I am amazed that my son, Farouq & his best half, Nadja enjoy celebrating every small victories and focus on the unique gifts from Allah that their special needs child, Daniel brings rather than only the challenges. They learn everything possible about their child's diagnosis to understand their unique needs and abilities. They use simple message s and clear communication to improve their interaction. They define clear expectations and use, simple, consistent positive reinforcement rather than just punishment. They believe such structure, processes and routines help reduce anxiety and provide security. They are calm ensuring that techniques learned from the hospitals and special needs schools are applied consistently. My wife, Zarina & I also learnt the process.
Daniel was born normal but at the age of four months old become a child of special needs after getting very high fever during the care of a baby-sitter. Raising a child with special needs can be extremely challenging. Since every child is unique and every parenting journey different, the circumstances they are dealing with may be different from those facing by other parents. The path is determining how best to adapt to each challenge for the best solution.
Farouq enrolled Daniel as a pupil to special care schools, including the Great Academy Cyberjaya managed by a team of ‘Gabungan Anak-Anak Palsi Serebrum’ (GAPS), a daily academic-therapy-life skills program for students with Cerebral Palsy (GP) aged between 6-25 years old who are not accepted in normal schools. The IEP (Individualized Education Plan) ensures the right adaptation, accommodation and modification on each student's educational, rehabilitation, social and vocational skills. The long term aims to increase educational and career opportunities as well employability for people with CP. (cerebrapalsy.org.my)
Puan Rafidah Ahmad, Founder & President of GAPS said that, “Great Academy is to empower CP individuals with the knowledge and skills relevant to his abilities, enabling him to generate a niche in creativity in creative industry. To add value to knowledge building in capitalizing their talents on how to read, write, calculate, and think, our students are taught to design, produce and sell-made-to-order merchandise as the future enterprising CPreneur.”
.png)
Got a meaningful father-child story? Share it with #KasihAyah for a chance to win TnG eMAS, Shopee vouchers, and prizes worth up to RM3,500! Find out how to join here. T&Cs apply.
Zulkifly Baharom (hajizul50@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.
