• FASD - Health - Parenting - special needs

    What Pride Looks Like: On Report Cards, Respect and #specialneeds

    June 27, 2014 - By 

    Think they don’t care much about what is written on report cards? Think that little people are oblivious to how the teacher sees them and feels about them? Words matter, and never more so than when someone is assessing a child with special needs after a year of school. This is our first experience with a really accepting and lovely teacher who clearly understood and liked my youngest daughter. I am driving both my kids to Build-A-Bear to celebrate their last day of school when the little one cracks open her report card and starts reading it word for word.…

  • Health - special needs

    Ten Ways to Help a Child with FASD

    March 11, 2014 - By 

    For the first five years of my daughter Ainsley’s life we spent countless resources trying to figure out ways to help manage her disability. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is incredibly tricky to diagnose, and then to manage on an average day. FASD is fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, an invisible brain injury brought on my prenatal alcohol exposure.   In Ontario we are likely 15 years behind the autism movement and advocacy effort. I have been told this by many experts in the education and health care fields. So, in the province where I live we have very limited resources right now.…

  • Health

    The Protective Factor of Diagnosis and Three Ways to Help a Person with FASD Now

    February 28, 2014 - By 

    When it comes to children and any form of disability early diagnosis and intervention is often key to success. Why is that? Because having a way to frame a child’s behaviour can make all the difference in the world to how you approach that child as a parent, as a therapist, a doctor, or a school. If you try to teach a fish to walk you end up frustrated, but worse than that you end up making the fish feel stupid. Proper diagnosis of FASD is critical to success. So why do we have such difficulty diagnosing and treating children and…

  • Health - Parenting - special needs

    How to Write an All About Me Booklet for Your Special Needs Child

    October 29, 2013 - By 

    This All About Me Special Needs Book is one of my favourite tools for my daughter. I’ve had one for Ainsley for several years now and it is always well received by teachers, coaches and others who work with her regularly. These All About Me Special Needs Booklets work well when your child is young and unable to tell people what he or she needs. We used them often for Ainsley, especially at camp. The idea is that you can use them as a tool for helpers, teachers or support staff when dealing with a child who has medical needs…

  • Health - parenting - special needs

    Why I am Relieved: On Autism, #Special Needs and Hate

    August 21, 2013 - By 

    Sometimes I wonder how does hate help anyone? It is a horrible vile and debilitating feeling to carry around as a human being. And it doesn’t help anyone in a minority community, not that hateful people consider that. How is hate allowed to fester? Of that, I have no clue, but it is in fact more prevalent in neighbourhoods and institutions than you’d ever believe. This week we saw that with this horrendous letter that circulated on the news and on line. My daughter last year. Sometimes this is what special needs looks like. By now you have all heard…

  • FASD - parenting - special needs

    Sari Therapy Riding #wordlesswednesday #ldnont

    May 22, 2013 - By 

    A girl and her horses. She loves them all and could not live without Sari therapy riding. In 2010, I went to a workshop in Alberta that stressed how mental health and disability, and brain injury such as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, was not currently done well through traditional therapy and cognitive behavioural approaches. I already intuitively new that but it was nice to have confirmation of it from the experts. I learned at that conference that many people were having success with animal assisted therapies and therapy riding too. So I started looking into it when I got back…

  • active family travel - family - parenting - Travel

    Addalock Review – Safe on the Go #Travel Lock

    April 30, 2012 - By 

    Addalock Review   Imagine a lock on the go. Addalock is a simple effective little invention you can toss in your suitcase and carry with you anywhere. When I heard about the device I was interested because safety is a huge priority here and because I have a child with special needs who wanders. Now, I am pretty sure that Addalock wasn’t intended necessarily as a special needs tool, but I can see useful applications here. My daughter from a very young age could get out any door and had very little impulse control, so we were hypervigilant, and we…

  • FASD - special needs

    Special Needs and Finding a Babysitter_Part 2

    January 6, 2012 - By 

    Remember back in November when I was giddy, or optimistic,with the possibility that I found a new sitter? Well, a respite worker really, because that is what it takes to handle children with special needs.Optimistic turned to giddy and then naturally because I had something in place and the world looked to be manageable again, well the universe laughed and my excellent masters student in neurology, well she got Mono and I think she also headed home to Calgary. Dammit! Now, don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for her and hope she gets better because she was all sorts…

  • FASD - Health

    Dr. Bloom’s Chewable Teething Jewelry and Sensory Tools

    July 18, 2011 - By 

    Most Moms like choices. I am no different that way: I am all about choices and options and being able to make the best and smartest products and brands available to my family and to me extended family of friends here on Twitter, Blogger and Facebook. When I find a product I like I have to share. Dr. Bloom’s chewable jewels are worth sharing. Most who know me also know that I have a daughter with sensory issues and some special needs. This is my daughter Ainsley (seen above). She has sensory processing disorder and a number of other assets…

  • special needs

    The Oopseat: Interview and Review with Mompreneur and Autism Advocate Lisa Goodman

    April 7, 2011 - By 

    Moms are some of the savviest and most creative people I know. If necessity is the mother of all invention as the saying goes, then mothers are also the greatest inventors. Take Lisa Goodman for instance and her protective chair covers. Goodman, the single mother of a young child with autism, was looking for an item on the market that would protect furniture from those little spills children so often make when eating, drinking, crafting. When she couldn’t find what she wanted, she designed the perfect chair covers herself and so began the Oopseat. Lisa sent me a square Oopseat and…