10th anniversary! Originally published September 2010 Last week my husband and I attended our last-ever back-to-school parent meeting. Bryce, our youngest child, is a senior. We’re a light year away from the first year following his identification as a child with autism, when he attended a supported integrated preschool class. At the end of each week, he greeted the teacher [...]
When someone is trying to persuade you to agree with their line of thinking or action, do you respond to scolding and name-calling with enthusiastic cooperation? Me neither. Nor do our kids. Nor should they. Ever. In this drastically unique election year in the midst of pandemic, we’ll have opportunities beyond number to begin to teach our children to reject [...]
A parent’s plea I received some years ago wrung my heart. I haven’t forgotten his poignant and starkly stated concerns which, in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and the aftermath that will come when it subsides, are more urgent and pervasive than ever. He wrote: I am a single father of a child with multiple neurological and physical challenges. [...]
This is my first Mother's Day without my mother. I'm very much at peace with it. She likely wouldn't have survived the coronavirus pandemic and I wouldn't have been able to spend her last days with her, playing her favorite music, singing to her, remembering good times and people, easing the letting go. I knew it was a blessing at [...]
An Ellen Notbohm interview with Jennifer McIlwee Myers Jennifer McIlwee Myers is a treasure. The autism world’s self-titled Aspie-at-Large for the last fifteen years, Jenn’s unique voice, unmatched wit, and riveting insights into life as an autistic adult have captivated conference audiences and delighted readers of her two beloved books. I’ve been honored to call Jenn my friend for many [...]
It was a while coming. A slow burn. But I finally became officially fed up with the constant feeding of our angst with the phrase "stuck at home." I want you to know this, with no neener-neener inflection whatsoever: I've worked from home and cooked from scratch (for reasons of budget and health) most every day for 25 years, so [...]
The reporter backed out of our interview because he didn't get the answer he wanted to the first question, which was, "Why are the first 30 days after the autism diagnosis so critical?" What phases, fears, and feelings will parents go through in that first 30 days? What should they do and be in those first 30 days? My answer--which [...]
People often ask me, what's the hardest part of raising or teaching a special needs child? I always answer: On what day? At what hour? My autistic child is an independent adult now, and this last decade I’ve been responsible for the welfare of a beloved parent going through the bedeviling stages of dementia and physical decline. I saw it [...]
Autism, and all learning differences, are very, very complex. That seems so obvious, but I still get questions asking for a “single most important thing” about educating autistic kids. My answer, “as if there could ever be such a thing,” doesn’t satisfy, of course. What I offer instead of “single best” is a more global truth: that it is critical [...]
Do we think of our autistic kids as more rigid than resilient? In that mindset, does it become a self-fulfilling prophecy, a symptom of our own rigidity—or can it become an opportunity for both parent and child, teacher and learner, to understand and grow? “That's it! It's all over! I've just completed my Associate’s Degree. I am officially a college [...]