The Other Side of Special by Brown, Clime, and Holt

 

I went into this book with high hopes but feel like this book was a well intentioned missing of the mark.

 My first point of concern came on page one when the authors talked about "special needs" making an off hand comment about "whatever the newest acceptable label is at the moment". The fact is, the term special needs came from the abled community, studies show often creates more discrimination, and is rejected by the majority of the disabled community. It was the first of many disappointments.

While I agree with the authors that many resources don't capture the nuance of parenting in the disabled community, their book doesn't either. I saw no highlighting in this book of the richness that comes from embracing and living in the uniqueness of disabled culture, no disabled joy, no promoting of all the hard work the disabled community has put in the last number of decades regarding advocacy, inclusion, and acceptance. In fact, I saw no evidence at all that the authors regularly sat with and learned from disabled peers and community leaders. 

I also struggled with the book's layout. While the author's covered some useful information, those sections felt like generic Christian parenting advice.
 Every parent will face negative emotions and reactions at times in their parenting journey and this book could have used its platform to highlight the similarities first, before branching out into how those common issues may uniquely impact disabled families. Instead, the book seemed to separate the disabled segments of their experience into the "messy, emotional" part of the book's tagline and the "joy-filled" parts to the generic advice.

I'm a mom to children with a variety of disabilities and I'm also disabled myself. Parts of this book were uncomfortable to read due to the casual inclusion of ableism and the general negativity surrounding disabilities. 

I would love to see these authors spend more time actually embracing and learning from the disabled community in the future.

1.5 out of 5 stars.

Book was provided courtesy of Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. and Baker Publishing Group.