Disability

Why we do the things we do. The trauma edition.

Jaycee KempLeave a comment

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(originally published 3/2016)

There is a large manila envelope still sealed sitting on my desk. No matter how much I stare at it, it doesn’t:

1. Spontaneously burst into flames

2. Disappear

3. Take care of itself.

It does not contain a subpoena, a warrant for my arrest or an eminent domain letter. It was not delivered certified mail or by official messenger. It was hand delivered by my 6th grader because the teacher very graciously contacted me ahead of time to ask me how I would like the prior written notice papers from the last IEP meeting delivered so I could sign and return them in a timely manner to the school. It has been sitting and judging me silently for over three months now as it sits untouched. I am reduced to a Pavlovian dog, except my bell is an envelope and my saliva is anxiety. A crippling-can’t-get-any-thing-else-done anxiety. And I rationally know there is likely nothing in that envelope that should really cause this kind of response. But that’s the thing with phobias or irrational fears and trauma response.

Yes…I said trauma response. 

Often times prior experience attaches itself to something innocuous and we then pair our previous response with a neutral stimuli and generalize it over time. Caller ID with the school prefix, email and now apparently manila envelopes have become the manifestation of years of battles, blockades and having my already fledgling parental competency called to the carpet.

For me….my defining moment were words uttered in a meeting 7 years in….but 3 years ago:  “Its not fair for one (A2) to get more just because of your parental advocacy”  (which was agreeable…but in a whole different way given we were discussing data collection that was reportedly correct, not collected by me…and concerning). 

It is silly I suppose if you are the one who stuffed the envelope and have no knowledge of my defining moment or my other, more academically impaired child. She certainly must be wondering about the warning likely issued by the elementary school about my hypervigilance, because the experience she is having is the opposite. A parent who is late to answer emails yet bizarrely will parse apart data collection in an IEP meeting….and be spot on why it was taken incorrectly must mess with her own schema of special needs parents.   I have learned to become a very hands-off parent in hopes of preserving my own life in the last year.  I have a double-decker weekly pill case that houses my capsules of life extending medications that would impress most of the AARP crowd.  Yet I am not yet even 50.  Years of sleep deprivation and external stress can only wear so long in a genetic cesspool.

So there it sits….but not without words. It screams to me every day over the din of my responsibilities. But I am strong and I can withstand long term, unfocused wailing.

So I leave you with 3 truths….

A. I am human.

B.  I love my child more than anything I could have ever imagined.

C.  I am preparing for an uncertain future in a time that I will no longer be here to advocate in a world that does not see my child as perfect as I do.

…and there are things that get in the way of of the co-existence of Notions A, B and C.  

Sorry about the envelope.

The Most Important Thing for Doctors To Know About Autism

Jaycee KempLeave a comment

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Anyone have a ________who works well with special needs kids?

                                   —every special needs parent on every local special needs Facebook page

Last year was the first time in A2’s entire life he got through a dentist appointment relatively unscathed.  Sure, at first he flapped and screamed and excreted that sweat stench he does as if he is a sea slug attempting to keep predators away, but ultimately Dr. Nate (not his real name)prevailed with him in the most awesome way.  A2 received the first x-rays of his entire life, full dental exam featuring the scrap-y, spinn-y and spitt-y things and actually left the office smiling.

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No one can resist the appeal of Dr. Nate *powders nose and reapplies lipstick*

That is the thing with ALL kids on the spectrum.  Once you crack the code on how to navigate around or through the anxiety, things tend to go a bit better.

Conversely, the same is true.  Once you REAAALLLY approach something wrong, the damage is done and it is going to take a hell of a lot to bounce back from armageddon levels of panic.

Apparently, Dr. Nate and his swoon-worthy dental practices on my autistic kid made more of an impression on me than we did on him because he didn’t remember his approach from a year ago. At our visit today, A2 was visibly panicking/attempting to act cool and Dr. Nate was taking a more gentle and cautious approach.  In a red carpet level performance, I loudly proclaimed I was going to the bathroom (office visits tend to go better when I am out of eye shot). Without skipping a beat, Dr. Nate said “Sounds good. I’m going to take a look here at A2’s teeth, but you’ll be right back…So…everything is OK.”

Dr. Nate…You know what to say to all the ladies….

Of course, I was standing right outside of the exam room door and I could hear him firmly reassuring my kiddo. I peeked in to see A2 standing in the corner with a toothbrush and the toothpaste from home and the dentist mopping up his face with gauze. When all was said and done, Dr. Nate said to me, “Can you come back in three months?  I think one lesson we learned is it’s best for mom to wait outside. I think next time, I will use a firmer, more direct approach, It seems to work best with A2.”

I thanked him profusely for his insight and patience. He replied “Every kid responds to something different and sometimes even from visit to visit.”

BAM.

Every kid responds to something different.  Even from visit to visit.

Yes, Dr. Nate.  You just summarized precisely how to to work with autistic patients. They are all individuals with individual needs and you must be aware of this at every visit.  And then you meet them where the are.

Pretty much just like everyone else.

While we are at it….a shout out to all the other doctors in our lives who got it too:

To the orthotist who met us in the back of our van for years in order to cast A2’s feet for braces

To the physical medicine doctor who immediately started using sign language while she talked to A2 when she realized he might not understand her words

To the hospital nurse who spoke directly to A2 to ask him his name, age and where he went to school instead of asking me right in front of him.

Medical anxiety is a serious issue for many autistic individuals. The sensory assault, the inability to clearly communicate and the fear of not understanding what comes next can be overwhelming to both the patient and caregiver.  We recently had a specialist appointment where A2 was tearful and fearful.  It was suggested we could move forward with the visit in one of two ways. 1. I could hold my 12 year old down by myself in my lap or 2. the doctor and two office staff could bum rush him and they could hold him down on the floor.

I wondered out loud what it would be like if while we were standing there talking and  out of nowhere two men twice my size came around the corner and held me down while a third approached me and I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Boy oh boy….if I wasn’t worried about talking in the hall before, I sure would be from here on out!!

It may seem odd to many of us that a doctor’s office would not be equipped to handle their growing clientele of autistic patients, but really, physicians have a limited amount of time to spend with their patients and many of them have absolutely no specific training in disability. As parents, we take it upon ourselves to make certain we take all the precautions with all the details and do all the educating so an office visit goes as smoothly as possible.

Doctors. Take your lead from Dr. Nate. His approach holds the key to your best success with every one of your patients. Remember they are human, figure out what they need on any given day and then do THAT.  Us moms will take care of the rest…..

 

Autism and A Gun By Any Other Name

Jaycee Kemp4 Comments

img_4970My brother and I were sitting on the couch chatting about politics last winter when I showed him a segment from the Daily Show.  It was a humor bit about calling a Wyoming elementary school to find out if they had a gun in the event of grizzlies. There was a laugh track and a brief photo of a gun, so it was odd to me when A2 gasped loudly, stood up from the couch waving his hands and both tearfully and fearfully begging, “No gun!  No! Shoot, no!”

We are not hunters nor are we gun enthusiasts and neither are my friends. As far as I know, A2 has never seen a gun in person or on TV, given 100% of his viewing includes Barney, The Wiggles and NBA.  He has never heard a gun shot. Neither he nor his brother ever pretended things were guns.  He has been known to blow some zombie pirates away gleefully at Chuck E. Cheese, but those are not even guns.

I reached for him to comfort.  He pulled away and continued to plead “no!”

A2’s language disorder renders him without the ability to elaborate and his anxiety rendered him without the ability to say much of anything as he stifled tears. I was perplexed.

The next time I saw his Intervention Specialist, I asked her how they handle lock down at school since I grew up when there were only tornado or fire drills. I literally have no concept of what they do.  She informed me they tell the kids it is in case there is someone in the school who should not be.  No mentions of guns or lack of personal safety, she assured me.

Fast forward one month.

While visiting my mother out of town, A2 was playing in the bathtub when suddenly he became very quiet.  After staring off for a few moments, he pointed and gasped ” No. Shoot. No. Boom!” I tried to follow his gaze, when I saw this….

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What in the world is “No shoot boom?!”

Apparently, the item of concern was the bottom of an electric toothbrush and he would not get out of the tub until I removed it from the bathroom.

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Upon further inspection

My child who has no experience with violence or guns knows what a gun barrel pointing in his direction looks like. He knows he should be afraid. And he clearly was now on two very different occasions. 

 I HAVE NO IDEA WHY.

He is never, ever alone with an adult we don’t know well, generally not even family. His aides are almost always supervised.

There is only one place it is possible. This meant we would have to question the people at the place he spends the most time and we are to have the most trust.  The ONLY place where he has potential to be alone with adults without us.

How in the world does one even go about doing that without placing the teachers, therapists and paraprofessionals in a position of not only defensiveness, but of questioning your motives or your sanity as a parent. A2 went 11 years with no mention of guns let alone a knowledge and fear of them. We had no other option than to ask because we don’t have the option of taking anything for granted in our world.

What is the worst case scenario you can imagine for your own child? 

Those of us with anxious personalities can come up with a bevy of outrageous ideas when it comes to our child’s safety.  However, let me assure you, when you have a child who cannot tell you anything while paired with the knowledge they will likely outlive you, you don’t have to have to be Type A, neurotic,  high-maintenance, helicopter or any other of the words that may be assigned to you behind a closed lounge door by people who don’t truly understand the fears of every single parent of a child with a disability.  We send our kids out into the world as a leap of faith in their teachers, therapists and caregivers.  And we also have no choice but to accept whatever the answers are when they have nothing solid to give us in moments like this.

I have worried about many things throughout A2’s life, but gun violence/gun safety has been super low on the list of worries that keep me up at night. (Let that one sink in for a minute….).  Almost more so than my frenzied concern over where A2 might have gained this new-found awareness was my sadness in knowing something stole a level of innocence from his blissful naivite about how the world works.  We don’t have difficult discussions in the way my friends do with their children when they show up wide-eyed and fearful about confusing and upsetting events of the world around us. So many things that we as adults keep our fingers crossed behind our backs as we reassure them they are safe, hoping with all our souls we are right.  I have assumed because A2 has not seen hurricane devastation up close and personal, cannot conceptualize a mushroom cloud and has never seen an automatic weapon mow down 500 people while enjoying themselves at a concert that he does not contemplate or worry about his own safety in these ways.  That the things that fill his iPad with cartoon characters and songs about fruit salad are all he should worry about. Man alive…I am pretty sure I was wrong.  Maybe the belief this is true is to protect my psyche, not his.

I have to take my best guesses as far as what my child does and doesn’t understand about the world. I also have to take my best guesses as to how he is affected by those things. It’s not wrong for me to shelter my tween from guns. For us, there is no meaningful teaching of gun safety or exposure that doesn’t end in a loop of doing it wrong somehow. The stern warning of “STOP! DON’T TOUCH! LEAVE THE AREA! GET AN ADULT!” is a useless four-step command since my child can only follow a two-step with any regularity.  He certainly doesn’t have the fine motor skills to learn the power and healthy respect a gun commands under adult supervision at the shooting range.

So according to the professionals, my non-dangerously-mentally-ill kid (who does not have an aggressive or hateful bone in his body) who can technically have a gun just like everyone else when he is 18, can’t be taught how to handle it carefully, how to shoot it or when to use it, yet I am to expose him to firearms in a way that won’t frighten him and also so he knows they are not toys and won’t pick them up. I would very much like the manual on how to do that.

There are 300 million guns in the US.  It sounds like my child has seen one of them in a way that caused him a great deal of upset and anxiety and how that happened will likely always remain a mystery.  We have dulled our senses and turned down the volume on what we are willing to accept as normal here. And this uncomfortable truth will eventually spill over onto my beautiful boy who can never tell me what happened.

 

 

5 Pros and Cons of IDEA: What Every Parent (and educator) Should Know

Jaycee Kemp1 Comment
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This tower is 4 years total of educational paper work for 2 kids and represents approximately over 300 hours of meetings, evaluations, reading and combing over data….JUST AS THE PARENT

(originally posted 9/2016)

I is for IEP, IDEA and Inclusion.

These three “I” words have forever changed me as a person.

If you have a child in special education, you probably just had a shiver run down your spine just by reading those acronyms in print and may be thinking the same thing.  All of these things serve as a blessing and a curse to our kids and also to the educators and administration serving them.  Back in the day, the Individuals with Disability Act (IDEA) was enacted to refine and replace what few laws there were to protect children with disabilities within the education system.  It was meant to also focus more on the individual rather than on the disability itself.  IDEA has been re-written several times since 1990.  There are several things it does both in a good way and also in not such a good way:

  1.  FAPE: It provides a free and appropriate public education to all kids regardless of disability at public expense.  The key word here being APPROPRIATE.  The downside: There is a pretty decent chance that what you and your child’s test scores say and what you know is appropriate will be very different than what the district thinks is appropriate.  And most likely because of that other key word….FREE.
  2. EVALUATIONS:  This law makes sure children with disabilities are evaluated in a way that makes sense.  We don’t want to use one specific test to decide if a child needs special education services.  Not only is discrimination prevented, ideally these evaluations serve as a tool to know exactly what they will need educationally. The downside:  Evaluations are only as good as the people trained to administer them and only as good as the educator who can recognize an issue in the first place.
  3. Individualized Education Program (IEP): These are legal documents that establish goals, accommodations and modifications to the general curriculum and access to qualified professionals to ensure a child with a disability is learning at the right pace and to his ability within their environment.  These plans level the educational playing field for those with a disability.  The heart of special education.  There are 13 categories under which a child may qualify: specific learning disability, speech and language impairment, blindness, deafness, hearing impairment, visual impairment, orthopedic impairment, traumatic brain injury, autism, multiple disability, other health impairments, emotional disturbance, intellectual disability,  The downside: Because they are legal documents and may be audited and are monitored on a quarterly basis, educators may have a very high self-preservation incentive to make certain your child is meeting his goals….at least on paper.  The more savvy the parent, the more tricky this can become.
  4. LEAST RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT (LRE):  This ensures your child is placed in an environment that meets his needs as independently as possible in an educational setting that is appropriate for him.  The goal is to work toward the LRE.  The downside:  For those of us with kiddos with Autism or executive functioning issues, this is not always cut and dry.  Especially those without intellectual impairment but perhaps have a language disorder or another issue which may stand in the way of independence.  An emerging issue in the field is for those kids who are considered “twice exceptional”, such those who are intellectually gifted but with severe behavioral issues.  And what does “least restrictive” mean anyway?  My kid who needs 1:1 to learn can totally sit in a regular classroom to do that.  However, I believe educators interpret LRE to mean that he be in a contained classroom without a 1:1 because then he might have more physical independence in that room.  Who is right?
  5. PROCEDURAL SAFEGUARDS: Protections for your child…..protections for you as a parent. Because of IDEA, there are procedural safeguards in place to make certain  your child is receiving the services the school says they will provide and a protocol to follow if you believe they are not.  Additionally, these protections allow for parent participation and child participation as equal members of the child’s school team.  The downside: Let’s face it. If you are not an educator or even know where to go to get what you need, you will never be an equal member of your child’s team.  Procedural safeguards and parent participation are ultimately only as good as the questions you know to ask, as your attorney and as your bank account.  The catch-22 if you do live in a very good school district?  There is a good chance that anything that goes to due process is going to take a LOOOONNNNNGGG time.  And think about that for a second.  If there is a FAPE violation and it works its way all the way up to a due process hearing doesn’t that seem counterintuitive for your school district to allow little old you to go to court with them?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to fix the problem since it would be much cheaper and less time consuming to do so?  It’s not.  At least not to them, because no matter how much the district doesn’t want to throw money at something, they can still probably afford to pay a better attorney for much longer than you can.  And besides, the year and a half it could take…perhaps that child won’t need what it was you were asking for by then. Or worse, make your life complicated enough that you will have to back off and not follow through. That seems like a pretty good gamble for a district.  It also doesn’t set a standard for other families to ask for the same.

The last 25 years have been interesting ones for the education system as a whole.  When the parents who walked before us clawed and fought and struggled for these laws it was at a time before the internet, before all the revisions, before standardized testing existed in the way it did, before No Child Left Behind and before Autism was 1:68.  IDEA is necessary no matter how you slice it, however it exists in a very different system than it did in 1990.

At this point I know a lot of the law like the back of my hand and the parts I don’t know, I am now educated on how to find those rules. 

I have a list of socio-emotional goals for almost every developmental issue at my finger tips and I have an entire community of people going through the same struggles I am at the click of a button day and night.  All of this has been achieved through this tiny-huge world we have online.

I know exactly the gap closure between special education kids and regular ed kids, not only for my district, but for my child’s school.

I know the 6 payment tiers that exist and the formula used to calculate how much extra funding my district receives for each of my kids for using special education services.

I know what belongs where on all 13 sections of the IEP and how to make a goal measurable.

And I know when I am being BS-ed.

I don’t know all of this because of my training…I know it because I live in 2016 and any parent with a computer and the desire can learn the same.  

In 1990, my school district certainly was not expecting 1 out of every 6 children attending (or 15%) to have some sort of developmental disability or for the Autism rates to be 600% higher.  My child’s elementary school currently has about 700 students and about 100 IEPs (last I heard)–all while serving about 29% of their students as English as a Second Language with limited proficiency.  Teachers are stretched thin. Inclusion and LRE are so important for our kids future, yet most regular education teachers were not taught the basics on how to include and teach special ed kids in differentiated instruction or how to manage a classroom where there are multiple children with conflicting accommodations. (ie:  When Johnny gets stressed, he can crumple paper…but Jimmy’s auditory sensory integration issues make it impossible to keep it together when he hears paper crumpling….).  Parents are communicating, educated and knowing the legal hoops to jump through if their children’s rights are being violated.  It is a system that cannot hold itself up and still serve our most vulnerable children to be the most successful they can be.  Parents…please keep fighting for your kids. Please keep learning everything you can.  Educators…please do the same.  I do not have the answer. I am just hopeful it is found before my children have to move on from the “protective bubble” of IDEA and there are no grown up IEPs.

Regular Ed Teachers: Top 5 Ways to Keep Special Needs Parents Off Your Back

Jaycee Kemp2 Comments

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My home phone rang the other day right before my kids got home from school.

For those of you who do not know what I mean by “home phone”, its that thing that plugs into a wall and has the # symbol that cannot hashtag anything. When the home phone rings, I typically keep doing whatever I am doing unless I am feeling a bit of whimsy to torment . The only other time it rings is when someone at the school does not know to call my cell–which often then strikes fear in my heart. So I picked up.

“Mrs. ATeam?”

Gulp.

It was A1’s new science teacher calling to say,  “First of all….let me tell you I think he is hilarious. He made this cartoon strip ….”

He then went on to disclose all the other things drenched in awesomeness while I was waiting for the “Second of all….” part. That part never came.

He called me to tell me I had a cool kid. And that was it.

I am already too experienced with the school system to be naive. That same morning I had to send an email to kindly remind another teacher to carefully review A1’s IEP and Health Plan as there were some important things not being followed. Coincidence to hear from the science teacher the same day? Probably not. I am guessing he may have just been reminded that he had a kid in his 4th period class who has an IEP and a Health Plan. Maybe not, but as I suggested being doe-eyed does not work as well with crows feet.

Unfortunately, what struck me most about this amazing phone call is that in the 3 years that my younger child has been in public school–my very speech impaired child–I have never ONCE received a phone call from a regular ed teacher just to tell me about his day in their class. There are two things you need to know:

1.   He tries to tell me about his day. Every day. And without context, we cannot understand what he is trying to tell us.

2.   I have ASKED for this type of communication from regular ed. Over and over. Every year. In front of other people. To almost no avail.

So, regular education teachers, this advice is completely free of charge. The key to keeping us special ed parents at bay.

1. CONTACT US FIRST: Before school even starts, call to introduce yourself and ask about our kid. Give us your contact information. Assure us you are the extra eyes and ears for a kid who has no voice.

2. DON’T ASSUME THE INTERVENTION SPECIALIST IS JUST TELLING US EVERYTHING. My kid has a whole 30-60 minutes a day of direct intervention specialist time required in his IEP in our high-end-award-winning-district. My severely learning disabled child with a severe speech disorder. The paraprofessionals who are with him most of the day are not permitted to communicate with me directly due to their classified employee status. We often get second hand info from our IS that sounds something like “had a great time in music class learning new songs” likely because that is all SHE gets told. The small tidbits we do get…well, that’s ALL we get to know. The nuances are never there for us. We don’t get to hear if they are making a new friend, if someone hurt their feelings, or if they liked something they learned about. And those things are definitely happening in my child’s world. No matter how hard he may try to share those things with me, if I have no context, I will not know at all what he is telling me let alone what questions to ask. The paras also are not allowed to attend IEP meetings even at my request. Were you aware of any of that? A2’s Intervention Specialist has 10 kids who can’t tell their parents anything about their day.

She is ALL of their voices….and she is trying very hard to be all knowing by being the 3rd party communicator. But why?

This is a team approach. While you do have 25 kids in your room, if they are lucky and have parents who actually ask them about their day, their kids can tell them. You have so much you can tell us and I guarantee all of us want to know.

3. INVITE US IN: To volunteer, to be a fly on the wall, to talk about our kids to your class. Did you know that neither you nor any of his other caregivers during the day are allowed to divulge any information regarding our child’s diagnoses to the other children due to HIPAA**?  And there are SO many questions from children aren’t there? If you have an inclusive classroom, the information a parent can provide the children can be invaluable to the inclusive environment. Offer to include the IS to help that parent if they express interest but are uncomfortable.

**IMPORTANT DISTINCTION:  FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) any information that is directory information is ok to give out.  So If a parent is asking for another child’s last name or to get in touch with another family, that is not confidential information if the family did not opt out of directory information.  You just can’t tell us the child is on an IEP or anything regarding diagnosis.

4. RECOGNIZE WE UNDERSTAND YOU ARE BUSY: We are not to have a “gotcha” moment. I cannot imagine being a teacher right now. Huge classloads, jobs dependent upon test scores that are dependent on more than just your ability, differentiated instruction, outliers flying under the radar, helicopter parents, uninvolved parents. A 10 minute phone call once a month to tell us something we wouldn’t know without your call us huge for us. If you do that once a month without fail you will likely rarely hear from us. But your principal will almost definitely hear from us. To hear how awesome you are.

5. INCLUSION AND INTEGRATION ARE DIFFERENT: This doesn’t mean let a special ed kid also have a desk and have peers help him hang up his backpack (though we recognize the value in that too). I mean if you take a picture of our kids to put on a bulletin board, make sure it is a good one like everyone else. If you are reading to the class and you ask a question the other kids can answer, figure out a way to ask a question that could include our kids’ ability to answer. While you have kids who can fall through the cracks, ours have absolutely no way to mountain climb out of those crevices without you. I am sure like us you don’t want them just to be a warm body at another desk. Ask their IS for strategies–that is why they are there.

BONUS #6 also at no charge: THE MOST DIFFICULT PARENTS ARE LIKELY YOUR BIGGEST ALLIES: Yep. We are the wave makers, the getter-doners. We figure out what you want and need and we try to get it for you especially if it will benefit our kids. Sometimes you don’t even need to tell us what that is. We figure it out. Assume nothing regarding our motivations.

For those of you who went into regular education vs. special education–those days are long gone. Inclusion is not just the responsibility of your Intervention Specialists. Much like us parents of kids with special needs…we started out in the exact same place as all the other parents in your room. Maybe even as you did too as a parent. Our journey veered off years ago but the desire to get to know the same thing we would have if everything turned out as expected has not.

I See You. Happy Mother’s Day

Jaycee KempLeave a comment

 

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Who gets to be a mother?  There is no one way to become a mother.  There is no one way to be a mother.

For the ones who get to hear “Happy Mother’s Day!” and the ones who no longer do.

The Mothers who wake this morning to a day like any other, cleaning messes, refereeing scuffles, and bedding down cherub faced urchins who cannot read a calendar yet.

The Mothers who rise up in their beds this morning to be greeted by tiny sticky fingers holding a tray of homemade cards, burned toast and cereal with too much milk.

The Mothers who must work today away from their babies to make sure there is food on the table.

The Mothers who sit in their homes holding folded flags and photographs, cardless and without bouquets and understanding the kind of sacrifice most cannot comprehend.

The Mothers who wake this morning to their nests being full for the day and swell with pride and calm inhabiting space next to them in their church pews for this one Sunday.

The Mothers who have been up since 3 am bouncing colicky infants on their hip and have lost track of days to remember it is even their special day.

The Mothers who may never hear the words “I love you”, but instead know that scripted lines from Barney mean the same thing.

To the Mothers who are surrounded by children and grandchildren…nieces and nephews, whose faces are those of strangers and quietly asking where their own mothers are.

To the Mothers who wear their hearts and heavenly babies in lockets around their necks.

To the Mothers whose gardens held no water.

To the Mothers who were called by their first names, “aunt” or met their children well into adulthood.

To the Mothers who lock themselves in the bathroom from time to time in tears wondering if they can keep mothering.

To the Mothers who prayed, and saved and traveled the globe to find their children and brought them home.

To the Mothers wondering if this will be their last Mothers Day with their children.  To the Mothers wondering if this will be the last mother’s Day with their own mothers.

To the Mothers who promised they would upset the lineage of abuse or addiction for their own children, and they did.

To all the Mothers who asked for their children’s forgiveness.  To the Mothers whose children did.

For all the Mothers. I see you all.  Happy Mother’s Day from one imperfect mother to the whole village.

 

 

It’s Not Your Mother’s Mother’s Day

Jaycee KempLeave a comment

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(originally posted Mother’s Day 2016)

To my children on Mother’s Day:

You did not ask to be born.  You did not ask to walk this earth and you certainly did not create your own realities and struggles….at least not yet.  You did not get to choose me as a mother.  I can guide you in ways that I think will ease your journey but ultimately your external successes and failures will be YOUR successes and failures.  You get to have those on your own and I will rejoice and celebrate and swell with pride as if I created those monumental moments but I do not get to take credit for those.  I will feel guilt or shame or sadness in your failings or perhaps I will distance myself from them for those same reasons, but ultimately I don’t get to take credit for those either.   Whatever respect or love you have for me through each stage of your lives is created, taught and fueled by me and  while those things feel like an expectation when it comes to a mother, in every other situation those things are earned….I will assure you it is the same in our case. It is not my expectation that you celebrate me today.  If anything, the onus is on me to celebrate you.  You made me a mother and by proxy after 35  years I was given the gift of the ability to feel love unconditionally.  I don’t choose to love you…..I have no choice.  What I do with that part is up to me. You do not owe me for being attentive to your needs, by making you a priority.  That is my contract with you regardless of circumstance.

So on this Mother’s Day, I celebrate you both.   The loves of my life.  May you:

–Never feel as if your existence was a burden to me.

–Always feel like a joyful priority, even when I have forgotten to appreciate that myself

–Recognize that you are separate from me….that my sadness is not your sadness…my expectations should not be your expectations, my disappointments are not your disappointments.  If I am doing this right, I will not feel like your obligation.

–Know that in my humanity the above might not feel that way because nothing makes me feel more joy than your joy….nothing makes me feel more worry than your worry…and unfortunately there is not much I can to about that.

–Never feel less because I acknowledge your differences.

–Always feel safe in telling me your thoughts and ideas no matter what.

–Know that when I don’t understand your needs that you may not be able to change that but you can ask me for more patience

–Always feel the love and respect I have for you and I hope that I have done my job in teaching you how to have the wisdom to distinguish and create healthy distance as you grow when others are not treating you with love and respect who should be.  Including me.

–Know that if I am feeling selfish or if I cannot manage something when it comes to you I will protect you from that by being honest so you never misunderstand my intentions.

If I am raising you right, for me every day should feel like the holiday we are told is Mother’s Day.  But for today, I celebrate and thank you for being given the privilege of being your Mom. Now let’s get to the Zoo.

xoxox

 

 

 

Autism Awareness Month: Y is for Youth

Jaycee Kemp1 Comment

day 25

(originally published April 2015)

The sticky wicket of Autism. There are some moments I feel particularly lucky for autism. Those moments I watch slip away from my friends who’s babes with bountiful curls framing cherub faces ask for the straightening iron ……who have their gossamer wings clipped to keep their feet firmly planted on the ground….who no longer rub the wonder of dreams deeper into their eyes when they are sleepy. I would imagine it’s the bittersweet joy of having children, watching the transformation from innocent angels to inhabitants of earth. I get to cavort with an angel for longer. I still get to hear a gasp followed by “look mommy…moon!”  I still get warm snuggly visits at 3AM. Bubbles are still magical. Raffi is still the only fully grown man who can sing wheels on the bus and get a rousing sing a long at our breakfast table. A2 can still do interpretive dance in the aisle at the synagogue during prayer while onlookers smile and nod as if it is part of the service. But it’s not for much longer. As those other children blossom from midlings to Ivy League applicants, A2 will likely still ask for The Muppets or try to squeeze himself onto a tricycle or squeal “go faster daddy!” as he coasts down a hill on a tandem bike….the promise of youth in the body of an adult where looks from strangers will fade from smiles when asked “what’s your name”.  It’s not natural to pray you outlive your child, but we both agree as long as there are songs to be sung, dances to be danced and bubbles to blown we will move with him and try to always see the wonder of his world.

Autism Awareness Month. W is for What It’s Like

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Day 23

W is for What It’s Like

“There is grandeur in this view of life…..from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved”—On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.

A few years ago I attended the funeral of a friend who suffered and died much too young. He was a scientist-a biologist, an activist, a researcher who was respected in his field and likely the smartest person I knew. He was also pedantic and opinionated with a biting but funny sense of humor. This combination engaged even the most simple of us but most of his friends were equally as interesting and I got to numbly stand in a room in Vermont in the dead of winter surrounded by them. “What’s it like?” a friend of his asked me…”having a child with Autism?” For a moment I just thought I was not in the mindset to answer that question but quickly realized I could NOT answer because in all the years I’d not only never been asked that but also never considered it either. It was the kindest thing anything had ever asked me about A2 and perhaps it was the somber tone of the day that rendered me without speech (which if you know me well does not happen often) or maybe I had always been so caught up in the action oriented nature of having a young child with autism that to contemplate that would stop me in my tracks and make me crumble….or perhaps in the moment I felt guilty for even thinking I would crumble and considered myself so lucky to still have those I loved around me regardless of circumstance while my best friend was grieving the loss of his partner……so I excused myself instead. What I have decided over the years is that it is a bit like A2 contemplating this fountain. It is weird and fascinating and wonderful and I have no idea how it really works or how it got there. I notice every single droplet from the ones that predictably slide down the posts to the ones that spit out to collectively leave me standing in a cold puddle over time that leave my toes numb without notice until its too late. There is no warning when the water will turn to an exciting spout of beauty creating a soft rain and visible rainbow or when it will create bursts of rainy arches that I cannot immediately escape leaving me far more drenched and colder than I want to be and on opposite sides of the fountain from whomever was standing near me. So Trevor…..that is what it is like……Thank you for asking

Autism Awareness Month. T is for Teachers and Therapists

Jaycee Kemp1 Comment

Originally published 4/27/17

T is for Teachers and Therapists

112. A2 has had a total of 112 different teachers and therapists in his short 11 years. Some were hand- picked….some chosen by fate and luck of the draw. Some were published, lauded recognizable names….some were quiet presences of whom I cannot remember their names. Some have been with us for the majority of his life. Some have only jumped in for a blip of time in his almost 105,000 hours on this planet. Some were stellar, life alterers….some just showed up because they had to. Some interpreted my coolness or seeming indifference to them as being non-caring. Some recognized that I always had my child’s best interest in mind all the time and understood it was important for me not to be too attached for fear of losing perspective and not holding them accountable should his learning derail. All have had a permanent impact on my entire family’s lives and for all of them, I am grateful.

A2 was about 2 years old in this photo. Debbie Jo was one of the first handful of professionals to work with him, and at the time, I had no way of knowing this fact. She was a paraprofessional in his early intervention program and always made sure to seek me out when I would come to pick him up to give me feedback about his day. When this post was first published, she was very ill with a long bout of cancer. Despite her county job, insurance, COBRA and her life savings eventually ran out. Despite giving of herself and opening up her home to those less fortunate, at her most desperate moments, because a GoFund Me account was set up to help with medical expenses, I would have known nothing about the exceptional kindness and generosity she gave to others throughout her life other than that small blip on the map when my child showed up in hers. Debbie Jo died last year and I pray that it was with peace given the level of selfless life she chose to lead that I was never aware.

We fight for our kids. Many times that fight is with teachers, therapists and administrators. They chose their careers and they have a job to do. The are human beings. We know the people who are in this for the good fight and we know the people who should have left years ago. We know the people who don’t get it. We know the people who burn the candle at both ends and we know people who have dropped the ball. I have fought many of these people who teach my child, but typically as collateral damage in a system that is failing helpers and victims. Fight,fight, fight SO HARD for your kids. ADVOCATE like hell for yourself if you have a disability. Don’t be afraid to call helpers out, but BE FAIR. Ask to see data. It is your right to see it. It is your right to question it. Do your research. If you have an instinct there is a problem, be sure to tell them you are coming from that place rather than accusing them but again, ASK, ASK, ASK how to be reassured. In their world,  no matter how destroying it is to us, your child may be a learning experience.  And if that is all they can offer–it is all they can offer.

In our world…we only get one time around. We don’t get a do-over. Recognize their human-ness and recognize necessity and try to create the most cohesive balance.Featured Image -- 1500