Stop by here every Saturday for a family activity, a site for the kids, a shopping site, a site offering humor or inspiration about parenting children with special needs, and a site that's just silly or fun, all designed to get you through your weekend with kids amused and spirits intact. Today's list:
- Activity: Creative Drama Activities
- Kids' Site: Road to Grammar
- Shopping: Thinking Person's Guide to Autism Store
- Inspiration: "Stronger" Video from Seattle Children's Hospital
- Just for Fun: Video Puzzle
Join the Discussion: Here's your weekly list of blog posts that have received comments over the past seven days. See what your fellow readers are talking about and add your opinion:
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Extended School Year is a program that may be included in a child's IEP if it's feared that progress made during the school year will be lost in the summer months. It sounds like a great idea, but in reality, it's problematic. Oftentimes a parent's certainty that a child will regress is not matched by the school, and it can be a battle to get your child those extra months of school time. And even if you do, the program may not be all you'd like it to be.
I remember one ESY my daughter had early on that was at a school in another town, with people who didn't know her, in a building without air-conditioning. Not sure that did anything but freak her out. One year my son had an ESY teacher who butted heads with me for two months on whether his perseverative interest in keys was comforting and provided a useful "in" to his attention (my view) or death to him (hers). I don't suppose that was a particularly nurturing couple of months for him either.
If you're able to get ESY for your child, and your school does a terrific job of it, good for you. Your child has a potentially productive and fun summer ahead. If you weren't able to get that extra time, or aren't enthusiastic about your district's version of ESY, you can still take steps to stop your child from backsliding and encourage forward movement. Try my plan for a do-it-yourself version of ESY, either by itself or as part of a more involved Camp Mom program.
Do you have a story to tell about ESY? Share your child's experience on the Readers Respond page.
I saved up three autism memoirs to read and review during Autism Awareness Month, and ... what's that you say? It's not April anymore? It's midway through May? Well. Let's just say that my lateness is a blow for making awareness and acceptance a year-round thing, not confined to a single month. I've read and posted my Harried Parent's Book Club reviews for two of them so far -- Finding Kansas, a memoir written by a young man with Asperger syndrome in an attempt to explain how he experiences the world, and A Regular Guy, a mother's story of her son growing up with autism -- and I'm now partway through the third, Judy's World, a Readers' Choice Awards nominee this year for Favorite New Special-Needs Memoir. After that, I'll be choosing whether to read a pile of memoirs I have on parenting kids with disabilities other than autism, or catch up with some parenting how-to books. The former are usually easier and more enjoyable to read, but the latter are often more useful in the long run. What are you reading right now? What kind of books do you prefer, personal stories or instructional texts? Share in the comments, and add some reviews of your own.
