How to Deal with Meltdowns As I prepare to talk about how to work with children on the autism spectrum with my co-workers and staff at my job, it made me think about one of the many key elements… how to handle a child’s meltdown. What’s my job? I work at a gym's child care, the place where you can check in your three-month-old to 13 year old while you workout. We're not taking care of your kids like a school. We try to do activities with the kids, however, (IMHO) our main job is the safety of our kids. Parents have signed them over to us … [Read more...]
14
Oct 2018
When Autism Looks Like OCD This blog post only pertains to my son. I am in no way saying that autism is OCD, or OCD is autism, or even that OCD is a typical characteristic found on the autism spectrum. This post is simply about my own observations. Why am I talking about OCD? Because sometimes my son acts like he has OCD. He doesn’t. He has autism. And, someone with a professional degree may be able to explain why OCD looks like autism, or OCD can be on the spectrum, or whatever. But, here’s what I’ve noticed about my son and what I do … [Read more...]
02
Oct 2018
Autism and the New School Year I waited a bit before reporting on my child’s new school year. What happened last year? Last year was my son’s freshman year. It was the first time he had gone to school without an aide. He was fourteen when he began school (he turned fifteen in February). Within two months, he changed his “look.” (He suddenly went from a shorts-wearing kid to a pants-wearing kid, he grew out his hair, and his attitude, well, teenagers can be surly, can’t they?) The summer before freshman year, he took a health … [Read more...]
24
Sep 2018
Dissolving Friendships with Kids on the Autism Spectrum We all have friendships. And, somewhere along the way many of us have had to walk away from a friendship or two—for whatever reason. Friendships happen in many ways, with or without our kids. With kids, I’d like to address two situations… One is when parents are friends, and they get their children together. The children may or may not like each other, but the parents like each other. It works out well when the kids do get along, of course. A second situation is what if kids like … [Read more...]
17
Sep 2018
The Impacts of Not Curbing Behaviors Related to Autism With autism, comes behaviors. In general, when our kids are little, there are more behaviors. We, as parents, (along with the various facilitators who work with our children), have to deal with these behaviors. In an ideal world, we are all trained to handle most behaviors with our children, whether at home or out in the world. And, we want to work with our kids so they can overcome their challenges and be relatively functional and comfortable in society. As they grow older, we … [Read more...]
09
Sep 2018
Autism and Another Fund Raising Event I like to keep active on the fund raising front. I try to volunteer two or three times a year. One event I volunteer for every year is The Ed Asner Poker Tournament. Ed Asner is a huge supporter of the autism community. Additionally, he just began a non-profit called The Ed Asner Family Center. Their inaugural event was a summer camp for children on the spectrum. What is it like to volunteer for a fund raising event? It’s typically working behind-the-scenes. You arrive early. Sometimes, you … [Read more...]
02
Sep 2018
Autism and Impulses My son has always had impulsive behaviors. Many times they came from a place of impatience, he had trouble waiting for a conversation to end or for his turn to come while standing on a line. The impulse would be to interrupt or complain that he’d have to wait on a line. The line waiting time would entirely be spent complaining about waiting. Or, my son’s impulses would be quick responses when things were going badly. For example, if get got in trouble for something, he’d say something he’d almost immediately regret … [Read more...]
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