I’ve taken to calling it my whiteboard of shame. When Penny was a toddler, and we had four therapists coming to the house on a weekly basis, I kept a list of all the things they told us we should be doing every day in order for her to develop her fine motor, gross motor, speech, and learning skills. Of course, most days I never even looked at the white board, much less successfully integrated the tasks into our every day routine. It just became this emblem of all that I wasn’t doing, a symbol of the overwhelm of being a parent, and, in this case, a parent of a child with a disability.
When you are feeling overwhelmed by something, what do you do?
When I was younger, I tried to tackle overwhelming problems head on. I researched. I put in more hours trying to figure out solutions. I worried a lot. I usually either burned out and gave up, or I felt shame and gave up. Either way, I made little progress, and I still felt overwhelmed.
Now, I have learned to ask, how can I take one next step?
When I faced the overwhelming feeling after Penny’s diagnosis of scoliosis in fourth grade . . . When we needed to figure out how to guide our kids through having a boyfriend or going through puberty or feeling lonely or spending too much time on screens . . . When I worried about whether we should become Penny’s guardians as she turned eighteen . . .
What is one step I can take—away from fear, and toward a good future?
Sometimes this one step seems obvious, but often we have no idea what the answer to that question is. If we knew, then we would do it, and we wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed.
But I’ve realized that when we know that something is too much for us, then the one next step is often to ask for help. The one next step is admitting that we don’t know what to do. And then the one next step after that is considering whether we know anyone—a friend, neighbor, mentor, therapist, teacher, coach, family member, coworker—who might be able to help us. If we do, then the one next step is to reach out to that person. And if we don’t know anyone who we think can help us, then we still need the help of someone outside ourselves. In that case, we are probably going to need to use the supercomputer in our pocket to find someone who can help.
Earlier this summer, I had a chance to teach some parents of children with disabilities about taking one next step toward a good future. We worked through a process of identifying hopes and dreams, fears and concerns, challenges and opportunities, gifts and possibilities for their child. One woman identified teaching her son how to read as a really important and overwhelming goal. She explained, “My son loves books, but he doesn’t know how to read. I don’t know how to teach him or equip him to learn how to read.”
When she saw this problem as something that she needed to solve on her own, it felt impossible. But when we started brainstorming people in her community—or online—who have encountered the same problem, it started to feel possible to take one next step. Toward a good future.
Over these past twenty years of being a parent of three kids, including one with a disability, I’ve learned that a good future is possible. I’ve learned that there is a community of people—both in person and online—who are eager to help me if and when I can ask for that help in specific ways. And I’ve learned that when I feel overwhelmed, I can ask myself, what is the one next step we can take?
The Take the Next Step podcast is back this week is back this week. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts for great conversations about how to take meaningful and manageable steps toward a good future for our kids and our families.
Where are you feeling overwhelmed right now? What is one next step you can take?
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Amy Julia Becker desires to challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and help us envision and build a world of belonging where everyone matters. Amy Julia invites people to reimagine the good life through her writing and speaking on disability, faith, and culture. She is the author of several books, including To Be Made Well, White Picket Fences, Small Talk, and A Good and Perfect Gift. She is a guest opinion writer for national publications and hosts two podcasts: Take the Next Step and Reimagining the Good Life. Becker is a graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv). She is a member of the Disability Ministry Network and the Alliance for Disability Justice and Ethics in Reproductive Genetics. She lives with her husband and their three children in western Connecticut.
