There are a lot of ideas that are popular right now, many of which get lumped under the header of “attachment parenting”, which suggest (either directly or indirectly) that babies and toddlers and children are, or ought to be, fragile and clingy and needy and desperate for your attention every second of every day. And … Read more
Two people have asked me questions about reward charts in the last week or so, so that seemed like a reasonable question to answer next. The reason for both of them asking it was because I put “reward charts” — i.e., you do x, you get a sticker on your chart (and often when you … Read more
In my recent experiment with consulting with a few people via email, I received this lovely question! The asker was asking about their child specifically, and their child is a young adult. However, the specifics of this question could apply to any child who is learning to use AAC to talk! Q: My child uses … Read more
A multi-week activity: a student and I have been working on making “wizard scrolls”. First we used teabags, coffee grounds, and brown markers to test which would make the best “aged paper” by staining them brown and crumpling them up, then letting them dry. Next, we looked at our dried experiments and picked our favorite … Read more
One of the stations in my therapy gym right now is a dinosaur dig. I have had this idea in my mind for a long time and finally had time to construct it during the winter school break! The end result is a bin of sand with “dino bones” to hunt for, and their skeletons’ … Read more
This morning my kids invited me to a restaurant. Let’s start with the positive. The owners are clearly passionate about this restaurant, and even about personalizing it to their customers—as soon as I stepped up to the storefront and found out that they were calling it “Mommy Let’s Go The Restaurant”, I was impressed. And … Read more
I said this a few days ago as part of a larger post, and I liked it so much I decided it needed its own post. 😉 Some kids are interested in “writing” when they’re 2. They love letters and learn all the letter names and the letter song. If left to their own learning … Read more
In the Autistic community, self-diagnosis is accepted as a valid journey to diagnosis. There might be reasons to pursue medical diagnosis, which could include the affirmation of hearing it from an external provider/professional; needing medical diagnosis to overcome particular barriers, such as needing accommodations legally or at a workplace; access to a functional healthcare system … Read more
It’s “trendy” to offer your kid choices. 😉 It’s one of the easy, catchy, go-to parenting “tips and tricks” that I guarantee you’d see on almost any advice article, book, or even just talking to another parent. “Your kid feels like they don’t have enough power, offer them choices!” (Sometimes this spirals into giving them … Read more
Young children repeat the same thing over and over and over (like the same joke, the same observation, reading the same book, playing the same game…) because they are strengthening the connections in their brain that are learning from that repeated experience! In addition to whatever they’re learning from the experience they’re repeating, they also … Read more