Life Planners™ Newsletter
July 2006
by Mike and Linda Moran
Monthly advice on how to write your child's Letter of Intent,
also known as a Life Plan
Feature Story |
Life Plan Tip |
This Month's Question
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Letter of Intent
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What good is a Life Plan to me?
Maybe you are young and in good health and you know there's a possibility you might die this year, but it's a long shot. With all the other things on your list, why do this one now? Read on and we'll show you how a Life Plan helps you and your child right here and right now.
The first benefit to parents of creating and maintaining a child's Life Plan is how well it keeps you organized. When you write down every checkup with every specialist, it's much harder to forget to make the appointment each year.
Every time you read your Life Plan, you see that the one-year anniversary of that checkup is coming up, so eventually you make the call. It's also hard to forget where her birth certificate is when you had to write the location down in the Life Plan. If you stare at his immunization records long enough, you're bound to keep them up to date.
A Life Plan is also a great antidote to procrastination. If you're prone to procrastinating, you may be able to fight your tendencies by using your Life Plan. Your Life Plan will list all the things that you have to do on a regular basis, making them harder to ignore.
Now you may still procrastinate to actually produce your Life Plan or to keep it up to date, but if you can get yourself to do this one task, it will help you avoid procrastinating on everything else. Make a commitment to yourself to add a little more to the Life Plan every month when you receive this free newsletter in your e-mail.
Another benefit often cited by parents is that a Life Plan can consolidate your thinking. You probably have a file drawer full of ripped-out articles that explain aspects of your child's disability. You tore some of them out, other people sent you some of them, but there they sit, gathering dust in the file. When you do your Life Plan, you'll dust them off and re-read them, because you'll want to explain what you know to your child's next caregiver.
As you do, you will undoubtedly learn something new yourself. You'll come across an article that you ignored at the time that now explains something important about your child's current behavior. You'll notice that a couple of articles contradict each other, and explaining this fact to your caregiver helps you see that experts sometimes disagree and that you always need to use your own judgment. No matter what your file holds, writing your Life Plan will help you understand more of it.
In fact, it's well-known that explaining any subject to someone else improves your own understanding. Teachers often talk about how much they learn from their students. Authors frequently describe how writing a book deepened their own understanding. You will experience this deeper understanding as well. The more that you explain your child to others, the more you'll understand her yourself.
But perhaps the biggest reason to create your Life Plan is your own peace of mind. Once you are comfortable that your Life Plan is ready should it be needed, you can relax. You know that your child will be well cared for. You'll know that you have done your best.
This month's Life Plan tip: Use your lists
You have lists. Almost everyone does. There's the list of all of the conditions you remind the doctor to check for every year. And the list of all of the foods that your child can't eat that you provide her new teachers. And the list of all of the things your son must bring to camp or else he can't sleep.
Those lists are the lifeblood of your Life Plan. Start your plan by writing a few words around each list. What's the list for? Does it change? How do you use it? The more lists you've kept, the easier it is to start your Life Plan. If you have collected your lists together, you have already started your Life Plan.
This month's featured question: How often must I update my Life Plan?
Use your own judgment. If your child is young, his abilities are changing rapidly, so the plan needs to be kept-up-to-date every few months. If you're working through a new diagnosis, you are learning more every day, so your Life Plan must reflect that. But if your child is 26 years old and things are just about the same as they were a few months ago, you may need to update your plan just once a year.
Some people avoid this question by updating their Life Plans continuously. It takes some discipline to make this part of your daily routine, but the best way to keep your Life Plan up-to-date is to make every change as it happens. When you get home from the doctor's appointment, record the results in your Life Plan. When your child's placement changes, write down the details while they are fresh in your mind. If you continually update, you'll still have to review your plan once a year, but it should be a lot less work than it would be otherwise.
A thought to ponder:
"By learning you will teach, by teaching you will learn."—
Latin Proverb
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Last Modified: Wednesday, 06-Feb-2008 07:22:49 PST
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