Tools to grow: Parenting a child with brain injury

Raising children can be a joyful but challenging time, and for parents whose child lives with a brain injury, those issues can be magnified. As a parent, you want to strike a balance between protecting your child from harm while encouraging self-reliance and independence. This is no different when parenting a child who has a brain injury.

One of the important things parents do is help their children learn to manage and judge risk. It is natural for a child or teenager to want more independence and to test what is acceptable as they grow older. As a parent, you will ask yourself questions like:

• Do they have the necessary skills?
• Can I trust them to follow the rules?
• What are the likely risks, including risks to others?
• Are there dangers outside their control?
• What would make this situation safer?

These questions can feel even bigger when your child lives with a brain injury. Depending on the area and severity of their injury, they may find it harder to anticipate danger, judge risk, or show self-control and other impulses or remember what has been agreed. Learning the skills needed to be safely independent may be slower or less straightforward and can involve both physical skills and thinking and/or behaviour skills.

Some children and young people with brain injury may be overly trusting or friendly with everyone; this can be linked to lower inhibitions due to their brain injury or because they are used to seeing many different people in hospital and other medical appointments. While this openness can be a strength, it can also be an increased risk to a child and may need active support and planning.

What questions to ask to help with growth?

To help assess your child’s capacity to take the next steps in their journey without losing their confidence, consider the following questions:

• Can they understand and remember instructions, rules or laws and apply general rules in different situations?
• How do they manage their impulsiveness and judgment issues, especially when they are tired, upset or with friends?
• Do they need any training or instructions (either verbal or written) to maximise the chances that they will act responsibly and safely?

You don’t need the answers to all these questions. Allied health professionals, teachers and brain injury organisations like Synapse can help you think through these questions and plan next steps.

Strategies that may help with growth?

These strategies and ideas may help your child or teenager develop independence while keeping safety in mind.

• Set sensible and firm limits based on your family’s values and respect for rules, laws and regulations.
• Be a good role model and example.
• Try to keep the communication lines open with the family and listen to what your child has to say, respect their point of view (even if you don’t agree with it).
• Talk through anything they may be feeling or experiencing as part of their injury.
• Depending on their age, provide a ‘safety net’ of appropriate supervision by being aware of your child’s friendships, knowing where they are at night, and being awake when they get home.
• If they are doing an activity for the first or first few times, go through any directions and instructions with them (you could do this a few times with them).
• Write down or record a voice note/message of any instructions so they can have a guide if they are going to do something by themselves.

Over time, these supports can help your child practice making decisions, taking manageable risks and recovering from mistakes, which are all a part of growing up.

Helping your child with a brain injury develop their own independence is not about removing risk, though you wish it were; it is about creating safe opportunities to learn, with you alongside them.  Progress may be slower or less linear than for other children, but every step towards making their own choices, solving problems and keeping themselves safe is a step in their development.

If you are unsure how to balance safety and independence, talk with your child’s rehabilitation team, school, or Synapse can give your ideas, reassurance and practical tools for your family.