put it on your child's potty.
- Article on potty training children with special needs, from the About Health and Fitness site, includes lots of links on potty-training do's and don'ts, a quiz to decide if your child is ready and much more.
DENTAL CARE
The International Rett Syndrome Association provides this page on dental care.Most people are used to brushing their own teeth, not someone else's. Good dental care is always important and may be even more so with children with disabilities that involve tooth grinding, tooth clenching or eating difficulties. Some medications taken to prevent seizures can affect teeth and gums.
NUTRITION AND FEEDING
Another page from the International Rett Syndrome Association, on nutrition and feeding for children with this disability, which includes repetitive hand motions, difficulty chewing and swallowing and, often, malnutrition.
Comeunity page on growth and feeding for children with disabilities. (No, that's not a typo, that's the name.)
A PARENT'S PERSPECTIVE ON PROVIDING PERSONAL CARE
When you have a newborn, you expect to take care of her every need, changing diapers, feeding her, carrying her from bed to bathtub. You don't expect to have to provide that care throughout life, but sometimes that happens. For a mother's perspective on raising a child with a profound disability, we highly recommend this article by Rosemary Gwaltney, the adoptive mother of twenty-six children, including children with a variety of disabilities.
Next: Teaching children to care for themselves