Kudos to Lowe’s

We were shopping at Lowes about 3 weeks ago and saw that Lowe’s does FREE Kids Clinics every Saturday at 10am.  So this morning Brandon and I went to Lowe’s  in Lehighton for a class on how to build a dinosaur. When we got to Lowe’s this morning there was over 50 kids waiting to build a dinosaur. Lowe’s had planned for a large turn out so even thought there was alot of kids it was well managed. Lowe’s provided each child with a dinosaur kit, carpenter apron, safety goggles, and a tack hammer. Lowe’s also had several employees there to help, I counted 3 employees.

So I would like to thank Lowe’s for having this program for kids. Brandon really enjoyed building the dinosaur and he can not wait to go back to Lowe’s to build the next project. I would also like to point out that Lowe’s has made a significant investment in this program. So lets break the costs down, 50 dinosaur kits $2 each, 50 aprons $1 each, 50 safety goggles $1 each, 3 full time employees $90 (taking into consideration 1 hour for prep, 1 hour for the clinic and 1 hour of teardown and lets say they make $10 per hour). So grand total for the program is estimated to be about $300 per clinic. Lowe’s does 2 clinics per month so each store spends roughly $7200 per year. Lowe’s currently has 1749 stores, now I am not positive if Lowe’s does this clinic in all the locations but if it does it spends roughly 12 million dollars per year on this program. WOW. These numbers are my best guess so don’ t hold me to them but regardless Lowe’s spends alot of money on a program to help kids learn valuable skills. http://www.lowesbuildandgrow.com/

I forgot…

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in trying to help Brandon navigate thru his life with Autism I forget he is also dealing with another challenge, Epilepsy. I hit me tonight as we got close to bed time, I was getting his vitamins and meds ready. Brandon has be on anti-seizure medication since he was 3 years old. His meds were just increased in the past 6 months because he is growing so fast so he needed more to keep the seizures under control. He has not had any in sometime and honestly I hope I never witness one of them again. I must say if I could pick one of the challenges Brandon has to eliminate, I would pick Epilepsy. He can live with Autism, Epilepsy has the potential to cause him severe injury or kill him. I guess this is why I choose to forget that he has Epilepsy.

WOW! I feel like I found gold!

I found a website that has got to be one of the best tools out there for a parent who has a child on the Autism Spectrum. Please check it out and sign up. See below for what this website can help you do. http://www.myautismteam.com

What is MyAutismTeam and how do I use it?

MyAutismTeam gives you the easiest way to find the best providers who can help your child thrive. Share with other parents like you, and learn from their experience. We’re still in the early stages of MyAutismTeam, and have already pre-populated our searchable database with over 30,000 providers from our growing list of partners like Autism Speaks, Easter Seals and Parents Helping Parents.

In addition to the searchable local business database, we’ve built a social network to make it easier for parents to connect with each other and exchange insights about providers. More often than not, parents feel alone and excluded from information that can help them help their child. Our philosophy is to make it easy for all parents to easily get to answers they need. The more parents know and share with each other, the easier it is to see if you’re missing a specialist that could help your child and see if the providers you have are among the best. Below are key areas of the site:

Find Providers best suited to meet you child’s needs based keyword and zip code/city and state. This is a great place to start building your own team.
Find Parents most like you based on location, your child’s diagnosis and age. You can browse everyone’s story and team, which helps provides insight as you share and build your own team.
Q & A section enables you to search previously asked questions and answers, and gives you the ability to ask your own question that will be answered by other parents on MyAutismTeam.
Activity page is where parents’ daily updates happen. It’s where daily triumphs and trials are shared and supported.
Parents use MyAutismTeam to find and share the best autism providers and businesses (from dentists and therapists, to autism-friendly businesses like barbers, babysitters, etc.) that especially cater to autism needs (marked by “autism-yes”) – on a hyper-local level.

What exactly is a ‘team’? A team on MyAutismTeam is everyone you recommend. Sometimes it can take years of trial and error to build the right team to meet your child’s needs. Everyone from that special speech therapist to the friendly barber who ‘gets it.’ It’s the team of people you’ve brought together to make life on the spectrum better for your child. MyAutismTeam makes it easy to find those best suited to meet your child’s needs while providing you a social network of support from other parents like you.

Our goal is to have hundreds of thousands of teams over the next two years. We know we can’t do it alone. With the help of parents who use autism specialists or autism-friendly businesses, we can quickly identify and grow the searchable MyAutismTeam database to help many parents new to the autism community sooner rather than later. You’re not alone and you shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Louder Than Words

I finally got around to catching up on some reading. I just finished Louder Than Words by Jenny McCarthy. A very good read and a great perspective on how a parent navigates through learning their son has Epilepsy and Autism. Jenny does a great job of capturing the raw emotions as a parent, particularly a mother goes through upon learning there is something seriously wrong with their child. Jenny walks you though the process all of us who have a child with Autism go through on a daily basis, from being frustrated with doctors who don’t seem to have a clue to the  TSS workers who show us a new side of our child that we thought we would never see. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has a child with Autism. I really enjoyed the raw emotions and honesty of Jenny and it helps make you feel like you are not alone.

Regression or growth spurt?

The past couple of weeks have been extremely rough on the family. Brandon who is currently 7 years old and has Autism has increased his self stimming actives by 1000% or at least it feels that way.  His stimming activities include uncontrolled laughter when there is nothing funny, finger tip skin picking, throwing himself on the ground (hard to the point of causing pain) to name a few.  He has also shown an increase in the amount of emotional breakdowns. This past weekend he broke down at a restaurant because he could not decide what to have for breakfast, french toast or pancakes. His fuse for handling things recently has been extremely short and if you do not see the warning signs of a meltdown and cut if off. Well lets just say the meltdown is loud, violent toward himself (throwing himself on the ground), and long (45 minutes to an hour to calm down to calm himself down).

Now the confusing part is 2 fold: what is causing this new change in behavior and why does he only exhibit this behavior at home not at school. The change in behavior can likely be explained by a couple of different things and maybe a combination of all three of them. First is change in schedule, Brandon has been on Christmas break for almost 2 weeks so his routine was changed. And Brandon like most Autistic kids live and breath by routine. Second is growth spurts, children with Autism that go through growth spurts often do not feel comfortable in their new body and since it is different, they need to sooth themselves. Third is regression, children with Autism can sometimes take one step forward and two steps back. Frustrating when it happening to you kid but the key is to press on. I believe in Brandon’s case it is a combination of the change in routine and a growth spurt happening at the same time, the Perfect Storm.

The second part of my confusion is why does he not act like this at school? I do not have good theories for why the behavior only appear in the home but I do have a couple thoughts. First, maybe he feel more comfortable to be himself at home and know he can release his emotions on us without feeling awkward. Second is school is extremely structured, there is not much room to stray off the planned path for the day. This part is fustrating to me and extremely fustrating for my wife Dee who has to work with Brandon after school.

Lucky for us we have an extremely good support system set up to handle all of  the challenges with Autism. We have a great school with awesome teachers, fantastic therapy workers, a phenomenal sister Emma, and the best mom and wife to make sure we continue to be there for Brandon in his quest to defeat Autism.

What is it like to have an Autistic kid.

Recently I have been watching a tv show called Parenthood on NBC. This show for me as a parent of an Autistic boy hits the nail on the head. The core family in the show has a son who is Autistic who is about nine years old and they have a daughter who is in her teens. The mother stays at home to help facilitate getting help for her son with special doctor appointments, and therapy workers. While the father works at a company that makes shoes. I honestly think this has got to be one of the best advocacy agents for awareness of Autism. And I thank all those involved in making of the show Parenthood.  Please watch the show to get a glimpse into the life of a family dealing with Autism. It is hard for everyone, Mom, Dad, Sister and Brother.

One episode that stood out to me is when the father reaches the end of his rope. Because not only does he have the pressures of raising a kid with Autism, he has all the pressures everyone else has work, family, money, etc.

http://www.lilsugar.com/NBCs-Parenthood-Adam-Punches-Man-Who-Calls-Max-Retard-11920639