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Parenting Tips ~ Have An OI Child      ~ page # 1/3  
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Parenting a child with OI is both challenging and rewarding, parenting tips can be a blessing or a curse. A parent will need to find their own ground to stand on with their own child. Every child is different and will have their own individual needs and attention. It is impossible to compare children with this disease to each other, even two children with the same type because they can be affected so differently.

The reactions of parents to the birth of a brittle bones child depend on their previous experience with the disease and many by related to the degree of visible deformity. Initial shock is usually followed by feelings of guilt, anger, confusion, fear of the unknown, fear of others. Perceptions and concern about the physician's competence and knowledge about this disorder.

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Parents of children with fractured bones have to face the usual concerns about having to care for a new baby as well as the physical, medical, and financial concerns related to the disability, so it is important to know parenting tips in all areas, not just medical, but financial and emotional concerns also.

An often overlooked parenting tip is that it may take some time for parents and extended family members to see the child as a person with a disability instead of merely a disabled child. It is very important for parents to be sensitive to the emotional needs of unaffected siblings.

As parents learn routines that help their children survive and thrive, their confidence begins to build and they experience a sense of healing and bonding with their child. Caring for an OI child takes an enormous amount of patience and courage. A very necessary parenting tip is that these parents must learn to live in an atmosphere of unending crisis management.

On top of the difficulties encountered while caring for a fragile child, the parents may also face the prospect of being investigated for child abuse due to many unexplainable fractures experienced by their children, which is why it is important to have parenting tips so that you are not pulled into a custody battle for your own child due to child abuse symptoms which run parallel to having the brittle bone disease.

This is most likely to occur while the child is young, especially if the child was diagnosed at birth. Because Osteogenesis Imperfecta is not a very common disease, most doctors know little or nothing about it. So when these doctors see that a child comes in with multiple fractures for what seems like no apparent reason, the doctors become suspicious and have a duty to report their suspicions to child protective services. Social Services is then required to come and question the parent.

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