What is the actual experience of parents who live with and love children with special needs?

After the initial shock of becoming a parent, now complicated by being the parent of a child with special needs, as well as having only a confused idea of what may lie ahead, how do they find a way forward, to start to build a relationship with their child?

The stories that emerge from Parenting A Child with Special Needs are of great passion and, sometimes, pain and above all the courageous dedication needed to bring up a disabled child. The editors, Bernadette Thomas and Cindy Dowling, are parents of disabled children who write with real and practical insight into bringing up a disabled child and the relationship it creates. While Neil Nicoll gives a professional perspective into the issues raised.

Parents often come to see their children as a "gift", and the dominant note struck is of the intensity of the relationships that develop between these parents and their children, relationships that are the most fulfilling part of both their lives. They tell it as it is, the joy and the pain, and these are stories that all parents will recognise.