A FAMILY FINANCIAL situation may change considerably as a result of a parent's MS. Such changes can occur for a variety of reasons, including the high cost of medical care, the loss of income that results from the MS-parent's reduced ability to work, or the well-spouse's need to leave work in order to perform additional care giving or parenting functions. Many families are thus left with severely limited financial resources.
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For some families, especially those that are headed by single parents, this may result in the need to live with extended family under less than ideal circumstances. For others, it means a more gradual change in lifestyle. Individuals who are still physically able to drive may be unable to afford automobile-related expenses. This may leave them with few options for transportation, particularly if they are uncomfortable asking family members and friends for rides. Common family activities such as eating out, gift giving and summer vacations may all be negatively affected by limited finances.
Thus, family activities may be far more limited by restricted finances than by the parent's disability. Many parents worry that they will no longer be able to provide adequately for their children and that their children, as well as family members and friends, will conclude that they are no longer good parents. Faced with such financial limitations, it is often helpful to involve children in the process of making choices. This conveys the message that although the family can no longer do all of their favorite activities, each family member can help to choose one or two.
Children's Responses to a Parent's Illness
What Does The Research Tell Us?
PARENTS WHO HAVE MS generally agree that their children cope relatively well with the stress of MS in their lives. Indeed, recent studies of families with an MS parent have shown most of the children to be thriving socially, emotionally, and academically. It is clear that a parent's physical illness can potentially serve some positive functions within families, such as bringing family members closer together and helping children learn responsibility and gain independence. Parents often report that their children are more caring and sensitive to the needs of the disabled and that they have a greater sense of responsibility than most children their age.
However, a series of interviews with parents and children showed that the adults tended to underestimate the emotional impact of the MS on their children's lives, whereas the children reported more coping difficulties than their parents described them as having. The children in this study, who ranged in age from 7-18 years, were adapting quite well to their parent's physical limitations.
However, they were having much greater difficulty with the parent's mood changes and the emotional climate of anxiety, sadness, and tension within the household. Many of the children felt that they were unfairly targeted by their parent's anger and frustration, and described a "walking on eggshells" atmosphere in the home. Some children hesitated to ask their parent MS-related questions for fear of upsetting the parent even further.
The conclusions reached in this particular study were that the children seemed to be coping more comfortably with the MS than their parents were. Having been reassured that their parent was not going to die and was going to continue to take care of them, these children were making a satisfactory adjustment to the presence of MS in their lives. The parents, however, seemed to be trying to reassure themselves that the MS was not going to have any negative impact on their children's lives.
In their need to reassure themselves in this way, many were overlooking some of the MS-related tensions in the household and the effect these tensions were having on the children. For the same reasons, the parents were reluctant to seek professional help with these emotional issues. Rather than seeing family counseling as a valuable tool to cope with the unavoidable stresses imposed by a chronic illness, these parents tended to see counseling either as unnecessary or as an admission of failure in their parenting efforts. To find out more, you can check out MS Financial Assistance Program.