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Sabre-toothed Tigers
I’ve debated over and over again how to talk to my kids about school shootings. I’ve had short, infrequent, conversations with my daughter, who at this point, is totally unfazed by them. She tells me that she knows what to do–hide in place, fight back, almost with a defiant composure. She’s pretty confident in her self-preservation skills. I let her keep that confidence, even though, as demonstrated by February 14th’s events, when a school follows these procedures to a T, 17 people still die. Dozens are injured. I don’t tell her the emperor has no clothes. False confidence is better than no faith. And how do we talk to my…
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Let’s talk autism and puberty
This is me in grade 9. In the throws of puberty I didn’t know how awkward I really was and so that probably explains why I was somehow still confident enough to like myself (most of the time). I had no fashion sense. I had glasses, although I only wore them when I absolutely had to because those things definitely made me feel ugly. I didn’t wear makeup. In fact it was the end of grade 10 when my mom suggested to me that I might enjoy a makeover at Merle Norman. Puberty has got to be the most awful, emotionally and physically, confusing time in which everyone on the…
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The Virtues of Algebra
J’s academic strength has always been math. It has been his “language”—the one he has always understood the best ever since he was a toddler. Math is predictable, math is rote calculation, math is fact families. It’s predictable. 3X4 always equals 12. He has always been phenomenal at it. And then came Algebra in middle school math, and all of a sudden, J was no longer good at math. This type of math requires decisions. You need to look at an equation and decide what like terms need to be combined. You need to be able to look at the equation and figure out how to get x by itself.…
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A little track family
W wasn’t so sure if she wanted to join track this season. She had reasons. I think the biggest reason was the one she didn’t bring up when we all sat down at dinner and talked about it. J and I had gone to the first practice that afternoon, but W had decided to stay home. I told her that everyone had asked me where she was, and told everyone that she was still thinking about coming out. “I don’t know, I’m busy,” she said. “And I really liked XC. Track just isn’t the same.” (This is coming from the girl who has never tried track before). “You can do both,”…
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The 10K Gamble and Learning to Trust J
The Fargo Marathon is a pretty big deal around here. It’s a Boston Qualifier, and a really appealing one at that (Fargo is a really REALLY flat course and the weather is usually decent). There are races all week long for whatever floats your boat: dog runs, kid runs, the 5K and then marathon day which includes the 10K, half marathon, marathon relay, and marathon. The city gets really into it. The neighbourhoods do too–live bands play music to help rally the runners, people bring out orange slices to you, there are posters everywhere and hundreds of perfect strangers are cheering you on. It’s a really cool experience. This year my…
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Let’s talk behaviours
J got sent home for behaviours on Thursday. For those of you keeping track, yes, J has been sent home twice in two weeks for behaviour at school. So let’s talk behaviours–since this is part and parcel with autism. I think the term “behaviours” is such a funny term to use with kids on the spectrum. I remember one time in elementary school J announcing at the dinner table that he had a behaviour at school and he seemed almost confused by it. “Behaviours” in autism speak means any (or a combination) of the following: scratching, kicking, biting, hitting, pushing, shoving, destruction to someone’s property, destruction to oneself, etc–a euphemism for bad…
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Knowing how much to push
All week, J’s been really sick. I don’t know what it’s like for other kids with autism, but when J gets sick, it never knocks him out. When most of us just want to veg out and watch movies and sleep all day and check out when we get a sore throat, runny nose, and a cough that just won’t stop, J will still wake up at 6 am, still wander around the house looking for things to do, still want to be entertained, all while still feeling miserable. It’s really, really strange. Not even illness can seem to knock down autism and all of its obsessions, habits, and idiosyncrasies. In…
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One year later
One year later and here we are again, the first track meet of the season! I was a hot, anxious mess at last year’s first meet. We had tried in every single way to prepare J for his first race. From the sound of the gun, to practicing a few times on the track, to schedule strategies we had thought of everything. And still, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it through that first track meet. J was a ball of anxiety himself that first meet. And not everything went exactly as planned (the gun didn’t go off TWICE!). But J made it. He ran the entire race,…
- autism, Education, home strategies, learning strategies, middle school, modifications, special education, strategies, study skills
Golden moments
Living with the autism experience is a day to day, moment to moment event. There are moments of really hard, heart crushing experiences. Days where you feel like no one understands your child or your circumstances. And then there are the days where there’s a leap of understanding—your child finally understands something you’ve been working months on, or someone reaches out to your child—those golden moments. When I’m having those crappy days, I try to remember that this experience changes so drastically from day to day, that really, anything is possible. One thing that’s been hard for me to figure out in this whole middle school experience is how to…
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The Academy
When J was almost 4, Steve and I decided we’d sign him up for an “All Sports” class. It was a class through the Lawrence, Kansas park district that let young kiddos try out “all the sports.” At that point, we knew J had developmental issues. He was in early intervention, receiving speech and OT, we knew he was on the spectrum, we were just on waiting lists with developmental pediatricians, pediatric neurologists, and the like to find out exactly where. That first session we lead J into a carpeted common room there were multiple stations scattered all around. I don’t remember all of them, to be honest. I remember…
