Megan became a paraplegic when she was still a teenager. Her parents went through the injury and recovery with her, and now as an adult, Megan shares advice on parenting from her perspective as a daughter with a spinal cord injury.
“I think the natural inclination is to hold them tighter, to want to protect them because … they feel that in some ways, that they’ve failed.”
But Megan assures her parents they have not failed, and more importantly, that they don’t have to hold on so tightly – something that is no doubt difficult for parents to do.
When parents are raising a child who has sustained an injury like Megan’s, she suggests parents try the following tactics:
“‘I have to let them live their life, I have to let them make mistakes, I have to let them do things that I don’t agree with,'” because that’s what you do when you’re a good parent, and I think that’s even more true when it’s a person with a disability.”