Obvious Trouble with Current Accepted Disability Advocacy; Pointing Out What is Wrong!

Having a disability and being able to identify this.  My son has taught me a lot about this.  It is a very touchy subject.   There is an advantage to saying I have blank.  When a person goes to Secondary Education and asking for the help that is needed means naming your disability.

Consider these things about having to say I have blank.  How many people like being singled out?  Do you want to be known for being different or having a disability?  Did you want to belong to specific groups?  How many realize the peer pressure teens with disabilitiies face?  Are called stupid or dumb for going to Lab Class for help?   Going through all these issues at or during adolescent? Recall Freak Shows at the Fair and Circues?  

Many teens and people in general with a disability see themselves as being flawed.  A number of those in this population feel like naming their disability means something is wrong with them.  A few might consider themselves less than whole.  

This is my son Tanner Mack Adcock.  Every time I have tried to teach him about his disability and to name it; he gets upset.  He doesn't want to be known as a person with a disability.  He is adamant he doesn't have a disability. Being in an inclusive Oklahoma History, one incentive for him to do good without any accommadations is to be able to stay in the classroom and take tests or whatever. If a child or teen goes to lab for help he might be labled as Retarded. 

Another issue I have with what is considered correct Disability Advocacy deals with having teens lead their IEP meetings.  This can be an awful amount of pressure for a teen.  What teenager really knows what they want to do? Would we consider letting those labeled "normal" lead a class?  Be in charge of more?  Actually when I taught high school Biology I had teens present a paper, be video taped and have the so called authority of teaching the class.  Their material was on my test. I gave them what I got.  Which was asking to go to the bathroom and such.  

Please understand, I believe that the interests of the teen are paramount.  I only feel that direction of the meeting needs to be left in the hands of adults and direct the teens in having a meeting that covers all the things that should be done for him.  Trust me how many teens declare a college major and end up with that being their final degree path?  More should be expected from these teens.

How many teens with disabilities go on to be successful?  How many owe that to a parent that has pushed the teen to contiue exploriong a path?  Looking at jobs and pushing the teen to continue on in career or other?

Had I to do it over, I would been less about my son saying he has autism and more about him understanding when to ask for help.  Then I would have explained more about how some people have specific needs and identified the people like President George Washington had huge spelling problems but overcame them.  I would explain that people that have challenges need assistance and by understanding that this label may mean you can overcome this with a specific thing.

Does everybody know that a Blind person needs a cane or that a cane greatly increases his/her ability to get around?   Do we keep telling a person that is Blind to identifiy his disability or spend more time teaching him to use a cane to get around?  How much time do we spend on teaching a person that needs a wheelchair that he has a mobility disability?    Or, do we concentrate on teaching him/her to use the wheelchair to get aroud?  

If I could go back and do it over; I would center my time and energy on teaching my son to grasp his needs to master challenges in life and be able to communicate that to others.  Conveying to my son the importance of being able to ask for and communicate how support is a necessity for meeting the demands of this world.   Or, somehow be more positivie in getting him to name his disabilities to be succesful in this world be where I placed my resolve with him.

I believe that being politically correct and following the trends in Disability Advocacy is less important than doing what is needed.  I failed to listen to my son in his insistent of prefering to be identified as normal or not disabled.  What I hope to convey in this post is for you to understand you the authority on your child.  Try to listen to them and find a way to do what is needed without being afraid you are doing the right or correct way.

Become confident in yourself with regard to your child.  There are no better specialists on a child than their parent or Guardian.  Please learn from my mistakes.  Instead of helping my son name his disability, I conveyed to him that he is different or that I think he there is something wrong with him.  I am sure you know this was not my intent. Raising any child is scary. Trials and life associated with raising and planning for a child with extrodinary abilities is daunting. 

If you have advice to me, disagree with my slant on this or other; commenting is crucial to boost parents or those working with this population to teach them how to do this.

You know you have a child with Autism when

#autism #autism humor #autism Christmas #Asperger's #High Functioning Autism #ADD #ADHD #Christmas Celebration #learning disabilities God

I decided to feel in this blank and the results were so amazing I am posting my feel in the blank answer.

For the humor side of autism.....You Know you have a child with autism...when at Christmas you are thinking of renting a child to open presents

Link to Reddit's Autism News

http://www.reddit.com/r/autism

Homemade Crafted Sensory Tunnell how to link

http://www.andnextcomesl.com/2014/12/homemade-sensory-tunnel.html

BLOG POST ON AUTISM AND CHRISTMAS GIFTS SEE LINK

http://fromabcstoacts.com/autism-friendly-christmas-gift-ideas

Autism Source Org

http://www.autismsource.org/

AUTISM NETWORK INTERNATIONAL

http://www.autismnetworkinternational.org/

My Drag Way Path to Divorce or Seperation?

If a person has a bunch of rules about when this are that can take place, how things must go and has little tolerance; RUN!!!  This only means as it appears to you.  For your perceptions are the only things you have to decide what you want in life, should run away from and embrass if you choose.

Disagreements are the norm.  However, each of you have a different life.  This is especially true if you both work. Therefore these little syptoms go ignored like many with the illness of cancer.  By the time you realize the differences are of concern; like cancer it is highly likely it could be terminal.

A child is born. The husband actually has the audacity to ask if it his child.  My gosh.  There has never been an indication of cheating; even til this day. In my case a special needs child with Autism, ADD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Ocular Motor Disfunction, Learning Disabilities and more on and on.  He is a child that is loved and wanted.  One parent is proactive and the other chooses to hide a head in the sand.  One person starts talking with ultimatums.

"You took him to the park?" Asks the husband.  "You might have had a heart attack!"

One one of the few times out after the birth of the child, a mother-in-law calls.  She asks the sister of the mom that is taking care of the child,"You took him to the park? What if he skins his knee?" The normal sister perks up and answers quickly right back, "He will survive like all the rest of the children in this world!"

Fights continue about how to care for the child.  At six months he is in the hospital.  The husband blames the wife.  Why did you take him to Baby Jymboree?  Your family is always kissing on him.  You don't wash your hands well enough.

Did this have anything to do with his special needs?  Did inducing labor a bit early cause it?  Is it your families genes?  Or, the other side?

As a mother one does the best she can.  The research to help her son leads down a dark realization that all the extra help needed is not always covered or seldom is, by health insurance.  The husband says this is unnecessary.  The mother continues and at least gets her child in preschool early.

Do you know what "Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy," is? Here is a definition, "Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a mental illness and a form of child abuse. The caretaker of a child, usually a mother, either makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it look like the chld is sick." The husband says the wife has this.  He says she wants attention for what is wrong with the child?

Everything done by the wife seems to be wrong.  Arguments go on and on.  More details are not needed.  This is the parenting drama until November 25th, 2014.  While in a counseling session with my son's counselor and my husband, it is clear to me.  This will never end.  My son is distressed by his parents.  A divorce or seperation will mean clear concise rules for him.  This will mean no more back and forth between the parents.

Part of this is a child working two parents against another.  Playing parents against one another is something my husband says special needs kids don't do.  I know different.  The other part that is bad is listening to parents go back and forth round-n-round where the carousel will never stop.

This is the "Drag Way to my Divorce or Seperation."  I plan to execute a leave January 2015.  The trial will go through March.  I am leaning toward getting back together to be a one in a million shot.

Please feel free to comment and share your trials with me.  They may help me.

Too much damage done?  My son will be in his last semester  of high school.

My son is important to me but there is a saying that taking care of one's self is primary so caring for others can still happen.

Autism under reported in Minorities?

Please check out this article @
http://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/autism-likely-underreported-in-minority-children/article/381985/?DCMP=EMC-PA_Update&CPN=&spMailingID=9886306&spUserID=ODE4MzExMzE2ODUS1&spJobID=420857923&spReportId=NDIwODU3OTIzS0

The article says autism under reported in blacks and Hispanics. I didn't see a state to state comarision.

It does make me wonder about the l: 88 and l:53. Is autism under reported? too Broad a category to get sufficiant data?

I propose More specific Spectrum varieties, those that Co occur with oTher issues in what%'S and more be defined better so research advan cement can happen faster,

Too many stabs at a vague definition with so many variables decreases the chance of real progress. specifics can push research forward light years.

Also, we need to decrease underserved populations. This is for humanity and Science, Variables by race must be addressed fer proper treatment and the Scientific light that Can be shinned on Autism in general.

These are My opinions. Also, as a scientist, Ikrow defining the issues and plodding forward in a logical, methodical order provide the best outcomes when attacking problems that need to be solved.

Autism and all disorders teach us humanity should realize the luxury of racism is outdated and wrong.

Pushing Begins in Labor and Continues Through Life

 

18, Graduation soon, but still pushing.

Pushing Begins in Labor and Continues Through Life

Today is the day after my son turned 18 years old.  Reflecting back, I realize when they told me to push during labor, that was the begining of a continual process.   Whether your child has special needs or is quote "normal," it is a parental job to push children beyond their comfort zone.

Sometimes I have felt guilty for being "General Mommy or Sergeant Mommy;" so nicknamed by dad, my husband Bill.

Bill Adcock husband to Sandra and father of Tanner, now 18.

Tanner was not an easy baby.  He had troubles eating from the start.  He through up and would be considered a colic baby.  Working with doctors and listening to the expereince of my mom(mother of four) resulted in putting rice in each bottle to help decrease the throwing up and weight gain proceeded.

At the age of six months, Tanner landed in the hospital for RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus).  Funny now but not at the time my sister recalls that I was not making sense and thought I was kidding when I called her to tell her  You see I was a nervous parent going from the doctor's office straight to the hospital and told her he had RSVP virus.

The hospital stay was almost a week.  It may have been worse for my husband and I to endure than Tanner.  Seeing your child in an oxygen tent and having tests ran in a haze of a short time is traumatic.  Then they tell you to move because you are in the way! Parental rights show up in your eyes resulting in a "Please" being spit out immediately and apoligetically.  He came along fine after about three months of nebulizer treatments, beating on the chest with a suction cup to break up secrestions and being on/off antibiotics.

Tanner was sick off and on quite often.  It seems I can remember all of his early holidays being sick.  My sister, that dresses very professionly all the time, was thrown up on and her car when she took him to the doctor for me right before his first Christmas.  That was one of the first holidays he was sick on.

Tanner weighted 17 pounds at one year old. Both my husband I worried about him.  He didn't or wouldn't eat well sometimes.  He stayed on his formula until he was about two years old or a bit older.  He refused milk.

At thirteen months if was obvious we were dealing with more than one could understand. My husband moved a toy or his cup about an inch or two.  He came back running to move it back to the exact position.  I new then and along with some other things observed there was something "wrong" or not quite right.

I am telling you all this for a reason.  This made it hard to make hard choices when he was older.  Worring about his health and weight gain, we let him start eating an unhealthy diet.  This wasn't at the time but it developed into a stance later on.  This also made being hard on him extremely trying.

Thus, began the parental divide on how to parent.  How do you face the something "wrong" or not normal along with health concerns?  I realized that at a certain point I couldn't go the path of least reistance.  Everyone had advise but I read while seaching for the reasons.  Family said not to worry and my husband appeard to me to like "denial."

Then and there I decided a proactive approach was best.  I proceeded to get Tanner into Preschool at age three.  I pushed for extra therapies like, speech and music.  I enrolled him in Kindermusic because of the benefits I had read about music in special needs and other areas of life.  One of his first sentences he said was sung back to me.   On our way to music class I sung to him, "Now it is time for music, music, music."  He was restless and sung back, "Now it's time for Grandma's, Grandma's!"  I was proud.  He had talked some but not like that.

The school said to make picture books and have him say what the picture was.  I made a jillion picture books.  Tanner would have to say his ABC's as I wrote them in the dirt at the park before he could swing.  Later he would have to write them.

I made 26 pages of huge ABC's on letter size paper.  Sensory issues were present and I read about trying differnt tactile approaches.  I cut out Sandpaper ABC's.  I found the experts that I thought could help me with advancing my son's chances of a better life.  I used the program "Handwriting Without Tears," to help him with writing.  This was on top of what the school was doing for him and the extra therapies I could afford like Speech and Occupational Therapy.

Do you see the pushing going on?  This continues for 18 years.  Tanner has autism so pushing can be a delicate balance.  I have him volunteering to gain job skills.  Do or did I feel guilty for being "A hard A$$?"  Sometimes!

Yet, let us ask the questions of what might have happened if I had given up?  Believed those provider's that were foolish to advise me to put my son in an institution?  Gone the path of least reisistance?  I doubt my son would be where he is today.   This has meant many battles in my marriage and in parenting my son with my husband.

Sometimes those with autism have problems with hygeine.  Tanner doesn't like his hair cut or wash it well all the time either.  I have wrestled with this for years. His counselor said to do one thing and my therapist disagrees.

This means another "Big PUSH" to help him into adulthood.  The ultimatum will be to keep his hair clean with two warnings, with the third resulting in a BUZZ CUT!  I have said this before.  Yes, I am human.  I don't follow through on everything. Parenting cam be DEMANDING.  Fights on how to parent wear you out.  However, this time I have the resolve to do it.

Thus, remember from the start of labor and delivery of your child when they tell you to "PUSH" it means for life not only during birth!