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…
writing, autism, & theology as a mother of joy
Posts from the “conversation” Category
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
One of the earliest ways Christians spoke about salvation history –that is, how God works in history –is with the idea of creation as the household of God. In this household, everything was set in order, and the children were both treasured and expected to grow up to be like their Father. When I came to the ancient Christian faith, I found myself comparing the lessons I learned with my experiences at my great-grandma Granny’s house. Ancient Christian faith is a time-tested way of life, and it resonated in my memories of the way we did things in Granny’s house. Memory is always overlaid on places. The ancients knew this and developed a system of remembering thousands of minute details by imagining them in…
Categories: christian, conversation, faith, family, Orthodox Faith, spiritual formation, Uncategorized, vintage faith
If you have compassion fatigue, this post is for you. The biggest mistake that people make with almsgiving is applying corporate law to their reasoning. There are lots of types of charitable giving. There’s philanthropy to community organizations, stewardship of church life, tithing outright to religious organizations, fundraising, supporting far flung ministries and relief. They’re all good things, but they aren’t almsgiving. For the sake of almsgiving, organizations do not count as people. Now that that’s out of the way, you can focus on what almsgiving really is and why it matters. In seasons of fasting, almsgiving can be especially important. I talked about what almsgiving means in my life with Angela Doll Carlson on her Ancient Faith podcast, The Wilderness Journal. Check out…
Yes, You’re Probably Racist: How White People Are Born Into Racism and How to Fight It
Summer Kinard
Posted on November 12, 2016
Sit back for a minute, because you haven’t heard what I’m about to say before. Ever wonder why it seems natural to see race, but not to see racism? Look, none of us chooses the family we’re born into. If you’re white, and probably even if you’re not, you were born into a ready made pattern of racism. I’m not judging you, but I am going to bear witness to you. I’m going to tell you straight up that learning this will change your world if you let it. Racism is hard to see because it acts like a family dynamic. Whaaaaat are you talking about? Ok. Big words. But stay with me. Most families go through times when they’re getting along pretty…
Well-Behaved Women Often Make History – Guest Post by Deborah Hining
Summer Kinard
Posted on September 28, 2016
From time to time, I ask another writing mother to join my blog with a guest post. Today I welcome my friend Deborah Hining, award-winning author of A Sinner in Paradise and A Saint in Graceland, to tell her truth about an insidious lie we see almost every time we drive. *** Usually I take bumper stickers in the spirit they were intended, especially those that are sassy or exceptionally geeky, but occasionally one that probably is intended to be funny will rub me the wrong way. The one that is currently on my “It disturbs me to see” list reads, “Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History.” I find it irksome because, for one, it is not true. Think hard. How many badly behaved women…
