Tag - special needs

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Disability Awareness
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Pandemic Parenting: Back to School or Not?
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Pandemic Parenting When You Have A Child With Special Needs
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Digital Tools To Help ALL Students Achieve Success
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Introducing Your Child With Special Needs To New Classmates

Disability Awareness

The hashtag #disabilityawareness is a curious one. I mean, if you have a disability or love someone who does, you are well aware. But alas, making others aware is the point of such social campaigns. You might think you understand what it’s like living with an intellectual or physical disability. But, unless it’s your reality, you don’t know. Not truly. Last week was the “International Day of Persons with Disabilities.” It’s a day, primarily on the internet, created as a means to celebrate differences and to educate about life with disabilities. It’s also an opportunity to discuss what it means to be ableist. As the parent of a child with a disability, I’m learning to embrace the words disability and disabled. I’m of the “special needs mom” generation. But, it turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks. Yes, I referred to myself as an old dog in this scenario. Avery’s class honoured the day by each sharing a bit about their particular disabilities. Here is what my daughter proudly shared. While you’re here, I wrote this a few years ago about why disabilities are not “special needs.”

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Pandemic Parenting: Back to School or Not?

Last August we were deciding what school backpack to buy and whether or not to sign up for the school lunch program. This year we’re deciding whether or not to send our children back to school in the midst of a contagious virus. It feels surreal (word of the year right there). This isn’t a choice anybody imagined having to make. Though everyone is saying, “Whatever your decision, we support you, no judgment,” that’s not entirely true. People are judging. Though it’s not really about other people’s choices, but about justifying and feeling secure about our own. But here’s the thing. PANDEMIC. There is no security, and the uncertainty brings out the worst in some people. Imagine a single working mom who has no option for childcare and who would absolutely keep her kids home if she could. Then imagine she scrolls through her Facebook feed and sees the following comment: “If you’re sending your kids back to school, you better update your will.” What an awful thing to say. It’s dramatic and mean. An insensitive and ignorant comment like this compounds the guilt and distress she is already feeling. If you were sitting down with this mom over coffee masked[…]

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Pandemic Parenting When You Have A Child With Special Needs

I just had a full blown pandemic panic attack. I haven’t had one in years. A general panic attack I mean—pandemic specific panic attacks are a new thing.  If you’ve never experienced a panic attack, they’re pretty awful. It’s a slow build that can also feel like an out of the blue gut punch. It’s hard to breathe. Picture a floundering fish, gasping for air. There’s sweating, a racing heart, and a tightening in the chest significant enough to question whether or not to call 911. There’s also a sense of doom. Big time foreboding. There can also be tears. A lot of them. It’s nothing I would personally recommend.  During the SARS outbreak in 2003 I was busy giving birth to my first child and fairly oblivious to the hysteria. I was, from what I can remember, pretty chill for its entirety.  But pandemics are clearly panic proliferating. I mean, have you been to a grocery store in the past three days? The frozen food FOMO is enough to set anyone enough off. But I think what I experienced earlier today is rooted in something above and beyond the regular “I don’t have enough toilet paper and sandwich bread” panic. […]

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Digital Tools To Help ALL Students Achieve Success

Recently someone tagged me on Twitter, attacking me for my lies relating to the current state of our school system. I was shocked, but then I laughed uproariously when I realized this outraged woman had confused me, Lisa Thornbury, with the Ontario Minister of Education, Lisa Thompson. As I respectfully corrected her mistake, several tweeps suggested I take the other Lisa T’s place. Well thank you, but I don’t certainly have the stomach or the thick skin required for politics. However, if I did assume the role of Minister of Education there are a number of things I would do. And undo. The list is lengthy, but I’d start by making education an actual priority and begin on the front lines by offering teachers much needed support. Have you ever volunteered in a classroom? Ever go on a field trip or do homework with your child? If so, you know that teaching is not for the faint of heart. However, it’s our goal as a society to equip students with the skills needed to become functional adults. So, we need to support teachers in every way possible so they can teach.  What should we do? We can support teachers by[…]

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Introducing Your Child With Special Needs To New Classmates

This school year we decided to introduce our daughter, who has special needs, to new classmates by way of a “Get To Know” Avery video.  It’s normal for kids to be curious about differences. Some kids approach Avery, respectfully. They can see there’s something different about her, but they treat her kindly anyway. Some kids shy away from her. Some ignore her or deliberately shut her out. And sometimes, but thankfully not as often, some kids make fun of her behind her back.  When we talk about Avery’s struggle with speech and explain why it’s difficult for her to form certain sounds, kids understand her challenges better and it makes them more comfortable around her. Also, when they know why she sometimes gets stuck in a repetitive verbal loop, repeating the same thing over and over, they’re less likely to feel frustrated with her because they know it’s not on purpose. She’s trying her best.  When kids are given Avery’s back story, and know that it’s okay to ask questions about Avery, the staring and stand-offish behaviour almost always stops. In fact, when kids understand her challenges, they treat Avery as just one of the gang. Actually, they are quite protective of her. […]

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