Not every family is able to attend church over the Christmas holidays, but lots of us want to teach our children about the Nativity. I teamed up with my daughter to bring you a free Autism-Accessible Sunday School Lesson on the Nativity of our Lord. How is it autism-accessible? sensory rich images for focus video modeling of another child participating concrete examples of big ideas imitate it at home predictable: watch as often as you wish To make it even more accessible, use this video along with an in person telling of the Nativity story. Download the Nativity story photos from my post, “Holiday Tips for Making Christmas Easier for Special Needs Families,” and use them to sequence the story as you tell it.…
writing, autism, & theology as a mother of joy
Posts from the “special needs child” Category
“I’ll pray for you.” “Thank you.” This interaction happens countless times each day among people of faith, and it is always good. But for years, I had some wrong ideas about prayer. For one, I thought they had to be done in a prescribed way in order to matter. For another, I thought that I had to be someone different for them to matter. And again – and trust me, this is only the beginning of a list of things I’ve gotten wrong – I thought I had to say something for prayer to matter. One of the hard-won lessons I have learned in ten years of helping my communication-challenged children talk and communicate clearly is that the love of God is not hindered…
Categories: christian, conversation, discernment, encouragement, faith, life lessons, special needs child, spiritual formation, Uncategorized
Tagged: autism, nonverbal, prayer, silence, special needs parenting
A few weeks ago, I traveled to Antiochian Village to attend the Ancient Faith Women’s Retreat. On the first morning, I went to the first talk with that morning’s Gospel repeating through my heart: Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” The gospel had stuck in my craw that morning, stirring up the long weariness I had carried over my feelings of inadequacy in parenting. I sat myself down gingerly in front of the icon of the Theotokos, my failure smarting like a splinter I held out to the Holy Mother. The icon was screen-printed and matte. There was no gold to catch my eye. Yet, the curve of the Theotokos’ fingers did catch my eye. She was supporting…
Holiday Tips for Making Christmas Easier for Special Needs Families
Feature article
Summer Kinard
Posted on December 5, 2018
The feast of the Nativity approaches, and with it, anxiety. How will your family get along when everyone’s home? How will the kids do when you travel to visit relatives? Will you be welcomed at the church when you finally get a chance to go? For families with special needs, these questions are layered with the weight of additional needs. This week I’m sharing what I’ve learned from teaching and living with persons with special needs. Bookmark and share these best practices for home, travel, and church with special needs during the holidays. THE GIFT OF 12 DAYS Spread out gifts over 12 Days. Instead of subjecting sensitive family members -and let’s face it, lots of other folks, too!- to the overwhelm that comes…
I wrote those words over 20 years ago when I began to reflect on the way Christ came to me in mercy from my earliest childhood. I haven’t been able to shake that image, through all these years, of the saving gift of tears. I read about tears in spiritual writings. I have experienced the gift of tears when I have needed healing or repentance. I practice tears. I am in many ways still a beginner, but I have learned a little about the discipline of weeping: If you’re going to clear your eyes of false reality, you have to learn to cry in truth. The fathers advise us to weep for our sins. Yet, most of us don’t spontaneously burst into tears of…
“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…
Autistic Brain Owner’s Manual Lesson 3: The Early Nerve Gets the Attention
Summer Kinard
Posted on May 19, 2018
Our brains starting at the brainstem work from the inside out. There are some types of experience that we process before we even think about them. These include first emotions and then visual input. Language and other higher thought comes later. What this means is that your nervous system (and everyone’s nervous system) feels first, sees second, and thinks third. For autistic people, language processing can sometimes be a challenge. It’s important to know how the brain works so that you can build on what’s already working. Feelings First In every human being, no matter their cognitive level, emotions are functional. Emotions are precognitive. That means they are processed in the spinal cord, the brain stem, and the deep brain before they reach the…
