Advocacy & Education

Autism education, advocacy, parenting a child with Autism, and how to help break society’s misconceptions about those on the spectrum.

Unexpectedly Homeschooling

Congratulations, you’re now the proud parent of a homeschooler! Thanks to COVID-19, a huge chunk of parents are currently faced with the harsh reality that they are now expected to be their child’s primary teacher many amidst working full time/trying to find a new job. Most of these parents have never been homeschooled and haven’t …

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Dinosaur Pictionary Game

Dinosaur Obsessed It’s no secret, my boys are dino obsessed! My house is full of roaring and stomping sounds on a daily basis, and I’ve stepped, (quite painfully), on more dinos than I’d like to admit.I’m always trying to find exciting and new activities for the boys and adventures to take them on that incorporate …

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Motherhood In The Raw

Learning to Love Your Postpartum Body Update You may remember that I’ve started a long term photography project called #motherhoodintheraw. It’s all about learning to love your body again after having children. Your postpartum body is as permanent a state as parenthood itself, and society as a whole, are conditioned to find reasons to not …

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Ending An Era Of Colorblindness

Let’s face it, teaching a child to be colorblind isn’t just a stupid idea, it’s dangerous. By doing the whole, ‘We’re the same,’ thing, you’re dismissing what a black kid or any person of color deals with. Instead of tackling the hard truths of what racism is and how a person of color might have a different struggle than you, you teach them to ignore.

I get it. Talking about racism is hard. No parent wants to tell their children that their skin color determines their place in society. And especially white colorblind parents don’t want to admit that racism is still just as prevalent today as it was 60+ years ago. Instead, we want to glorify leaders like MLK and talk about how amazing it was that they helped end segregation, and thus racism. We want to act like our white privilege doesn’t exist anymore.

Teaching Empathy

This week, in addition to being cyberbullied, I also had to face the harsh reality that my son is perhaps the “bully” in his classroom. I spend a few minutes every school day talking to his teacher so I can make sure that we are as much on the same page as possible. Wednesday she …

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Se7entees 5

“It’s Your Fault That Your Child Is Autistic”

It’s Your Fault That Your Child Is Autistic Recently, I experienced my first real taste of anti-vax cyber bullying. She essentially accused me of causing Everett’s autism. And she didn’t stop there. So tonight, I’d like to address her vitriol with a few rebuttals. Unfortunately, I wasn’t truly able to respond the way I wanted …

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In”Visible”

Today is the last day of Autism Awareness Month and I wanted to end with a bang. I want to talk about invisible disabilities. Autism is just a small slice in the invisible disability world, studies show that 96 percent of people who live with an illness live with an invisible one, and 73 percent …

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Everett's Therapy Routine 5

Benefits of Therapy

It’s been awhile since we’ve updated everyone on Everett’s progress the last year, so let’s talk about how far he’s come! What is occupational therapy? Occupational therapy (OT) treatment focuses on helping people with a physical, sensory, or cognitive disability be as independent as possible in all areas of their lives. OT can help kids …

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