The American Bar Association has commented that family lawyers are “dealing with a burgeoning number of cases involving special needs children.”1 According to a recent book on the topic of the special needs child and divorce, these families “have much higher divorce rates and their cases often involve more specialized handling.”2 In this article, I will highlight some of the issues facing families with a special needs child who are undergoing separation or divorce, and will provide resources for further exploration of the topic.
Psychological Issues
Children with special needs “require extraordinary parenting and place extraordinary demands upon the adults who care for them.”3 Experts in the field have written about the fact that “conflict, marital separation, and divorce are often an unfortunate consequence of trying to raise these high-maintenance children.”4 They state, further, that “the stress of parental separation and divorce exacerbates the symptoms of these children, makes them harder to care for at a time when there are fewer resources to go around, and impacts the entire family in unique and often profound ways.”5 Hence, these families are seen in ever increasing numbers in family court.
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