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This is Advocacy
I have been thinking a lot about advocacy. What does it truly mean to fill your life with advocacy? As parents of autistic children, we spend hours upon hours advocating for our children. I often think of it as two sides of a brick wall. On one side, you have all the people you sit across from in different settings. On the other side, you are standing, holding the hand of your child. In this brick wall, one brick is missing. Through the hole, you try to use your words to explain a mountain of concepts you wish others innately understood. As you whisper through the missing brick, the wall…
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Five things every special needs parent should hear
Are you walking into a new world of special needs parenting for the first time? Are you a few years in and finding things hard to manage right now? Or are you the parent who has walked this path and is now looking ahead at what services are there for your child’s future? Here are some gems of advice that I have received from others who have walked this path alongside me, before me, and some of my own. Advocacy can come in many forms. If you are the loud and proud mama or papa bear walking into an IEP meeting or evaluation asking all the questions and expecting answers…
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This week he made a friend
As a child, I often felt lonely. Strange since I grew up in a household of people. Not lonely in the way that I wished others where around, in a way where I wished there wasn’t so much underlying explanation needed about my life. I kept the door to those questions closed as much as possible. Still, when I break down my connections to the people closest to me often, people require a chart of some kind. I learned to use terms where people won’t ask too many questions and only open up my history when I become close to someone. I have had many meaningful and life long friendships.…
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Five Things I Wish I Knew Before an Autism Diagnosis
If you are new to this autism journey and are wondering how to process all the information out there. Here are some things I wish I had known while going through the process. All autism characteristics do not all fit into a checklist. Many of the early signs of autism we recognized later in our son as he got older did not fit into the standard website search. Our son, at an early age, loved anything round. He carried around balls, round fruit, played with practically anything in the form of a circle. We did not recognize this as fixed interest. When you think of an interest in something like…
