All adolescents and young adults experience some peer pressure to engage in drinking or other risky behaviors. Adolescents with cerebral palsy engage in risky behaviors just like other teenagers. Some families find it helpful to sign what's called, a Contract for Life, or a Contract for Safety, with their child. The parent agrees not to yell in the moment and to have a conversation about it the next day. That's one way that adolescents and parents can create some zone of safety around drinking.

A year ago, I wrote in my Forbes column about the decades-long pattern of Pride Month celebrations excluding people with disabilities. The underlying reason why Pride events were (and still are) mostly inaccessible for people with disabilities, both in terms of physical spaces and social acceptance, is that mainstream media and public don’t see them having identities outside of their disabilities.

I have cerebral palsy spastic diplegia. So it affects my legs and sometimes my fine motor skills. I walk with two canes. I do things a little slower, but I get things done.

One thing that parents can say to start a conversation with their kids is, "Let's talk".

I spent many years and many hours learning how to make the body work better, how to bring it out of pain. But that's not the human being alone.

One of the things that was identified through research is that patients with cerebral palsy have higher rates of depression and anxiety than you would see in the general population.

There is insufficient research on adults living with cerebral palsy, (as referenced in my previous blog post on cerebral palsy and adulthood). Although there is a paucity of studies examining mental health in this population, medical researchers have speculated that the rate of depression is three to four times higher in people with disabilities such as CP than it is in the general population.