myspecialboy.com

Before the door was open to my world of special needs parenting, autism, attention deficit and all that fun stuff, I had little need to know these words and expressions. Afterward though, I realized how little I knew about so many things, especially the vernacular of the special needs parent. Wish there was a dictionary of terms somewhere but, since …Continue reading →

One of the hardest parts of having a child with anxiety, is recognizing so much of yourself in them. When a therapist begins to kind of take apart your kid, and you hear the things you feared first hand, you have no choice but to take a hard look at yourself.   Take for example, social anxiety. Now I am …Continue reading →

As you know, I have a son on the spectrum, with ADHD and SPD. I also have another child and she, it turns out, battles anxiety. Like, in a very serious way. My girl was always my rock. Although she was a really tough baby (cried all the time!), she turned out to be a fantastic, flexible, silly, lively, vivacious …Continue reading →

My boy is 12, almost 12 1/2 and today, for the first time, he stayed home alone. You see, he’s supposed to be at camp, but was home sick with a stomach bug yesterday and decided he wasn’t 100% okay to return so he wanted to stay home again. Which is fine. Totally fine, except that now this marks day …Continue reading →

Ah, just the idea of it makes me happy…the sun, the pool, the frosty beverages! Winter time vacations to warm climates are my thing. My family loves them. The kids are excited to get up super early when they know a fun destination is awaiting them on the other side. They are okay with airport food because they know smoothies …Continue reading →

So, the holidays have come, and almost gone and, more importantly, we survived them. The gift that my son wanted to badly did arrive and the look on his face when he opened it was priceless. Just priceless. See, my husband pulled one out of a hat with that one and didn’t even tell me until the Gold Passenger Polar …Continue reading →

My son is 11 years old this Christmas. And he still very much believes. He believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy–you name it, he believes in it. And I LOOOOOVE his boyhood innocence. I hear a voice in the back of my head saying, “One day he won’t. Be grateful. Let him hold on as long …Continue reading →

If you’re like me, I dread whenever family asks what to get my kiddo for the holidays. This year, his list consisted of out of stock cars and trucks from the original movie Cars. Sure, you can get ’em, but you’ll have to get it from some stranger on ebay! So, I came up with this list of other ideas, …Continue reading →

My boy has started middle school and, along with that, comes a new concept of independence. I’m not exactly sure why, but for some reason, as soon as kids leave elementary school, there is this notion that they are somehow prepared to take on this new role of being a responsible human being. They get cell phones and become little townspeople, …Continue reading →