Our Experiences Raising D/HH Children

There are many issues and struggles that come up in raising Deaf or Hard of Hearing children. As I look back four years ago, when two of my three children were first found to have a hearing loss, all I could do was shake my head in disbelief. It was not disbelief in the finding out my children had a hearing loss, but how little information was ready for me as a parent. Although I was able to eventually get information after making countless phone calls, the information I did get was usually biased and supporting the beliefs of the person who gave it to me.

One of the biggest struggles our family had to go through was in deciding which communication mode would be best for us. We believed, without a doubt, that a bilingual approach was what was going to work best for our family, and meet all of the needs our children had or would have in the future (academic, emotional, cultural, social). Deciding to become bilingual wasn’t an easy decision; there were many roadblocks. First of all, the lack of awareness with the hearing loss itself created obstacles. Many people who knew our children did not recognize that they had a hearing loss. Much to their credit, they were doing well in school and getting by in the hearing world. In trying to obtain services that were appropriate for our children, we found that there were not many options available. We realized that ASL is the only signed language that truly is a language, and that is what we wanted for our children. We learned how crucial it was that we learn the conceptually accurate signs, and a language that would open up a culture and so many social options for our children. The roadblocks? Many professionals disagreed with our decision, whether they were qualified to do so or not.

Another important thing for us was to find other D/HH people for our children to get to know. Deafness, being a low incidence disability, is not very prevalent, and finding peers for our children was difficult. We do feel that socialization is crucial. We have seen first hand the differences having other D/HH people to socialize with can make for our children’s self esteem and identity.

Going through all that I have, I am very excited to be a part of the Deaf Empowerment Board of Directors. I am excited to be a part of planning and offering the much needed services to families and children who are D/HH. I look forward to establishing a library rich in non-biased information that parents can use to make educated and informed choices when it comes to raising their child. I also look forward to working to provide advocacy materials and skills to parents, and set up a central location to obtain information so that in the future, when other parents find out their children are D/HH they will have more available to them then I did. I also look forward to leading Deaf Empowerment to offer opportunities for children to get together with others who share hearing loss, and providing opportunities for them to socialize and get to know each other.

There are special struggles in raising D/HH children, however like raising any child the rewards are plentiful and always a blessing.