Balanced Living All Year
How can the parent of a child with special needs live a balanced life? In Balanced Living All Year, Joan Celebi shares the strategies that help her accomplish the feat.
Meet Joan Celebi
Joan is the mother of two children, one of whom has special needs. She’s also the creator of www.specialneedsparentcoach.com, a website featured in a DifferentDream.com blog post in December of 2009. Each month, she discusses ways parents of kids with special needs can achieve balance in her lunchtime teleseminars.
How to Live a Balanced Life
Celebi divides her book into twelve chapters, one for each month. Each chapter includes a seasonal focus or goal, tips about how to accomplish the goal, ways to have fun and a recipe. The author uses parent language, not medical or educational jargon, so parents don’t feel intimidated. Each chapter takes ten or fifteen minutes to read, no more.
You Can Do This!
Best of all, Celebi’s ideas are kid-friendly, practical and inexpensive. These are things ordinary families can do. Her emphasis on pausing to enjoy the ordinary blessings in ordinary days was particularly refreshing. By the time I finished the book, I was homesick for the days when my kids were underfoot, wishing they were here to work a jigsaw puzzle or help with the oatmeal cookie recipe in the September chapter.
If your life as the parent of a special needs child feels out of balance, or if you want to keep it from becoming unbalanced, read Balanced Living All Year. You’ll be glad you did. And if you try any of the tips or recipes, leave a comment about your experience. I’d love to hear from you.
Balancing life,
Jolene
