Lam family
Tell us a bit about your family
My name is Vincy and I am married to Jose. I am a stay-at-home mum and casual photographer working from home with Phineas who was born in 2020 and Tobias who was born in 2016. My husband started full time as a pastor last year during COVID and we went through a lot of changes in our lives including figuring out Toby’s journey and his developmental challenges. When I first joined The 139 Collective in October 2020, we had just done our first assessment via telehealth for Toby after being referred by his preschool and paediatrician. My friend Bertha wrote me a message with an article about The 139 Collective and encouraged me to join the Facebook group. We had been questioning Toby’s milestones and development for just over a year and half and had been talking to all sorts of people/friends who helped us start the process of booking appointments and therapy, and making sure we did all the check-ups like hearing and vision to “tick off” everything. My husband’s brother has severe autism so he was the first to notice the signs in Toby. A number of his other relatives are also somewhere on the spectrum. From a young age, Toby wasn’t as social as most babies but he seemed to still manage the milestones at the slower end. We encouraged reading and speech early on and that helped him a lot. It was only in July 2019 when we went on a week-long holiday with a few other families that we noticed he was not able to socialise or empathise with other young kids. He gets excitable and flings his limbs around and it can hurt people, and he was not able to understand that people were upset with him and he thought it was funny. From then on, I started doing a lot of research and talking to people and it has been stressful (especially finding out during pregnancy and fearing for the worst), but also encouraging when helpful friends offer their services. The professionals say that because we are doing everything we can to help him through preschool and early intervention therapies, with continued support and help he has the potential to do well and hopefully be school ready by the end of 2021. I started the early intervention NDIS process in November 2020 and it has taken a few months just to get someone to chat with us to assess and collect more information to qualify for NDIS early intervention funding. The process is complex and has required a lot of help from friends and professionals. We have a great early intervention social worker at preschool who has chatted with me a few times to figure out how we can access the funding. Currently we are at the stage of waiting to see if NDIS will approve our request, but we are positive it will work out because we have a lot of good evidence and urgency from the teachers to get help for him so that he requires less intervention when he is in primary school. It will be a long journey but hopefully one that will have good outcomes.
What are some of the joys of parenting a child with additional needs?
Toby has great strengths such as his interest in reading and memorising things. His energy and excitement, as well as his positive disposition, make his preschool teachers happy. He generally wants to do the right thing even if he can’t always do it. We are grateful for the help and support from family and friends.
What are some of the challenges that you have faced while parenting a child with additional needs?
While trying to regulate his emotions or inappropriate behaviour in social situations, I’ve been afraid of looking like a bad parent for letting my child behave like that. I find it hard and frustrating when we can’t understand each other. He takes a lot of energy out of us so we often struggle to find a balance with giving him enough stimulation but not feeling like bad parents if we give him screen time so we can have some sanity.
How has your faith been stretched or grown on your parenting journey?
How other people may view us has always been my struggle. This has challenged me a lot in my faith to remember that God is the one I should look to for approval and no one else.
How have you grown and what have you learnt in this journey?
It has definitely made us rethink how we should parent, how to discipline, and when to give grace while at the same time setting boundaries. It has helped me to be a better parent, looking for alternatives in teaching, discipline, and seeing things from a different perspective to help understand him and others like him.
Do you have any words of encouragement to share with other families of children with additional needs?
God is always good and provides us with just the right amount of support and encouragement even amidst the challenges. Friends and church have been supportive and prayerful. Family has been helpful in giving us a break.
How can the wider church support your family?
The big thing for me is acknowledging us even if you don’t understand our situation. The loving thing would be letting us know that you’re thinking and praying for us.
Where are you based?
The North Shore, Sydney
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The views and opinions expressed on this site are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of The 139 Collective. As a collective, we seek to humbly learn from each other’s experiences and remember the unity that we share in Christ even when our current viewpoints on the difficult topic of disability differ.
