Category: Parenting
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First, do no harm: “Unschooling” a Neurodivergent Child (Part 4)
Homeschooling always raises questions about socialization. Many of my children’s friends were other homeschooled students they met through group activities and summer camps. One of my children played varsity sport for her local high school while homeschooling, which meant she made many friends on her team. My children weren’t lonely.
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First, do no harm: “Unschooling” a Neurodivergent Child (Part 3)
Unschooling and using standard educational materials are not mutually exclusive if the child chooses to engage with the subject matter. My family has experimented with a wide spectrum of learning tools, and different approaches seemed to work well for different children at different times. Many years ago, when I began homeschooling my children, few virtual…
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First, do no harm: “Unschooling” a Neurodivergent Child (Part 2)
Unschooling can work very well for people on the spectrum. Autistic people often have intense “special interests” that lead to deep and comprehensive learning. In my daughter’s case, I often found it most productive to provide her with educational materials in subjects that fascinated her and then to get out of her way.
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First, do no harm: “Unschooling” a Neurodivergent Child (Part 1)
A Breach of Trust Today’s guest author is Ann Gaydos. Ann worked in the software industry in a former life, but she decided to homeschool her four children after her daughter Paige was abused by a teacher within the Cupertino Union School District in California, and she could get no help from the administration or…
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Therapeutic Parenting: Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable!
Of course not. Caregivers are themselves humans that bring their own experiences into the relationship and family space. We don’t need to be “perfect” all of the time. In fact, perfection should never be the point or the goal. As Dr. Tina Payne Bryson mentions, “Our kids need us to be imperfectly perfect.” When we show…
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Without Restraint: How Skiing Saved My Son’s Life
As a toddler, Ryan had difficulty controlling his emotions and was placed in a therapeutic school that relied on detrimental methods of behavior modification, such as physical restraint. Over the next four years, he was restrained hundreds of times at school, and we were advised to restrain him at home. He was also heavily medicated…
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Corporal punishment has no place in a civilized society
The Cassville School District in Missouri has decided to bring back corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is a form of punishment intended to cause physical pain to a person in response to undesirable behavior. In the case of Cassville School District, physical pain will be inflicted on students of all ages with a paddle. According to the Superintendent,…
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Safety First: A quick start guide for parents working to keep their kids safe from restraint, seclusion, suspension, and expulsion
When I held each of my two kids as newborns, I promised to keep each of them as safe as possible. I know that the world isn’t fair and that no parent can (or should) shield their children from all of life’s difficulties, but I thought that since I had a relatively safe childhood, I…
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An Avoidable Crisis: The Unlucky Ones (Part 2)
Dr. Ross Greene refers to kids with “lucky behaviors” and those with” unlucky behaviors.” Kids with lucky behaviors are often more capable of “using words” to describe their feelings. These kids often pout, cry, whine, withdraw, and these lucky behaviors usually get them empathy from the caregiver. This is why they are thought of as…
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Our Road to Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC)
When I think back to the long road that we’ve been down when it comes to augmentative and alternative communication and using an AAC device, it’s unreal. When a speech-language pathologist (SLP) tells you that it will take a child 2-3 years to begin to grasp this new language, much like learning any language during…