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Today I had the incredible opportunity to be at Utah Special Olympics send-off to the 2nd ever  National Games.  These Athletes are amazing.  They are competing in aquatics, bocce, golf, track and field, and basketball (united team meaning members with and without disabilities).  53 of of Utah’s 2,200 Special Olympic Athletes took off today from SLC.  The athletes are from all over Utah from St. George to Logan.  Their ages range from 14 to 62, I think it’s amazing a 62 year old is going to the Olympics!

This was my first appearance as Mrs. Utah and I had a fabulous time talking and taking pictures with the athletes.  I also had the opportunity to wish them good luck in their games.  The motto of the Special Olympics is ‘Let me win, but if I cannot win.  Let be be brave in the attempt.’   Isn’t that wonderful I think it’s a great motto for life!

Here are a few pictures of me with athletes.

I am a fan of TED videos.  Far superior to the debri that comprises most of the web, TED host talks and addresses that engage the viewer on a level that challenges ideas, conceptions and intelligence.

This particular post describes the exploration of the cause and neuro-medical symptoms of learning disabilities and abnormalities of the brain. Specifically, freeing children from possible misdiagnosis of Autism.

The embedded video doesn’t fit well and here is the link in case it doesn’t work in your browser on our blog. Link to Video
If you love science more than your free time, I know you will enjoy this as well.

On June 26, 2010,  I was crowned Mrs. Utah 2010!  The possibilities that come with this honor are still sinking in.  My voice is no longer just the voice of someone who loves her children and does everything she can for them and the special needs community.  A friend of mine who’s (adopted) daughter has Fetal Alcohol Affect put it best.  “You’re still the same person but you or what simply your presence can do has changed.”  September 9, 2010 is Fetal Alcohol Awareness Day in Utah.  We will be doing an event that day.  This is very dear to me my little brother who is adopted also has Fetal Alcohol Affect.  It is 100% preventable.  So let’s get to work getting information out there.  More info will be coming about September 9th.

Immediately following the Mrs. Utah America Pageant, we went to Hawaii!  Caleb, for some reason, seemed to think everyone in Hawaii spoke Spanish.  He would go up to people and say, “I can speak Spanish too!  Aloha see I can say Hi in Spanish.”  At this point they would laugh and say, “yes you can.”  No matter what Brian or I said to him to try and convince him that the people were Hawaiian and not Spanish he would not listen.  He’s watched Dora enough to know that in Spanish Hi is Hola.  I wonder what Caleb will think if we ever take him to Mexico?

I’m not sure how we’ve managed to avoid talking about hugging this long, but we are certainly overdue for it and this post will certainly not be conclusive on subject.

There are very few universal parenting techniques across the broad range of types of special needs (each with their own associated spectrum).  That being said, Hugging is one of the few things that seems to work for almost everyone.  My wife is better with it (and Caleb) than I am.  I’m more in the distraction and tough love school.   But I still believe in hugging.

When Caleb was approved for assisted schooling at the local elementary school, I had a very hard time with it.  Referring back to the Welcome to Holland post, I had spent my life planning to be in “Italy,” and while I had seen “Holland” a few times, I wasn’t really looking to go there.   I decided that it was time to re-evaluate my life and announced to the online communities I was apart of that I would be retiring from those communities.   I knew that a couple from Texas in one of those communities has twin girls that have disabilities.  I talked with them briefly, I was trying to get some travel advice for “Holland” (although I didn’t call it that at the time) and the advice that they gave me that always stayed with me was “Hugs are the answer.”  Time has proven them wise.

Now there seems to be some technique to the hugs that Caleb requires.  Perhaps some of you don’t examine the techniques of your personal interactions this much, but the rest of us could be termed “hug-impaired,” so bear with me.  They are long, tight (but not too tight) hugs.  Ashalon calls it giving him “pressure.”  And the positioning of the arms seems to be mostly upper and center back.   He loves em.  He usually comes and gets a hug from his mommy first thing in the morning.  They have also been known to avert or even help recover him from Melt-downs or upsets.

There are many types of hugging, and we will now reproduce a list of dad-perspective hugging types from Dad-o-matic:

Children:
Daddy’s Home – This is a personal favorite of dads. It only occurs at the end of a long day or when you return from a trip. The excitement and joy embraced in this hug often “quite literally” knocks one off their feet.

I’m sad daddy - There are times that nothing can cure the “sad” but a hug sure comes close. Sad hugs are generally full hugs with constant pressure but don’t contain the excitement that might be experienced in other hugs. The sad hug is honestly as much for the daddy as it is for the child because it gives the daddy something he can “do” to help in the situation.

Middle of the night scared hug – This is hug unfortunately is only given when the daddy is very groggy. Therefore it lacks the immediate emotional attachment that is often associated with hugs. However the emotional impact on the child is tremendous and usually helps the child return to sleep.

You’ve been bad but I love you hug – This is a hug that has to be administered most times a child ends up in trouble. The hug is only administered after the child understands the action they took that was “bad” and why they shouldn’t do it again. The hug provides reassurance that the child can do something wrong but still be loved. On the flip side this hug is often more necessary for the daddy who had to discipline the child.

Random Daddy I love you hug – This is another favorite of many dads. The child will run up to you and randomly give you a hug for seemingly no reason. This hug is often administered by the child from the side. The only problem with this hug type is with children who are approximately 5 years old and their arms happen to be around 3 feet of f the ground. If the dad is not careful he can end up on the ground when receiving this hug.

Baby hug – This hug is administered by the dad to an infant. It includes a big full baby cuddle and some strange language never before spoken by the daddy.

Tickle hug – Tickle hugs are a fun, laughter filled hug that are often asked for again and again. Daddies must be careful with this hug as intelligent children will often use this hug to procrastinate bedtime, or other unwanted activities.

Good night hug – Nuf’ said.

Go to work hug – Don’t forget this hug. It is very important and you will be called back if you are in a rush to get out the door to administer the hug. It’s much smarter to administer the hug without having to be asked. However if you do overlook this hug because you are in a rush and are called back you make up for it by calling yourself silly and increasing the intensity of the hug.

Ouchy hug – You can’t say enough about the value of a hug after a fall, bump, cut or other ouchy situation. However at the age of 2 -4 a hug is only half the cure often a band-aid is required as well.

The daddy go away hug – Not often give by children under 10 and is never given by children under 3. This is more of a yeah here’s your hug now leave please. Often given by children over 10 who don’t want to be seen with you but can also be given by children as young as 4 when they are involved in something and want to be left alone.

Sometimes there’s just nothing else to do but hug hug – Nuf’ said.

Wife:
Hello and welcome home hug – This hug is usually reserved for when the daddy has been gone on a trip. It is also often given when a daddy returns from a day at work. This hug is give because the wife is happy you are home. This hug can be encouraged by occasionally bringing flowers for no reason what so ever.

The kids are yours hug – This hug indicates that your wife has had a tough day and is ready to kill someone, so take the kids and give me ten minutes to myself while I get it back together. Oh and by the way you probably want to give the kids a bath and put them down and if you really love me you’ll tell me I can go shopping, NOW!

I love you hug – nuf’ said

I need your support hug – These hugs take all forms of administration and vary greatly. It is a fact that as life gets more complicated so do the variances and subtleties in a hug.

The makeup hug – YEAH, this usually leads to make up —. This hug is often accompanied with an I’m sorry by one of the parties. Usually the man.

The “it will be okay hug” – This hug can be administered by either sex although, it is appropriate that it be administered by the male in the relationship more often as a show of support and understanding. This hug will also relieve you of saying something stupid when you don’t know what else to say.

The Just because hug – This hug should be administered often. It feels good hug just because. This hug is also good with the just because flowers.

So remember your hugging folks!  Work on your technique, frequency and timing and we’ll make Holland an even cooler place to be.

As Mrs. Utah draws near I find myself contemplating my decision to be involved in a Pageant.  If you told me a year ago that I would be doing this, I would have called you a liar.  But here I am.  This is a journey I have decided to take because I passionately believe parents, especially those with special needs children, need HOPE.

I believe, with all my heart, in being an active parent that seeks out knowledge to help our children, acting on that knowledge and sharing whatever I can with whoever I can.  Its not always easy when your life is consumed with taking care of a child that needs lots of time and attention, but its always worth it.

This website is only in it’s infancy and will continue to grow.  My husband and I are continually searching for resources and information to pass along.  If you have you anything that you would like to share please comment or e-mail me at ashalon.goodrich@gmail.com.   We will also be looking to invite guest writers to post on Warrior Mothers.

I found an article on the blog Simple Mom about Relinquishing Your Power on the Things That Don’t Matter.

I wanted to share it today, because its such a powerful idea for parents and the parent-child relationship.   Children with Autism often struggle a great deal with frustration and powerlessness before a world that refuses to be to understandable.

Sometimes, that sense of helplessness becomes overwhelming for our children and we enter the ever-familiar melt-down sequence.  Whether its at the grocery store, the playground, or even at the dinner table, we’ve all been there, and know how powerless a parent feels in front of the raging force of the melt-down.  Once you’ve entered the melt-down cycle, a child has become fairly helpless to control themselves and the parent needs to take charge somehow. Although for me, every-time I go toe-to-toe against the melt-down feels like putting on gloves in front of Muhammad Ali.

But that’s a different discussion for a different day.   Today, I want to talk about a method that can postpone or completely avoid melt-down scenarios by empowering our children.  Give up the choices that aren’t critical.  Don’t leave them open ended, children usually aren’t ready for that, they’re children!  But give them some pre-defined choices which will (should) result in parent-acceptable outcomes.

What I gave Caleb and Kylie last night: “Do you two want to watch Mulan now and clean up the downstairs?  Or do you want to go clean your rooms and then come watch Mulan with popcorn?”

(Not the clearest choice, and I had no idea what response I was going to get.  I admit, not my best work.)

Unanimously, “watch Mulan now and cl..ean..downst….” trail off.  Well, take what you can get.

Did they clean up? Yeah, some.  Not a lot, but they cleaned up both downstairs and in their rooms.  I had communicated to them that I wanted them to clean and expected them to do so while still giving them choice.  Which is still better than “Go clean your rooms!” and “No TV till I’m satisfied!” and almost instantly getting a tantrum and a melt-down.

We’ve been doing this with Caleb for years now and we’ve found wonderful success whenever we can remember to take the time and effort to do it.  Go see the link to simple-mom, she has some very important details on the techniques involved and they work well for all children.

For higher-functioning:

Link here!

This page on eHow has detailed methods for lower-functioning children:

Link here!

But really, just read both.  You’re gonna need it.

Unfortunately, our social event wasn’t very well attended, which was doubly unfortunate, in that we had volunteers and refreshments (and a chocolate fountain).  I had me a chocolate covered cookie.  We could’ve handled 50 families or more last Friday night!  Next time, we’ll have more time to get the word out, better fliers, actually post the agenda and it will be *awesome*.

But!  Good things still happened with those who came and we were able to discuss what Warrior-Mothers is planning in the next few months and get ideas and feedback from the area.

• A Special Needs Sports program will be starting in Eagle Mountain this summer.  Opening Date: TBD.  Opening Sport: Soccer!  Expected Cost? Currently, $25 for the whole season, but we’re looking for a new uniform printing service that should bring the costs down closer to $15, which will be *awesome.*  It won’t be tournament soccer or with a focus on competition, we’re getting the kids out there, get a chance to get a feel for sports with some very close one-on-one help from volunteers!  We already have the volunteers!  Wheelchair and mobility limited children welcome to participate!
• One of the families that came last Friday night brought to our attention the need for programs for older Special Needs individuals.  Work programs and social opportunities.  We’ve mostly been focused on teens and under, but the wheels are now turning and we’re grateful to have this need brought to our attention.
• A very special, but still very secret Warrior-Mother sponsored program is under-way for families with Special Needs Kids at Thanksgiving Point!  Details to follow, but keep some flexibility in your calendars for the beginning of May!  …. *awesome!*

(The word of day is “*awesome!*”… apparently)

Remember the part where I said something about comic relief?  Yeah, well, this post will be something like that?

So the Frog and the Princess rolled out on DVD this week and I grabbed it from Redbox yesterday.   Yet there was surprisingly little competition for it.  It took me two weeks to rent a copy of Cloudy with Meatballs, but this mainstream Disney product seemed to be rather undesired.  This seemed to match up with the general response to the movie while it was in theaters and yet I still struggle to understand “why?”

Yes, I know there was some dark voodoo and pacts made with evil spirits by the Shadow Man and that was very dark and scary.  But I have to question, “is this the darkest thing we’ve seen from Disney?”  Are these subjects so unprecedented in Disney movie history?

So after conferring my suspicions with one of my co-workers, (he has little girls too) we have decided that Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty is the darkest villain in Disney movie history.

Exhibits and Support

• She doesn’t get invited to a birthday party, so she crashes it and curses a baby.  Not to die immediately…. no…, you get to help her grow up with the agony of knowing that she’s going to die on her sixteenth birthday.
• When that plan doesn’t work out exactly, Maleficent grabs the Prince and tells him she’s going to keep him alive for 100 years and then send him back to his true love.  So that he can die in her arms and they both can live their whole lives with the agony of being separated from their true love.  (Don’t forget Disney love metaphysics folks)
• She has a castle full of goblins.
• “Now shall you deal with me o’ Prince…. And all the powers of HELL!”  and then turned into a giant fire breathing dragon.  Please note the very-not-implied reference to the source of ultimate evil.
• What does it take to kill her?  A magic sword propelled by an enchanted throw.

Now my co-worker brought up the Evil Queen from Snow White, and she scores early points for the whole heart cutting orders with the Huntsman.  But her poison apple was defective!  Isn’t poison making class like 100 level for evil queen school?  Honestly, I expect better.  Who gave her a license for a magic mirror without passing poison making 101?  And how does she die?  Falling off of a rock while trying to push a rock.  Weak.

Jaffar and Ursula weren’t direct enough in their ill-intent, they just wanted power.  One got poked with a stick and the other got sealed in a canning jar.  Not exactly Maleficent-level material.

And the Shadow Man or Dr. Facilier (or facilitator) doesn’t even come up to that level of darkness.  His power is all borrowed and his goals are just money and power over a city.

As I see it, the only Disney villains that come close to Malificent are Judge Claude Frollo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, (he killed a mother on the steps of a church and was going to toss a baby down a well.  Hardcore.) and Chernabog from Fantasia. (the big dark scary thing with wings)

Anyway, my goal here isn’t to play devil’s advocate, just picking out the greatest evil out of the bunch.  I invite commentary and opposing arguments.

Recently, my son has begun adopting new behaviors that have intrigued and troubled me.

I caught him taking his sisters new toys (recent birthday) into his room and hiding in there for awhile, I assume because he wanted to play with them without being bothered.  The second time, it was a brand new board game, and there was his mother’s good sharp scissors, and cling-wrap on the foot of his bed (its a boat) and the parts of the game very carefully unpackaged and assembled around him.  All kinds of rules being broken there.

“But I don’t want to be busted!!!”  I’m still not entirely sure what he thinks busted means, but I do know that he doesn’t want to be it.

This indicated the start of something I didn’t start to see develop for a couple more days.

Yesterday, he didn’t want to eat part of his breakfast (not unusual, see previous post).  He suddenly blurted out “I’m so full my leg is broken!”  He holds up his right leg and pointed to a specific part of his upper calf, “right here, it’s broken.”

While I suppose its theoretically possible to consume so much that your own weight breaks your leg, I don’t think my skinny picky five year old is going to fall into that category.

I had fun playing with that one later, “is your leg still broken?”  “Be careful not too eat too much, you’ll break your leg!”  Probably not a good idea to do with an autistic child, as it could put him into a melt-down cycle, but I gotta have some fun.

Today I caught him playing with the computers when he’s been specifically instructed not to, and he runs around the corner and told me very directly that he wasn’t touching the computer.  Now, I’m upset, because no parent wants to hear their child lie.  But for us, we kinda do.

For an autistic child, lying shows something called Theory of Mind. He’s developing the mentally facilities for constructing a not-self, or a second set of parameters that define what he could have been doing that would not get him in trouble.

From the Autism Research Institute:

When an autistic individual begins to lie, it can lead to additional problems/worries as does lying in non-autistic children. At the same time, the advent of lying behavior can be viewed as reaching a new cognitive milestone and can be seen as a reason to celebrate!

Source

So, I guess…. hooray my son is lying to me!!!