Heart Breaking Dave Ramsey Phone Call From a Stressed Out Autism Dad
I have blogged about Autism and Dave Ramsey in the past, but a recent call to Dave’s show really drives home the point that having debt takes away a lot of your options to helping your child with autism. The caller on this day had twin boys with autism, lots of debt, massive stress, and a second job delivering pizzas.
The caller stressed how his wife’s only concern was getting the treatments, therapy, supplements, etc. that the boys need. I felt horrible for this family. By choosing to go into debt, they left themselves with some horrible options. Money that could go to therapy goes to service credit card and other debt. What a horrible choice, do I send money to MASTERcard or pay for x and y therapies. Dave really didn’t have much of an answer, because there really isn’t an easy one. Make more money, clean up the mess, and don’t go into any more debt.
Don’t get me wrong, everyone has done stupid with money, and this family would be your normal American family (aka -broke and in debt) until autism came along. Typical American + Autism = Financial Crisis.
How many such families are there out there? How many kids with autism are suffering and living under their potential because of outside financial strains on their family?
Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace is a must for families with Autism. If divorce rates for autism parents really is 80% and money fights and money problems are the #1 cause of divorce, it is critical for families to control their finances and LIVE ON LESS THAN YOU MAKE!
Filed under: Dave Ramsey and Autism, Family, Marriage, Stress
One question…when the family income is $38,000 a year and the costs of the necessary therapies and special schooling for a child with autism in this area are over $80,000 a year…how do you live on less than you make?
I don’t know, but you are setting yourself up for much worse later.
The answer is…you sacrifice the child…settle for public education that is lacking in quality and forgo the private education and any therapy that is not covered under some insurance or other plan. You have no choice other than this so you are defeated from the beginning. You are not pleased with this, but it is all you have when you live in a state (NC) that doesn’t support insurance covering the needs of a child with autism. Your only real choices are…sacrifice all you can on what you make to get the most you can afford…or be fortunate enough to be rich. Setting ourselves up for worse later? We have no choice here but to forego what is needed and live with the result. It’s a no-win situation for most parents of autistic children…unless they win the lottery.
Interesting that nobody has commented on my last statement. I’m assuming that it hit home.
My husband and I are parents of two children on the autism spectrum. We are in week three of Financial Peace, but we have been following many of Dave’s guidelines for the past 3 years since the recession cut our income and we went into debt to pay for medications and therapy for our two children. I decided last night in class that I would blog about Dave Ramsey and special needs parenting for the duration of this class, because the class does not address such special needs. It’s easy to say have a 3-6 month emergency fund, but it’s almost impossible to predict some of our medical expenses, when one child has had 6 surgeries in 8 years. We have good insurance and we set aside the maximum allowed for extra child care and out of pocket medical expenses, but it’s never enough. We eat rice and beans, we don’t eat out and we shop only at wholesale stores, even for milk and eggs. We both work full time and I have two side jobs that earn $200 - $300 extra per month. When you have therapies to go to you can’t work 3 jobs. We are committed to Financial Peace and welcome any advice.
[...] Davey Ramsey is a must for families with autism Filed under: Uncategorized by magicalmischief — Leave a comment September 16, 2010 Amplify’d from autismparents.net [...]
It is a difficult situation and most financial experts don’t have many answers for families with special circumstances. That said, there came a time in our lives when we had to take a hard look at our finances and decide what was essential in this journey with autism and what was not. We wanted to do everything in our power to help our son. But we became desperate (and I think everyone here knows how that feels), and that was mistake #1.
It was more cost effective than paying for a private consultation on our own. This little group of parents that became our source of support made us feel less alone.
I always thought of myself as financially responsible. Before autism, we had no debt except for our mortgage. Two years into the diagnosis, we had almost $100,000 of unsecured debt… and this after depleting our savings. We were led to believe that we had to do a bunch of different approaches as quickly as possible, so not to miss the elusive ‘window of opportunity’ with our son. That’s not including the voices of this and that of so-called ‘autism cures’.
I remember driving my van one day, praying and crying, because I had no clear answers. I felt I had let my son down, and at the same time was afraid of what would happen if we buried further into debt. What would happen if my husband lost his job, or if I lost my (part time) job? We had decent salaries and yet, we were living paycheck to paycheck. And it’s not like we went crazy on a shopping spree! We thought we had to do this for our son. There was so much still to do…I felt this whole ordeal was consuming me. You want to know what my worst nightmare is? That when we’re gone, my child becomes dependent on the state. That would be the worst possible scenario, and I’m working hard, really hard, not to allow that to happen.
And then I heard it. God spoke to my heart. ‘I don’t need your help to fulfill my purpose in your son’s life’. I was stunned, to say the least. ‘Trust and let go’. So we did. We cut down on therapies, at least until we could manage the cost again.
The way I see it now, we can try research based approaches as we can afford them, but I need to stretch our income as much as we can, so there is provision for him now AND when we are no longer on this earth.
It was hard to solely depend on what the school district was offering. We do not live in an ‘autism friendly’ state. We laid out a plan to manage the medical bills. It was hard, but worse was my fear that we could loose the house if we kept acquiring debt. My son needs a home, and so do we. That’s when we became creative. I found that my community wasn’t such an inhospitable place as I thought. I combed through the non-profit organizations in our area. There were a few nice services offered for free or at low cost, mostly in the form of parent workshops and family activities. I met other families in similar situations. We formed play groups, and exchanged ideas of things to do to address problem issues we were facing with our kids. I took workshops to handle a few approaches at home, from ABA to play therapy to sensory integration strategies. What I learned I shared with others. Sometimes a few parents would get together, and arrange for a person who specialized in these topics. We met in someone’s home and we all shared the cost…usually $5-$15 per person, and we would have a therapist for a couple of hours to pepper with questions.
We picked the approaches to follow carefully and realized we didn’t have to do everything at once. And the interaction of the play group helped our little boy tremendously. Changes started happening even when we weren’t spending on a thousand things to address his autism. He didn’t regress, his behavior didn’t become worse.
I also had to change my attitude toward what my child was entitled. Free and appropriate education does not mean the most expensive education. I know, we can argue about this from here to the moon, but I am realistic. By keeping my expectations in check, I have become more proactive as to what to ask from the school district and what to carry out in the community or on my own. That doesn’t mean our IEP meetings are short and sweet. But we always get what he needs to receive. It’s hard to beat a well informed parent.
Of course, getting our debt down has been a two steps forward, three steps back, or at least it seems like this at times. Medical issues are our biggest challenge still. Little by little we have been getting out of debt, we’re at the half way point of becoming debt free. I feel at peace, God knows best. Every time we find a hurdle, we somehow have found a way to overcome.
We LOVE Dave Ramsey, and follow his program. As the mother of a 12-year-old boy with autism, I know that raising a child with autism can be extremely costly. There are many interventions we still have not tried due to the costs involved. There are many things we delayed until we were able to negotiate reduced fees that fit our budget. Many parents may complain about not being able to afford autism, but that can be argued for just about anything in life. We could have whined and complained upon receiving the diagnosis of mild-to-moderate autism back in 2001, at which time our then-3-yr-old non-verbal son tantrummed on average of 4-to-6 hours per day in combined episodes, and was significantly delayed in nearly every area of development. We were devastated, and very determined to do whatever we could to help our son improve. We researched extensively, went to as many seminars and conferences we could afford (both cost-wise and time-wise), and read every autism book we could get our hands on. Some resources/options didn’t make sense to us - we either disagreed, thought they sounded fishy, too risky, or for whatever reason, not appropriate for our child, so we disregarded and moved on. We joined online chat boards within the autism community, connected with seasoned parents who shared their own resources and experiences, found parent mentors to learn from and lean on. We brought an attorney knowledgeable in Special Education law to our IEPs to help ensure FAPE for our son, and were able to secure funding for therapies to help our son eventually mainstream into a typical education setting. We volunteered at autism events in exchange for discounts or complimentary admittance to conferences, joined local support groups, etc. etc. etc.
It CAN be done with determination and commitment. We put our son on the GF/CF diet (guten-free, dairy-free) and consulted with a specialized DAN Doctor, both of which were taxing on our budget. Again, we found ways to minimize those expenses to make them doable - cook most meals from scratch rather than buy the costly boxed specialty foods in-store, and volunteered at Autism events and DAN Doctor offices for discounts and delayed payment arrangements. We researched proper insurance coding and found ways to maximize insurance reimbursements of medical treatments and therapies. The list goes on and on, and our son did receive many interventions…… and he IS getting better! Fast forward to now, at age 12, he is highly verbal, mainstreamed into typical 6th grade in Middle School with minimal supports, a strong student academically, and most people he meets would have no idea of his disability. He is not recovered, but is very high functioning, and doing amazingly well. He is living proof that Autism IS treatable, and Recovery IS possible for many children. Even for those who may not actually recover, much can be done to help improve their quality of life and ensure a brighter future. Lack of finances does NOT have to be the obstacle preventing improvement.
DIane in TN, just a mom helping her son recover from Autism