Grandparenting a Child with Special Needs

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By Charlotte E Thompson, MD

Review by O D Collins, MD, PhD

Fall 2010 - Volume 14 Number 3

https://doi.org/10.7812/TPP/10-079

This unique book, written by a highly experienced and caring pediatrician, addresses the important role of grandparents in raising children who have special needs and has information valuable for those grandparenting normally developing children. There is also much information useful to the parents of both. It is written in an appealing, informal way with frequent anecdotes gleaned from the author's long years of pediatric practice and her role as a mother and grandmother. Given the difficulty of raising any child to his or her full potential, skilled, practical assistance is an invaluable asset. Many physicians will thus welcome this book as a referral source for those caring for these difficult patients.

In addition to its extensive text covering topics from diagnosis to divorce, to dressing, and to social occasions like parties, Grandparenting a Child with Special Needs provides extensive appendices of US state-by-state resource locations and contacts, as well as contact information for American associations and societies helping with problems ranging from abuse through osteogenesis imperfecta to visual impairment. Web sites are listed for children's resources both in the US and in the UK. Those raising children with special needs, and the involved grandparents helping with those children, will welcome referral to this book, a copy of which might be a useful addition to the waiting room of any pediatrician.