How to be friends with a neurotypical
**Disclaimer: This is meant to be satire and is not meant for instruction or to give offense. As a woman on the autism spectrum who feels quite normal, it can be challenging navigating a world run by those who are supposed to be “normal” but who can also be difficult to get along with, despite being “neurotypical.” …
My Tween Has Mental Disabilities — How I’m Learning to Manage Puberty and Periods
Note: This is a version of something I originally wrote for my husband, who doesn’t know much about periods, so for this article, I assume my audience is a mix of men and women. My daughter Abbie (not her real name) is ten years old, with chopped brown hair and freckles sprinkled across her face.…
We Need to Talk About How Hard Summers Are
For most, the end of the school year and the beginning of summer break means freedom: slow mornings, popsicles, slip-n-slides, and late bedtimes. But for parents (like me) of kids with special needs, it also means the end of the predictability our kids rely on to regulate. They miss the structure and rhythm of the…
God Answered My Prayer for Patience—Ten Years Later
Have you ever prayed for something for so long that you didn’t even realize God had already answered your prayer? And all you had to do was open your eyes and see that the answer was right there in front of you? I’m sitting around the long wooden table in our dining room, celebrating my…
How to Survive a Public Restroom with a Sensory Kid
Last fall, our family took a road trip from our home in North Idaho to visit family in California. Over two days of driving, we stopped in approximately 387 public restrooms. Okay, maybe not that many, but it felt like it. My 8-year-old daughter was adopted from foster care and was diagnosed with sensory processing…
Education: What’s Best for Adoptees?
I was attending my third homeschool conference when I heard from a speaker who had adopted a daughter from China. His words piqued my interest because at the time I had one adopted daughter (who was a baby at the time) and two school-age boys. He believed that homeschooling was the very best thing for adopees because…
How to do a family yard work day.
Step 1: Announce earlier in the week that Saturday will be a family work day. This will give your teens plenty of time to make other plans and not be around on Saturday morning. Step 2: Resign yourself that it’s just you, your husband, and your four young kids participating in Family Work Day. That’s…
Putting My Kids in a School for Children With Learning Disabilities Helped Them Grow
Many of us are parents whose children are on summer break. Five of my kids just wrapped up their first-ever year of school. They finished 10th, eighth, second, and kindergarten/first grades. Before this, they were homeschooled almost exclusively. I took pride in the fact that I did almost everything on my own for five kids…
What Facebook Reminded Me About My Daughter’s Trauma
What Facebook Reminded Me About My Daughter’s Trauma Nine years ago, back when Facebook was still just a place to share random thoughts, I posted this on my feed: “Lucy’s new trick the past few days is that she cries whenever I leave the room. Instead of annoying me, it makes my heart leap with…
Interview with Author Lisa Qualls, Part 1: What Every Parent Should Know Before Adopting
Lisa Qualls is a mother of 12 children through birth and adoption. She and her husband Russ adopted four children from Ethiopia in 2007 and 2008 and have also served as foster parents. Her family has walked through plenty of pain and hardship as well as much joy. Her hard experiences and decades of parenting…
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