Grandparents are in a unique position to be both very helpful to the family of a child with autism and a burden to the family of a child with autism.
This article reviews studies that show that grandparents often do not know what to do when a grandchild is diagnosed with autism, and can cause family stress. The author suggests that programs be created to teach grandparents about autism. She thinks that these programs can be based upon other programs that help teach grandparents to be supportive of typical grandchildren. Parents can also ask grandparents to be more involved in helping the child with autism. With training and support grandparents can play a key role in helping the child with autism and the child's parents.
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School
Aug 31, 2009 by AnonymousWe are a special school for children on the autism spectrum and typical developing siblings. Our arts based educational and sensory curriculum and mixed age classrooms provide a way for all children to actively participate within a supportive atmosphere. In this tranquil setting each child feels a sense of belonging, friendship, and the opportunity to experience the magic of childhood.
*Philosophy & Curriculum:
We offer a holistic approach in which the connection between school, home, service providers, and community becomes collaboration where each member is connected with a natural ease. Jordan Lake School of the Arts offers an individual curriculum for all students in a retreat like setting. Having a five students to one teacher ratio, and small class size we can provide attention to each child. Multi-age classrooms offer a stress free environment to learn in both roles as guide and apprentice. While children on the spectrum benefit from observing peers and having a structured means of learning social skills, typical developing siblings grow from experiential education and the support of friends who truly understand and share similar experiences. Different is normal here. At JLSA, we all understand and are respectful and supportive of one another. We have local artists participating in workshops as well as rotating their artwork in our space. Our art shows offer an opportunity for families to socialize without anxiety, and students to experience large group functions in the company of compassionate people while meeting inspiring members of the community. Our amenities include an enormous tropical greenhouse, courtyard, and outdoor class space, as well as a home like educational setting.
Parents and grandparents are welcome and encouraged to participate in the day. Workshops and afternoons with community speakers are great opportunities for families to share in experiences together at school and we all benefit from the communication and shared experiences that flow from school to home. Parents are also invited to join us for nature hikes and gardening, and to bring their talents and teach us about their specialty. We hope adults will take painting or yoga classes offered in the building, or enjoy hiking trails and the lake, assured that your children are being compassionately cared for and well educated.
www.jordanlakesa.com
919-672-4281
Tennis, anyone?
Apr 15, 2008 by AnonymousFinally, the weather is improving! We’ve been spending a lot more time outside playing in the yard and walking to the park. Last year, it seemed like no matter how old Thomas got, I’d still be strapping him into a stroller or making him sit in the wagon to take him to the park. It’s really amazing how much things can change in what seems like no time at all.
Thomas loves to ride his little pedal car to the park. The only problem is that riding the pedal car is all he wants to do when we get there. Hayley wants to play on the slides or the swings but Thomas wants to keep on truckin’. So we go on to the next park and the next (there are three nearby that are all connected by paths) and by then Hayley has seen a flying bug and it’s all over; we have to go home immediately. We saw a very sluggish and sleepy bee on the ground at the park yesterday and Hayley flipped out. (I was rather surprised to see a live bee this time of year too, as a matter of fact.) She is suddenly quite imprisoned by her intense and irrational fear of bugs and it’s worrying me for the coming summer. I’ve tried explaining to her that bugs are important to trees and plants and that bugs live outside and we have to get along with them when we’re outside too. Not much of that is sinking in. I hope she can get over it before summer really gets going. Our family vacation will be one very long week if she doesn’t.
So Thomas pedals to the park, being careful not to get too far away from me – and I can trust him to not run away! (Or pedal away, as the case may be.) Tomorrow it’s supposed to be even warmer and I suggested tonight during baths that we go to a different park. I’ve seen some other neat-looking parks on my jogs and I hope we can try some of them. Thomas is ill-disposed, however. He said that we shouldn’t go to different playgrounds; “that wouldn’t be too much fun.”
Tomorrow is Spring Picture Day at school and I can’t wait to see the kind of picture Thomas brings home. He’s been very into having his picture taken lately. I’ve been selling a lot of old clothes on eBay as I lose weight, and every time I get the camera out to take snaps of these items, Thomas insists that I take a picture of him and then show it to him. It hit me that Thomas and Hayley will never know a time before digital cameras! They’ll never fool around with film and flashcubes (I’m only just barely old enough to remember flash cubes, I swear!) and waiting four days for film to be developed only to find out that Aunt Maude had her eyes closed in every single picture of her at Uncle Joe’s retirement party.
Which brings me to another aspect of life that our children will never remember in its original form: We located and purchased a Nintendo Wii this weekend. Jonathan and I really wanted one (Happy Mother’s Day to me; Happy Father’s day to him) not just for us but for the whole family. I like it better than the average game system because most of the time, you’re standing up making wild, gesticulating motions as you pretend to punch with fists, poke with an epee, display a blazing backhand or perfect a breaststroke. We were playing yesterday and I remember wondering what an alien would think if they were to watch us through our windows as we had what looked like severe seizures in front of the TV. Anyway, the point is that there is more physical activity and coordination required to play this Wii system. You would not believe how much my biceps hurt yesterday from that tennis game! I think those are biceps…anyway, Thomas loves it, too! He is actually really good at the tennis game and Hayley likes to play golf. Thomas laughs so hard when his little character waves the tennis racquet and admittedly, he’s only really able to volley the ball because he’s always moving and therefore his character is always swinging, but he likes it and that’s what’s important. There’s a little “Mii” section of this system where you can create the characters you play with, from the height and body type to face shape, hair color and pretty much every aspect of someone’s appearance. So we made characters for our whole family, plus the kids’ aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. I showed Thomas and Hayley and now they like to see who’s in the stands for tennis, who’s watching at the bowling alley and who’s on their baseball team. It’s very cute! I’m hoping that as they grow, they’ll get better-coordinated with the Wii. We bought a couple games we thought the kids would be better at, but even those were too advanced. I’m going to try to find some games that are rated “EC” for “early childhood.” Those would almost certainly be more appropriate, educational, and easy-to-play. One thing’s for sure: They’ll never remember Atari cartridges and joysticks.
Thursday or Friday, I have to go to kindergarten orientation and I feel rather unprepared. I’m not sure if they’re going to have childcare available – and I don’t know if our home school is even the one Thomas will be attending next year. If our grade school doesn’t offer an MLP class, he’s going to be bussed somewhere else. I’m going to have to call his school or our elementary school tomorrow to find out what I’m supposed to do. We’re not going to decide on Thomas’ placement until May 6, and even then we could change our minds over the summer.
We’re going to the cottage this weekend to put the pier in the water. After we were there two weeks ago, I really don’t dread it. The kids are so good up there now that this is finally the year that things get better! We’ve been waiting for it and now it’s here. Undoubtedly, God will jar me out of my reverie somehow – like I’ll get pregnant or something. (I’m not pregnant, mom. That was a joke.)
Compare and contrast
Mar 27, 2008 by AnonymousThomas has been enjoying a very busy week off school. The Easter Bunny came with lots of candy, as promised. The kids had chocolate eggs and jelly beans for breakfast on Sunday and it was very apparent. Sugar really seems to affect Thomas a lot more than it affects Hayley. We went to Jonathan’s aunt & uncle’s house for dinner that afternoon and the kids had a lot of fun there too. When did Easter turn into a “gift holiday?” There was quite a haul to bring home that night, but the kids weren’t part of it. They went to my mother-in-law’s house for the night. That was fine with us. Everyone spent the day filling the kids with candy; we thought it fitting that one of the feeders deal with the fallout. Grandmas never mind that kind of thing, though.
I was supposed to bring the kids home on Monday, but only Hayley wanted to come home! Thomas wanted another night with Grandma and we didn’t have any plans for Tuesday so I said that it was fine for him to stay. Tuesday came along with another phone call saying that Thomas wanted just one more night at Grandma’s house. I know that Jonathan’s mom loves the company and I really had no good reason not to let Thomas stay, so I spoke to him briefly on the phone about it before consenting. I went to pick him up Wednesday morning and we went straight to my parent’s house to visit with my mom. We went out to eat and to the park since it was such a nice day. Yesterday evening, however, the affects of Thomas’ sojourn with Grandma were beginning to show. There was a certain amount of disregard for authority. There was also a distressing attitude about bedtime schedules. Hmpf. So we’ve decided that two nights at Grandma’s house is the absolute limit in a non-emergency situation. More than that and Thomas begins to get used to the leniency. Not that there’s anything wrong with it! That’s what grandparents are for! They get to be the good guys.
This morning we went to a neighboring town’s park district to play at their little indoor playground. It was really neat, but there were so many kids there that it was like Romper Room on uppers. Thomas did really well with the large number of kids and I was very surprised! We went with Grandma and my sister-in-law and her daughter who is fifteen months old so I wasn’t all alone in uncharted waters. This park district also has an indoor merry-go-round; not a huge one but still an official midway ride that Hayley really liked. Thomas finally went on it and he liked it but wanted to - you’ll never believe it - pretend-drive the little kiddie cars they had in the play area. You know, the one with the red car body and the yellow roof that the kids use their feet to make go? Thomas was almost too big for them, but they were his absolute favorite things to play with. The rest of the play area was set up kind of like Chuck E. Cheese’s with all the tubes and climbing stuff. Thomas was actually really nice about taking turns with other kids and waiting for a turn himself. Every time I asked him to get out and let someone else have a turn, he did it without a fight. Sometimes he’d get out and walk around the car for a minute and if there were no takers, he’d ask if he could get in again!
As I said, he did really well listening and staying in-control of himself despite the fact that the place was overrun with excited children. This is a big deal for him because one of the reasons that Thomas’ teacher thinks he wouldn’t do as well in a regular classroom next year is that there would be a lot more kids and Thomas might find that difficult to handle. He didn’t mind it today and did a great job. Until it was time to leave. I’d say that he really had a fit, but he didn’t have a tantrum. He just cried and was sad. He kept saying, “Mommy, mommy, mommy! Please!” He was really upset and I think it was because I gave him no warning about leaving. Looking back on it, that was really stupid of me. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were kind of ready to go out to lunch then because Thomas and Hayley’s little cousin could only handle so much of all that before getting over-stimulated and cranky herself. I kind of just walked over to Thomas and said that we were leaving. God, how dumb! What was I thinking? Isn’t it funny how you can look back on something and things are so obvious – it’s so obvious what you did wrong – but at the time you were confounded? I wasn’t exactly confounded; Thomas was having fun and didn’t want to go. But, duh! I could have told him “Okay, five more minutes!” That at least would have been better than what I did! Okay, bad mommy moment. Minus ten points. I did donate an old pair of glasses to a charity box yesterday though, so maybe that good deed balances my bonehead move out just a little bit.
Since I was so lame, I decided that we could go back to the little “inside playground” as the kids call it, tomorrow. Thomas is very excited and he asked me if he could drive the “baby cars” again. He was so nice about it today that I said he could. Playing there costs three dollars per child and that includes all the vomit-inducing carousel rides you want, so you can’t go wrong. It’ll be a little harder by myself with the kids, but I think it’ll be okay. The kids promised to let me do my house work (Friday is my cleaning day) when we got home – wasn’t that nice of them?
Luckily, there are only three more days of “spring” break left. This has been such a crummy winter that has held on until today and will continue; we could get 1”-3” of snow tomorrow. We had an insane snowstorm two days before Easter! What kind of spring is that? Finally, there is a sixty-degree day in the forecast; next Thursday. All of us really can’t wait for the cold and snow to be over with. And we have no plans for the rest of the break (except the inside playground tomorrow), which is a blessing, believe it or not. The kids are both so over-stimulated that a little routine is going to do us all good.
Did anyone see “Autism: The Musical” on HBO the other night? What did everyone think of it? We’ve only gotten through the first few minutes of it. I have a hard time watching that stuff with Jonathan because EVERY SINGLE CHILD Jonathan sees who is on the spectrum is “just like Thomas.” At the very beginning, the boy Neal is throwing chairs and turns a table over. Jonathan says, “Geez, that’s just like Thomas.” I looked at him coldly and said, “Thomas does not turn over tables and chairs like that.” No inflection in my voice, no intonation. The next kid does something and Jonathan says the same thing. So I get very frustrated about that, even when he’s right because I don’t really want to watch something that forces the two of us to constantly compare our son to other kids. That’s what you do when you see other kids on the spectrum like that. The whole time, I’m thinking, “Oh, Thomas is better than that kid, but not as good as that one. Thomas knows how to sit still in circle time, but he doesn’t seem as high-functioning as that kid.” It makes me feel like I’m dissatisfied with Thomas when I’m really not. And I just get tired of playing compare-and-contrast. The other thing was that we weren’t really sure (just from the first five minutes, mind you) why this woman decided to put on a show with an all-Autism cast. Some of the kids who were participating seemed so uncomfortable and eager not to be a part of it that we weren’t sure why they were being made to join in. Jonathan and I are focused on trying to get Thomas to engage in more normal behavior and socially acceptable behavior. For us, not being in a play is perfectly socially acceptable. Anyway, I don’t know if we’re going to finish watching the show or not.
Back to school on Monday! Woo-hoo!
Freaky Monday
Mar 4, 2008 by dankohnYou can tell it’s the beginning of March. The kids are driving me and each other crazy. Last weekend, I took them to the park in their snow boots just to get out of the house for a couple hours. Much of our outing included sloshing around in muddy puddles and sliding around on the ice, but it was good to get out and get some fresh air. Things are getting very stale indoors.
Oh, that Thomas! What he won’t do to push his sister’s buttons! And of course, she lets him. The two of them are driving me to hysterics. Mealtime is a joke. They sit down, side-by-side (big mistake) and bug the hell out of each other for fifteen minutes or so. Then they move on to bugging the hell out of each other in another room of the house where I can’t necessarily tell if someone is really hurt or just screaming for fun. Bathing time is like pulling teeth. I would let Thomas go without a shower once in a while, but he really does stink a little after a long day of being over-stimulated. His hair gets to smelling a little funky. Unfortunately, Thomas rather likes the fragrance of his natural musk.
One good thing that I thought of tonight is that Thomas really doesn’t mind having his hair cut anymore. I know that when I started writing this blog – but even more recently than that – we would have to prepare Thomas as nicely as possible and then rigorously psych ourselves up for the battle. He just stood on his little stepstool tonight and let me cut the hair, no problem. I mentioned it to Thomas, asking him if he could remember when he cried the whole time we cut his hair. He said that he remembered it and then snatched the trimmers out of my hands, declaring that it was “his turn.” We let him take “turns” with us while we cut his hair. He mostly just turns the clippers off and on a few times and then plays with this lever that I don’t know the purpose of. We got it done in ten minutes tonight with no trouble. Because of that and so many other things, it’s become so obvious that he’s come a long way.
We’ve been taking Thomas along to Hayley’s dance class for the last few weeks. It went well at first, but now Thomas is getting very over-stimulated there with the other kids. The over-stimulation lasts long after dance class is done and well into the evening, usually until the Clonidine kicks in. Jonathan was home tonight before we had to leave, but Thomas loves going along now so we all went. It’s like a social event for him, even though he mostly irritates the other kids. He tries to be good, but just like at home, he does things intentionally to frustrate others because he likes the reactions he gets, whether favorable or unfavorable. One of the kids, a girl who is about five or six and I’ll call her Laura, is usually there with her mom, waiting for her little sister to finish class. Today she was there with her grandparents because her mom was working. Laura’s mom pays very little attention to her while we’re all waiting and I think I know where she gets it. Laura’s grandparents were equally oblivious as Laura repeatedly threw this hard, solid plastic bear figurine at the brick wall of the room where we wait. She was pretending that it was a super ball, but the thing kept hitting the wall really hard and since it was a bear and not a ball, it would come off the wall at really crazy angles. Nobody knew if they were in the line of fire until it was too late. Of course, Thomas loved this. He thought it was hilarious, but he was getting way too excited. We don’t let Thomas throw toys at home, which is probably one of the reasons he really got into it. I was very surprised, too, that Laura’s grandparents didn’t tell her to stop throwing the thing. It’s that and many other things that happen in the dance class waiting room that just make Thomas blow his top completely. I want to stop taking him now, but he really loves going. Gee, I remember when dance class was a time when I got to read a magazine for an hour.
Yesterday, Thomas really freaked us out. I was in the bathroom with him, drying him off after his shower and I was telling him that he needed a haircut. I asked if maybe he wanted to try going the place where Hayley gets her hair cut, where he can sit in a little car while a lady cuts his hair. He asked me what kind of cars they have, and I knew he meant what color cars do they have. I said, “I think they have a red one.” In my head, I was thinking that they might have a yellow one too, but I didn’t want to say that in case I was wrong. I didn’t say any of that out loud, but Thomas then said, “I want to sit in the yellow one.” I cocked an eyebrow at him and asked, “How did you know about the yellow car?” Thomas said, “I heard you say it in here,” and he touched my forehead (cue “Twilight Zone” music now). I asked him for further explanation and said, “What can you hear in my head now?” He touched his forehead to mine and I was thinking this question: “Do they have a yellow car?” I was thinking it over and over and Thomas looked at me after a few seconds and said, “Oh! Do they have a yellow car?” Now I know that staying on the subject of yellow cars could have been leading in that we were just talking about that, but it was still very strange.
I know that most of you have come to know me as a sane woman, usually quite skeptical about paranormal phenomenon, even though I’ve never discussed it. But of course, if I had, everyone would know that I am a skeptic. I still am, after last night’s occurrence. The thing that weirded me out the most was when Thomas pointed to my head and told me that he could hear my thoughts. It happened again today, twice. He was looking for a particular ball and asked me where it was. I didn’t know it was in his room, but I asked him if he could hear inside my head again, where I was chanting, “in your room, in your room, etc.” He said, “Oh! It’s in my room?” He says that “Oh!” like he’s just come up with an answer that was on the tip of his tongue. I won’t even count the ball-looking thing though because ninety percent of the time, if Thomas is looking for a toy, it’s in the abyss of his room. Later, he asked if he could play with Play-Doh and we were getting ready to go somewhere so I was going to say “No,” but I asked him to listen to my head. He did, and then he got a little frustrated and said a few made-up words with “no” in there a couple times. He immediately dropped it and didn’t put up a fight about the Play-Doh, which is strange for him. He almost always protests when he doesn’t get his way. At least he listens to the words in my head, if not the ones on my lips.