Defining your child’s quality of life requires an understanding of their physical and emotional limitations; as well as their gifts, interests, behaviors and reactions to certain situations or environments. Special needs children view the world differently than we do. Creating an environment that comforts them, and avoiding situations that cause uneasiness, can assist all involved to go through the day in peace.

The following list contains 10 questions, and tasks to help you define the elements that make up your child’s quality of life. The resulting information will help you manage better today and provide insight moving forward. Keep the answers to these questions in a safe place and share them with your support team. This information is helpful to them even if they only relieve you, or interact with your child temporarily. The depth of your answers will depend on your child’s special needs and their cognitive abilities. Feel free to add more insightful information.

1. Define your child’s disability. What can or can’t they do for themselves?

2. What is their medication regime, and why do they take each of them?

3. What is the contact information for their professional care givers, and what role do they play?

4. What is your child’s daily routine?

5. Describe environments and circumstances that make your child feel comfortable and calm, as well as those that make them feel so uneasy that it might initiate an emotional meltdown.

6. Create a list of the noticeable signs your child displays when they are feeling anxious. Provide instruction on how to manage or relax your child when uncomfortable situations arise and you want to avoid escalation to a meltdown.

7. What are their likes/dislikes? – Food, places, tasks, sensory issues etc.

8. What are their special interests and hobbies?

9. How do you use these special interests and hobbies to educate, entertain, discipline and nurture?

10. List what to do in case of an emergency and define what would be considered an emergency for your child.

Embrace your child’s gifts and listen to their desires. Assess if these gifts and desires are realistic or not. Some may not seem realistic at all, however if we get creative and let our improvisational and observational skills kick in, they just might lead us down a path to nurturing the very dreams that once seemed unrealistic. Encouraging and believing in your child will produce amazing results.

The following questions are just thought-starters to understand your child better and how you might stretch them.

1. What aspirations does your child have? Are they realistic?

2. How can you expand their quality of life? Remember to take baby steps.

3. What can you do to increase the “abled” part of “differently-abled”?

4. Do they have aspirations of living on their own, or with a roommate? With a sibling? Getting married? Do they want to own a home?

5. What are their career goals? Working for someone else, or being self-employed?

6. Do they have or want a pet of their own? Can they care for the pet? What value would a pet bring to your child’s quality of life? How could or would it potentially hinder it?

Set short-term goals that they can achieve. When you hone in on some possibilities, put them through a process of personal goal setting.