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My 411 wristbands from Mabel’s Labels: Good for All, Excellent for Kids With Special Needs It is a moment, hardly longer than the blink of an eye, and your child disappears from your line of sight. Your stomach sinks, breath catches in your throat, heart freezes and your mind races. Where is she? Did someone take her? Is she hiding? You tell yourself it will be okay, but newspaper headlines are all you can see or think and you fly into panic mode, or maybe survival mode. Every parent on the planet, if they have a child who is old enough…
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Planning a trip to Disney? Never before have their been so many great tools to help you map out all of the details. When is the best time to go? Where should I stay? How long is the lineup for Soarin’ at Epcot? Are there any special character meals I should plan for, and how far in advance do I need to book them? My child has a peanut allergy, where can we eat safely? How far am I from the nearest hospital should anything go wrong? Disney is one of my favourite destinations and companies. They do a lot…
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School – at least a good school – is not just mortar and bricks and classrooms. A good school is a place that takes young minds of all abilities and nurtures them, recognizing the strengths and building those, while helping minimize or work on weaknesses. Good schools are places we remember as second homes. Places that inspire and help children grow to their full potential, emotionally, physically, socially and academically. They are incubators of sorts, places that will grow new thinkers, new nurturers and new innovators. Good schools embrace parents as partners. Good schools see that they are a part…
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Thursday is a happy day here. We were part of the outcry that challenged Western Fair to change their policy and last night they admitted they had made a mistake. That is, in my opinion, a cause to celebrate. What was at issue: the changes to fair pricing that meant disabled people and their attendant workers were going to be charged admission. For us here that meant that Ainsley, 6, with special needs would be charged admission and so would any support worker or attendant care worker we sent to the fair with her. That policy throughout the city is…
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Well, this is not the way I intended my Wednesday morning to go, but when it all went sideways I went with it and lo and behold look where it led. Once again enraged by Western Fair’s staunch position that it is too late to change their decision to charged disabled people and their attendants admission to the Fair this year, I headed to the computer to compose more letters and more emails. My children amused themselves with Sesame Street. Then they appeared to ask what Mom was doing. I said I am busy writing letters to Western Fair and…
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Dear Western Fair Board of Governors: I am writing to challenge you to spend a day as a disabled person in this city. Perhaps you could even accompany one as an attendant for a day and document the extra costs this incurs. I am the parent of a child with a non visible disability. She needs help accessing many city programs and, if I am not with her, she requires a person hired by us, a support worker paid to help her take part in programs that other children in London can often easily take part in. In this…
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My amazing blogger friend over at adoption of jane has returned to her weekend warrior post and so I am once again inspired to contribute something from our life with Ainsley. My daughter Ainsley has sensory processing disorder and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. None of this is her fault and yet many people in our world treat her as if she is able to control a physical brain injury that incurred prior to her birth. That is enough to make me crazy, and lately it is sadly wearing on her, as she gets older and starts to see differences between…
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Today I registered my fiver for grade one. It’s a monumental occasion for many. It’s a big deal for me and for her. Everyone who has a child with special needs will get what I mean when I say that my heart is in my throat and my fingers are crossed as I tentatively prepare to ship her off to public school. I have had a big knot in my stomach since I left the school this morning. And to think there’s another six months before she starts. It’s not that I don’t have faith in our public schools –…