Those 2e Eggs Just Keep On Popping Up

Those 2e Eggs Just Keep on Popping Up, yellowreadis.com Image: Toy pan with four toy eggs on wooden floor

You know, when I started this parenting gig, I didn’t really know a lot – hell, what parent does? There’s been highs and lows – the highs are really really high, the lows . . . let’s just say that the Mariana Trench has a lot going for it.

But somewhere along the line, I kind of got the impression that if my kids were hitting the milestones at roughly the right time, “all was well”. (The right time, of course was statistically figured out with a bell curve. They’re really neat and rather mathematically beautiful. I actually like them, as an idea).

Somewhere, in the depths of over eight years of overwhelm, the bit of my brain that used to sigh with relief when my kids hit those milestones exactly on time got rewritten. Now, when a nurse or doctor assures me that something is perfectly normal, just what they expected of child brain/body/whatever development, I go into full-fledged panic mode. Even though the maths part of my brain keeps reassuring me that my kids have to fall inside the middle of the bell curve for some things, another, perhaps more realistic part of my brain will go “you keep believing that if you like, buster, but I’ll be over here locking myself in the panic room.”
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Book Review – Writing Your Own Script

Book Review: Writing Your Own Script, A Parent's Role in the Gifted Child's Social Development, yellowreadis.com Image book cover artoon children

‘As parents, we may really want to believe the common wisdom that if we place our children in a typical childhood setting, “They will be fine.”  It can be difficult to separate what others say and what we believe to be true. As parents, we don’t always trust our own instinct. We should.’

 
Finding practical ways to help people understand and work with your neuro – atypical children can be hard. Even when you understand what your child needs to thrive, how do you go about convincing others? I found Corin Barsily Goodwin and Mika Gustavson’s new book “Writing Your Own Script: A Parent’s Role in the Gifted Child’s Social Development”, helped me to understand that journey into the unknown.

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Becoming a Sensory Detective

Becoming a Sensory Detective, yellowreadis.com Image: Child covering their face

Whether your child has Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, or is Gifted/2e with mild to extreme OEs, dealing with sensory issues is going to be a part of life. But as a parent of a child with a different sensory profile, it can be difficult to understand why they are having problems, and it is also equally difficult to figure out what is causing the problems.

My own journey to becoming a sensory detective has taken time, observation and patience. It’s not easy understanding where the problem is when I can’t see, smell, touch, taste, or hear the same way as my children. One thing that helped me get my head around this idea was flowers. Yes, flowers. Continue reading “Becoming a Sensory Detective”

Life Changing … Not Life Destroying

There’s a funny thing that happens with medical practitioners when labels change. A thing that took me by surprise, and not in a good way.

You see, in the last few weeks, I have had the very strange experience of being subjected to what I will call ‘shallow caring’. This is a strange phenomena where medical people metaphorically put their hand on my shoulder and imply that I am living a life that must be difficult, impossible and life destroying. It’s a strange and slightly humorous situation that always seems to end with the suggestion that my children would be far better off with professionals (read teachers) taking some of the ‘burden’ of raising my children.

But I think the part of this that I find most amusingly irritating, is that some of these are the same professionals with whom I have had to previously work hard at convincing that my children actually needed help. The difference? Labels, not behaviours. Continue reading “Life Changing … Not Life Destroying”