“Well, of course growth spurts are good things,” you might say, if you don’t know what they look or feel like. I’ll let you in on the number one secret that throws off autistic progress: Growth spurts will produce feelings and behaviors appropriate to the developmental age at which a neurotypical person usually meets the milestone. That means that if you have an autistic preteen making strides in therapy, he can suddenly have what looks like a psychotic episode to the uninitiated, or to the hyper-observant and autistically in the know, a growth spurt that looks exactly like the disregulation that happens in a typically developing two year old. Remember the terrible twos and threes? They have a reputation because the brain connections formed…
writing, autism, & theology as a mother of joy
Posts from the “conversation” Category
Our family prayer corner is filled with gilded handwritten icons that catch the eye, but today I want to talk about a small icon that hangs in the living room near our dining/library table. Its blue background settles in with the deep teal-blue of our walls, and you might miss it if you don’t know it’s there. It’s a holy icon of The Wedding at Cana. Most Christians are familiar with the story depicted. Jesus and his mother are at a wedding when the wine runs out. His mother tells the servants to do whatever they ask. He tells them to fill up 6 big stone water jars and draw some out for the steward of the feast. When they do, it’s not just…
Categories: autism, christian, conversation, encouragement, faith, family, Friday Faith Talk, instruction manual for my family, Messy Parenting, Orthodox Faith, special needs child, Uncategorized, vintage faith
Tagged: actually autistic family, autism, parenting
Today is Autism Awareness Day. Many people of faith are wondering how they can welcome, engage, and serve with persons with autism. Here are 7 tips, from my faithful autistic family to yours. Keep the format and ESPECIALLY the social routine for entering the learning time/space consistent and predictable. For instance, my Sunday school class always includes the children leaving their parents at the door, walking all the way across the room to the prayer area, and having the option of placing flowers or a felt candle in the prayer area. That routine eases the anxiety of children on the spectrum, because they don’t have to wonder what to do when they get to class. They have a built-in routine to participate. Another example…
How the Murry Family Taught Me to Parent My Children with Autism The gift of great stories is that they are there when you reach for them, laying a bedrock of trust in an uncertain world. When I first read A Wrinkle in Time, I gaped in disbelief at the kindness, competence, and acceptance displayed by Meg’s mother. Though I thought at the time that she was more fairy tale than role model, Mrs. Murry quietly took up residence in my aspirations. Here was a brilliant woman who was also a dazzling mother, never giving into the temptations to let the children fall prey to their weaknesses or to let them hide or waste their strengths. Parenting was Mrs. Murry’s heart work as much…
Starting any homeschool is a matter of looking up your state’s requirements and setting up your school. But once you have a homeschool registered, how do you teach your autistic child at home? School has different goals for kids with autism than for neurotypical kids. A regular school will seek to inform children with academic skills, with some coping skills added as supplement. An autism school will be first and foremost therapeutic, with academics supplementing an autism-specific curriculum. Neurotypical kids will focus on acquiring a set of academic knowledge. Autistic kids will focus on healing their brains and connecting to the world around them. They will also pick up the academic knowledge they need, but taking care of that special brain and body comes…
Decision fatigue is probably the hardest part of being a special needs parent, followed by the stress of constant vigilance. I hear people tell me that I should “take care of myself,” and that I should pray, and I see the images they invoke: a woman getting a massage or pedicure or going on a long hike by herself without getting attacked or falling into a ravine, who, after the rigorous hike or relaxing massage during which she did not worry that her children with nonverbal autism were overwhelming their caregivers and cutting a path of destruction through the house out of anxiety over her absence, or just out of the salon and smelling chemical-fresh, will make some 40 prostrations in an ornate chapel…
The Myth of the Genuine Christian (and a lesson for children)
Summer Kinard
Posted on March 22, 2017
Years ago when I was a teaching assistant at Duke University Divinity School, I noticed a recurring theme in student papers: the search for the ideal conditions to form a genuine Christian. Real Christians might be formed with special polity or liturgy or study groups or music, the seminarians proposed. Maybe if an entire civilization were Christian and devout, the odds of being a real Christian would be higher. Maybe if we preach better or teach better or build our houses and streets differently, we can find real Christians among us. My favorite course to TA was on the Rwandan genocide, not because of the immense suffering we explored but because it wrecked every fantasy of the genuine Christian. Chief among the horrors of the…
Categories: advice, christian, conversation, faith, life lessons, Orthodox Faith, thinking out loud, Uncategorized
