Positivity is the Ultimate Rebellion

Two of my favorite bloggers have written similar posts both inspired by an annoying Age of Autism rant (that I won't link to for the same reason that Emily didn't). Also, their reactions are great!

Emily's post on Anger Management exemplifies good parenting and a good attitude and everyone should read it.

Hammie's discourse about Shiny Happy Mummies does the same thing and has a link to a student who wants to study the positive perceptions of parents of children with autism.

The two bloggers above are among my role-models. They tell it like it is, the good and the bad and you know what? It's mostly good.

Skeptical Parent Crossing #3

PodBlack Cat is hosting the third edition of the Skeptical Parent Crossing. There's some good stuff on there. Check it out!

Please Keep Your Hands Inside The IEP At All Times

The roller coaster metaphor isn't just for things directly involving raising B. It applies on a macro scale, too.

Yesterday's IEP meeting went much better than the last one. The primary reason for this was the attendance of the county Autism Specialist. We love her. Once she arrived she asked questions that no one else in the room had considered.

Such as, "Where was he when the incident occured?".

We know B has problems with transitions from one part of the building to another and we know that P.E. is a stressful class for him. But it took the awesome Autism Expert to point out the fact that he was standing in line waiting to go into P.E. and that was probably a major factor.

Also, the horrible counselor turns out to not be as horrible as we thought.

Everybody in the meeting was on the same page and we added some behavioral items to his IEP along with ways to reinforce the behaviors both negatively and positively.

B is smart and very high-functioning in so many ways that it is often easy to forget that he simply doesn't make certain connections. Yet. So, it is surprising when he freaks out about something or can't calm down after a reasonable amount of time because he spends most of his day looking and acting like the neurotypical kids.

I'm going to push for the Autism Specialist to be at all of our IEP meetings from now on. She and his special-ed teacher work well together and we need her on his team. She stressed the need for the reinforcers to be consistent and immediate and she had the best, most practical advice anyone has provided at one of these things.

We're going to have to change the way we do some things at home and I might post about that later. For now, suffice it to say that we are coordinating with the teachers and other staff members at B's school to make sure he gets everything he needs.

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Skeptical Parent Crossing #1

Behold!

The first issue of Skeptical Parent Crossing is up! It's a new blog carnival begun by Blake, the Domestic Father and there is some great stuff over there.

Reading the posts in the carnival has made me even more sure than I was before that raising my child to the best of my ability requires a combination of evaluating the evidence and observing his specific behavior to see what works for him. Every child is different and that goes double when it's your own kid.

Check it out even if you don't have kids. The links are full of good advice and entertaining stories that can be applied to all sorts of situations. And if you have a post you'd like to submit for the next issue, send it here by November 14th.

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And the Roller Coaster Continues

Yesterday morning, my wife came home with a cute story about B. She was taking him to his kindergarten classroom when he ran across a group of 4th-graders. He impressed the older kids with his spelling and reading abilities and he made them laugh when he called one of them 'Airplane' because he thought the other child's name sounded like that. Soon, they were all saying, "Give me a nickname, too!" He totally charmed them.

Things have been up and down all week. His latest IEP has met with mixed success but it's clear that he is behaving better in the CBIP classroom than he is in Gen-ed.

I was on a sort of high after the cute story when I got a call from my wife at work well before the end of the school day. I knew something was wrong when I heard B in the background and realized the call was coming from our house. B was sent home today for something I'm not going to go into but he's been suspended until next Monday when there will be another IEP meeting.

Friday is picture day at his school so he'll miss that.

He is so smart and creative and charming and high-functioning in so many ways but he still doesn't understand the difference between major and minor infractions of rules. I don't know what to do.

The principal at his school is wonderful. She just called a few minutes ago to tell us what the policies and procedures are and to let us know what to expect. The horrible counselor continues to be horrible. I am not looking forward to seeing her at the meeting.

We'll get through this but it doesn't make it suck less. What does help is that I know he's a wonderful boy and that he will eventually learn what to do and when to do it. I just want to make things as easy for him as possible until then.

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How To Argue With A Creationist and other links

The radically awesome Dr. Steve Novella of The Rogue's Gallery and Science-Based Medicine (which just added two new bloggers) tears apart three lame arguments against evolution.

(See also: How to argue with a creationist)

Orac of Respectful Insolence has an excellent post discussing the anti-vaccination crowd and why they have been able to gain such a strong foothold in the public discussion. He also has some good ideas for things that those of us with more rational minds can do to combat them.

EDIT: There is a follow-up post which addresses even more concerns and solutions regarding vaccines. Orac is not only very knowledgeable about the subject of vaccines and their actual side effects, he is one of the best writers I've run across.

Chanson from Rational Moms dives in and helps instill a love of learning in her child. That rocks.

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Skeptical Parent Crossing

domestic father has started up a new blog carnival called Skeptical Parent Crossing. Raising kids to think for themselves is a Big Deal to me. So, I put my money where my mouth is (so to speak) and submitted a post. If you've got a post about the topic, send it in.

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