Why don’t you just… ?

Sarah at Kitaiska Sandwich raised some interesting points in this post, but a couple of paragraphs really jumped out at me:

Special-needs parents get a lot of advice from therapists, teachers, and other professionals. There is a difference between advice about how to address a particular, narrowly defined problem (which is part of your job), and general parenting advice (which is not). And the difference matters. You may be an expert in your field. And your field may be child psychology, or speech pathology, or pediatrics, or early childhood education. And I may come to you for advice in the field in which you are qualified. But I’m no more interested in your opinions about being a parent than I am in my veterinarian’s opinion about mutual funds.

I will admit that I feel differently about advice from other parents of kids with disabilities, mental illness, or other special needs. But I have also noticed that few of them are offering unsolicited advice. Probably because they’ve been on the receiving end of so much of it that, like me, they are very aware of how that kind of advice is usually received.