Tuesday February 9, 2010
Valentine's Day may be Sunday, but Friday is another important day of love: school Valentine Party day. If there's a child with a restricted diet in the class you're baking for -- and most especially, if that child is yours -- consider the recipes in these round-ups to get everybody eating the same thing safely:
What safe goodies have you found for your child's special needs? Share in the comments.
Photo by MJ Kim/Getty Images
Subscribe to My Newsletter | Join Me on Twitter
Tuesday February 9, 2010
One of my favorite -- and most effective -- behavioral techniques with my son is to do something so completely goofy that it stops him in his tracks, makes him giggle, and switches his train of attention to a more productive track. Lately, something I've been having fun with is the repetitive knocking and calling that Sheldon (played by Jim Parsons, pictured) does on the TV show The Big Bang Theory. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can view a medley of Sheldon knocking scenes on YouTube to get the idea.
Instead of knock-knock-knock-Penny!, I give my son a knock-knock-knock-pajamas! knock-knock-knock-pajamas! when it's time to get ready for bed and he's occupied by anything but preparing for sleep. It gets his attention, amuses him, and reminds him of what he's supposed to be doing. It makes nagging a game instead of a struggle.
Reader Diane Labelle offered a similar solution in her response to my request for readers to share their behavior tools and tricks. She writes:
"I have a red cape that I wear when trouble arises. I am the red-caped crusader. I fly around wearing my red cape. This can and usually does make her laugh and come out of her rage before she gets too far. Then I jump onto a square on the kitchen tile floor, claim the square as my own, this is my happy purple square, encouraging my child to come jump onto a square, choose a colour and an emotion. We play this game till she is giggling and we are on rainbow squares."
Do you have a behavior strategy that gets your child giggling, or another method for short-circuiting tantrums? Fill out the form and share!
Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Subscribe to My Newsletter | Join Me on Twitter
Monday February 8, 2010
On those terrible occasions when we read in the paper about parents killing their children with special needs, we may wonder, what could lead a parent to do that? Is the stress of raising a disabled child so terrible? Does the financial burden of medical procedures or therapies take a toll? Is it misplaced mercy, a caring parent's conviction that death is the best way to help an ailing child? Is it insanity, or insanity plus circumstances?
Money certainly wasn't a factor in the murder/attempted suicide that apparently took place this last week at New York's tony Peninsula Hotel. But, judging from an article on MomLogic, there surely were mental health problems that drove Gigi Jordan, a millionaire former pharmaceutical executive, to force-feed pills to her eight-year-old son with autism, killing him before unsuccessfully trying to kill herself.
Jordan had claimed in the past that a devil-worshiping cult had assaulted the boy, leaving him in "constant pain," but authorities could find no proof. According to a CBS news report, "Jordan told the detective her son would type on his computer to communicate the abuse to her since his autism affected his speech. [Detective Tom] Hood said the boy, six at the time, did not have the motor skills to type. When questioned, Jordan told Hood that she put her hands on top of her son's to help him type."
As MomLogic describes, Jordan left a note saying that "the only true happy moment in my life was when Jude was born" and "I hope Jude is in a better place." Sad that she felt the only way for him to get to that better place was to murder him, and that there was no one in their lives who could protect the child from his mother and the mother from herself.
Photo by Stockbyte/Getty Images
Subscribe to My Newsletter | Join Me on Twitter
Monday February 8, 2010
Walking through a Barnes & Noble bookstore on Saturday, I was surprised and kind of tickled to see a table full of Temple Grandin's book Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism -- but in a new edition, one with a cover featuring Clare Danes as Grandin in the HBO movie that draws from the book. I'm not sure this is as effective a cover as the earlier version with a photo of the real Grandin surrounded by cattle. Yet it's very cool to see a serious book on autism get the glossy Hollywood treatment. If Dane's smiling mug gets more folks picking up the book, thinking about it, and realizing what it means to see things differently, that's spectacular.
Temple Grandin debuted on HBO this past Saturday, and will be re-run and re-run; you can see the schedule on the HBO Family site, and read more about the movie on its HBO page. I only managed to catch about a half an hour in the middle of the movie (the rest awaits on my DVR), and was impressed by Danes's portrayal. In an interview with NJ Star Ledger's Alan Sepinwall, Danes discusses the difficulty of portraying a living person, saying, "I was very aware of the dangers of disappointing Temple, and all the people who care so much for her." Grandin, in turn, marvels at how well the actress managed it. An interesting note from that interview: Danes was helped in her research on autism by her husband, Hugh Dancy, who played a character with autism in the theatrical film Adam.
Disability News has a round-up of reviews of Temple Grandin. If you saw it, what did you think? Share in the comments.
Cover images courtesy of PriceGrabber (compare prices for the new and old versions)
Subscribe to My Newsletter | Join Me on Twitter
