Isolation

I know many parents who feel like this. It’s a sad part of life when you have a child with high functioning autism. The best thing I can recommend to any parent is to remember you have to take care of yourself. This is one of the most important things I learned from a support group I attend for special needs parents. Because if you aren’t in good shape, how can you be at your best for your child? I don’t think ANY parent can be there at 100%, all the time. For a brief time, I knew exactly what this parent was going through, and it is a very dark place to be. I pray that all parents going through this can find a semblance of hope in the darkness and learn to see how beautiful life can be.

Autism & Oughtisms

One of the most enduring experiences for me as the mother of an autistic child, is a deep and growing sense of isolation. No, not just a sense, a reality of isolation. There was a time when the reality was devastatingly obvious to anyone who knew me, because I couldn’t talk on the phone or in person or have anyone around the home if my son was around, and my son was almost always around because he was so hard for others to look after. My son would violently attack me or others if I tried to communicate – or at times, even be in the same room – as others. Now, with his autism affecting him less severely, the isolation is just as real, but subtle and so much harder for others to understand, and that inability to make others understand becomes itself further isolating.

I reached a point recently…

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National Education Association Wants US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan To Resign #netde #edude

From Education Week:

http://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?DISPATCHED=true&cid=25983841&item=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.edweek.org%2Fedweek%2Fteacherbeat%2F2014%2F07%2Fnea_calls_for_sec_duncans_resi.html%3Futm_source%3Dfeedburner%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DFeed%253A%2BTeacherBeat%2B%28Education%2BWeek%2BBlog%253A%2BTeacher%2BBeat%29

I would not be upset if Arne Duncan resigned. And Obama brought someone who can come back down to earth, and set education straight again. There has been far too much federal interference with education, and students, parents and teachers are fed up! We don’t want what the feds are selling us. We want our kids to learn, and learn efficiently, for 180 days a year. We don’t want our students and teachers to be judged on three hours of testing. We want them to be graded on what they do every single school day. We don’t want special needs children to be part of a profit-induced scheme. I think the educators in our country are reaching a boiling point, and if they are ignored, it won’t be pretty.