What to Expect When Your Child Has a Hearing Loss

Jessica Havard, Alabama H&V

A little over five years ago my family and I started on our own hearing loss journey. From the beginning, I desperately wanted to connect with someone who had done this before. I wanted to have some idea about what to expect with my daughter. During this time, we did not have a Hands & Voices Chapter in our state, and I would ask our audiologist to connect us with other parents, but this never happened.

Since then, I’ve grown from someone who was searching for answers to someone willing to share my insight with others.  When I’ve presented to professionals or spoken with families, I will often joke about having all these questions but not being given a “What to Expect” book for parents of children with a hearing difference.

This has inspired me to share my short list of things to expect as you raise your Deaf or Hard of Hearing child. I hope it inspires other parents to share their “What to Expect” tips.

Expect to make choices. This is pretty much a given with all children. But from the beginning we were faced with many choices. How will we communicate, what technology will we use, what schools will we attend? This was very overwhelming. You will have to decide but it will be okay.

Expect that there will always be someone who thinks you’re doing it wrong. This was disheartening when we first began. It made us hide things from certain people to avoid the judgement that followed. This is what’s so amazing about Hands & Voices; they keep in mind the motto: “What works for your child is what makes the choice right.”™

Expect to become an expert in hearing loss…and maybe expert is not the right word to use, but from my experience I went from being this person who knew the basics of hearing–flash back to High School Biology–to this person who knows how hearing works, how to read an audiogram, and so much more.

Expect to laugh. I cannot speak for every parent of every deaf child, but I’ve met many who have just the funniest of stories of their child. Whether it’s the child learning to talk and saying words absurdly wrong or certain behaviors that seem to be common only for deaf children. Laughing is good. Laughing just might remind you that your child is more than her hearing level.

Speaking of behaviors, expect to be ‘uniquely’ ignored. My child for instance will close her eyes and turn around when she doesn’t want to “hear” what I’m saying. She’s also learned how to turn off my voice by pushing the button on her FM clip that mutes the speaker. When she does this, I say to myself , “how nice it must be to turn off Mom’s voice”.

Expect good days and bad days. Again, I think this just comes along with having a child. We will always have to go through the good and the bad. This is no different for a child with hearing loss. I’ve had many great days since the beginning of our journey, but I’ve had some equally frustrating and horrible days.

Last, but certainly not least, expect the unexpected. It is okay to not know every exact detail of how your future will unfold. It’s okay to change direction on your journey and sometimes it’s needed. Nothing is set in stone.

This is certainly not a full list of things to expect, but this is a list of things I wish I had known from the beginning.    ~

Editor’s note: Havard is a Parent Guide with Alabama’s H&V Chapter.

H&V Communicator – Winter 2020