Amy shares how having a child with a developmental disability, such as ADHD or Autism, means that you more than likely will have to redefine what normal looks like for you family.
Category: General Parenting
It Takes a Village: Get Your Hands Dirty and Build It From the Ground Up
Amy shares how important it is for families of special needs children to have a support system and offers practical tips on how to accomplish this.
Raising a child with developmental disabilities is often overwhelming for parents and they need all the help they can get. I know. I am one of them. Continue reading “It Takes a Village: Get Your Hands Dirty and Build It From the Ground Up”
Creating Your Child’s Childhood
Amy shares 10 things all parents can do to help create a positive childhood for all their children regardless of whether they have developmental differences or not.
Think back for a moment on your childhood. You probably can conjure up many happy memories and most certainly a few you’d rather forget. What causes one event to become a long-term memory versus another is a question developmental psychologists can’t answer. But one thing they do know is that a person’s childhood does have an impact on shaping their adult life. According to a recent study published in Child Development, researchers found that “the type of emotional support that a child receives during the first three and half years has an impact on education, social life, and romantic relationships even 20 or 30 years later.” Continue reading “Creating Your Child’s Childhood”
A Trip to the Supermarket Can Be So Much More Than a Trip to the Supermarket!
Amy shares how she uses Supermarket trips with her son, Barclay, to target specific developmental goals.
A year ago, trips to the supermarket with my son, Barclay, were not pleasant. Barclay has a speech disorder, ADHD and ASD. It was sensory overload, for both of us! He’d try to wriggle out of the cart, throw items from cart and grab things as we walked by aisles. But part of the problem was also me. I’d go to the supermarket when I needed to go rather than when would be a good time for him. I’d go with a list a mile long and be distracted hunting for things while expecting him to just be patient. It didn’t work. Continue reading “A Trip to the Supermarket Can Be So Much More Than a Trip to the Supermarket!”
Burn Your Parenting Books: Why Traditional Parenting Won’t Work With Children With Developmental Disabilities
Amy describes how liberating it was for her when she stopped reading parenting books and started parenting her son the way he needed to be parented.
Have I gotten your attention? I don’t really mean burn them, but what I do mean is stop reading them and here’s why. Children with developmental disabilities like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are not going to be successful using the same parenting strategies used on typically developing children. It will not work. Continue reading “Burn Your Parenting Books: Why Traditional Parenting Won’t Work With Children With Developmental Disabilities”
Sixty to Zero: Our Unique Bedtime Routine
Amy shares her and her husband’s unique way of preparing their son for bed and challenges parents to look at their child’s evening routine and see if it’s working.
My father-in-law, Ole, was here visiting this past week. We live in Orlando, Florida and he lives in Vancouver, Canada so we don’t see each other often. Barclay was thrilled to have a new playmate! He and Grandad had a blast together. The first night as it neared bedtime Ole was watching Barclay play. We were all upstairs in the playroom and Barclay was running toy to toy and jumping on his trampoline. Ole asked me if it was time to start winding Barclay down. Continue reading “Sixty to Zero: Our Unique Bedtime Routine”
