SPD advice and help from Homeschool101

This is a response to my last post and I think it is so well written and such great advice for parents dealing with SPD, and the "help" we get from others that it needed to be shared with everyone.


One thing I can say to this post is this: I know your pain when those talk behind your back, I have seen it first hand as I family with Special needs and a friend of mine has two with SPD. My reply to you I hope will encourage you to ignore what has been said even tho it can and will upset you. Turn with a smile and walk on.There will be times to address and times to look the other way. An other thing you and others can do is educate and make everyone aware of SPD.

There are some pretty rude people especially in todays world. I encourage you to find a way of comfort and security for you and your family and educate along the way. I have often thought about remarks said by others and ways to help educate or even get smarter with those bad mouthing by counter acting with educational humor. By this I mean find some way to humor with education to rude cruel remarks. Depending on the situation will determine your reply.. I can think of loads of ways to stop people in their tracks and turn the tables so that they are the ones feeling ignorant for their comment as well as feeling your pain.
By educating those as often as you can I assure you it can be a huge slap in the face to those bad mouthing or unaware and less understanding. The more educated others get the more they will begin catching themself or others in the bad mouthing and turn from a negative way to a positive way.

I also want to encourage you in one thing. There are children with the special needs all over. Each need an unconditional amount of love and support including dicipline. Many with Special are able to give all the above and others shy away from the dicipline using the disorder as an excuse to dicipline less. We all have to be dicipline at some point in order to grow and properly learn or experience in life. I am not saying you may be one, but keep in mind those who do do this also help make matters worse for parents like yourself. I have seen this and heard this often by those around me that I know personally with special needs. God love them all, they dont realize that they are hurting them by not showing the dicipline needed. All children are gifted and special in their own unique way. Some require more of everything then others do even in Special needs cases. Tho circumstances maybe different for some, ignoring or over looking because of a Special need disorder is no exception. These children will only love you more and learn to respect you as their parent as any parent trying to raise their children right in the nutty world we are in.

Just love your babies, Shelter them and raise and discipline how you feel is best and pray for direction on how you can educate others of the challenges you face on a daily basis.
Most importantly do not let every little thing get under your skin.

There are times when you honestly should be blunt in replying and there are times that you should lovingly turn your cheek. AS for your family maybe you could gather them all together for an evening of fellowship and share your feelings as to how they feel about you and your family and parenting. Then give them some education to all the challenges you face and disorders you are dealing with.

The only way you will get the support you need is by educating others. Good luck friend and God bless you.

Wonderful Give away on SPDLIFE

SPD Life is a great site for any family that has a child with SPD, the best part is every month they have different give a way offers for families with SPD. This month they have truly out did them selves and will be giving away a swing, and two peanut balls. As a mom with children who are sensory seekers I can say that you can not find better prodcuts to help your child.

To find out more about SPD and this great opportunity visit


http://thespdlife.blogspot.com/

and if you want to visit the great site that offers these products for sale just check out

http://pacificpediatricsupply.com/

First ER Visit for the summer and with all three in tow

So yesterday we had an accident of sorts. JM was cutting and in the process jabbed his wrist with the scissors. He managed to cut himself fairly deep and had a good bit of blood loss. He also had a vasal-vaga episode. This occurs when JM has an injury of some kind, his blood preasure will drop and result in him passing out and having a seizure. (this was very scary for mom)

I am going to have some more test ran on him to make certain that this is in fact what has caused this as this is not the first time this has happened.

We all went to the ER, well me and the three kids. I am very happy to report that they were very good while there and JM was such a brave boy as he got his two stitches in his arm.

Needless to say my scrapbooking scissors have now been locked up so that this does not happen again.

Our other challenges right now are that we are going to have a month break in therapy as a result in a change in insurance companies. So far they are doing well with it, thank goodness mom has learned so much of the things we do at therapy so we can do them at home.

I am still worried about JM and how he will handle this as he seems to benefit the most from therapy. He has shown some signs of not calming himself as well as I want him to, but I have to remember to be patient with him.

This morning it was over my moms Cat, my mom lives about five hours from us, and he wanted to go see the cat, well needless to say we can not just get in the car and go see kitty. so he cried for about thirty minutes. I did deep preasure, I did brushing, everything that came to my mind and nothing would calm him. Finaly I brought out pictures of him and kitty and he started to calm down.

We will have to see how this goes.


Then the challenges never end, today it has rained all day, so no day at the pool and now Douglas is running a high fever. Lovely.. So the trip to the ER resulted in JM getting stitches and Douglas getting sick..

What a wonderful day we had

We went ot church as a family this morning, okay so we always do that. Then after we all went to lunch together, close to my husbands new office. We were able to see where he will be working, which just so happens to be close to a Dairy Queen, so after the tour we all were treated to ice cream. The kids were so good the entire time.

At lunch they ate their entire meal, stayed seated at all times and were just great kids all morning. So I guess today was our one step forward. I am hoping that hte two steps back takes a while to get here.

We have big plans for the upcoming future, we will be traveling to Mississippi where we will go with my mother to a local camp ground that caters to children 7 and younger. We will stay in a cabin for two days, camping, having a camp fire at night, spending time in the day at the water park that is designed for younger children. When we return I will update with informaiton about the park etc, name location for anyone that is interested but for now I am not going to publicize where we are going for safety reasons. Okay I may be over reacting, but you never know.

A week from today Vacation Bible School starts at our Church and for the first time we are going to have a special needs class. We have several children in our church that have autisim, aspergers, SPD and Downs. One of the moms asked me If I would be interesed in teaching a class of special needs children, as most the children are in the same age group we deiced to not single them out but to have them in their class, however one mom (me and another mom) will be in these classes at all times to help the teachers and to assist if any issues arise. As we did nto want to burdon the teachers who know nothing about the issues that come with SPD etc.

So now our special needs children can attend VBS and their parents can be assured that they will be well cared for. The best thing is, word has gotten out in our community that our church offers this, enrollemnt for VBS is up by close to 35, with several of them being special needs. We are hoping that this will be a start for our church to reach out to these families, to show them that the church looks welcomes these families into our church and that we will do what we can to make them feel included and not singled out of any of the activities.

Good for us...

Changes in Life., coming our way

Well it is official, my husband accepted a new job yesterday. For the past three years he has worked from home and yes that has been very difficult at times for me and for the children. He thinks we should be quiet and well stay in the play room from the time they get up till he gets off work. Really would you want to do that. So for me, he started to looking for something new and he has found the right opportunity.
The company is a Christian based organization, which is a good thing for us. It is also family focused, again a good thing. He will work about 24 miles from home, so not a bad drive and will be doing something similar to what he is now. (short ramp up time)

all in all it is a good change for us, yes it will take some adjustment, no more running to the store alone while he keeps an eye on the kids as he works etc. But this is what we both want and need for us and our family.

As for the kids, Kalie is having a hard time with it, every time we tell her she says no daddy stay, she loves her daddy so much but she also said now we will not have to sell him (no idea where that came from)

We are going to work on changing our routine and schedule some, which is going to be traumatic for JM a tad, as he is so routine oriented. We will have to see what happens and how things go. Wish me luck

Kalie Rose _ Ear drum rupture

Kalie Rose is such a shy girl and so embarrassed about everything, so bad in fact that when her ear started hurting she did not want to tell us, then when it started draining she also did not tell us.

Needless to say when I noticed the goop dripping from her ear I freaked out. Now Kalie is no stranger to ear infections, in fact she had tubes that have since fallen out, however she is a stranger to ear drainage. So of course I freaked out.

We ran to the doctors office to learn that the pressure from the build up of fluid in her ear canal resulted in her busting her ear drum, which it turns out is a good thing in this situation. As now her ear is draining the fluid and it will reduce the pain.

So we are on a course of antibiotics and ear drops, then it is off to the ENT to have things checked with more detail.

Her not telling us and being so shy is associated with her SPD, she is a combination of an avoider and seeker, she avoids some things, even was thought to have selective mutism for a while but that fear is now gone.

oh well another day, another doctors appointment and now it is off to school this morning. Five more days left.

Antics of Monday Morning

After four days of no school today was very stressful for some reason for the kids. I am not sure if it is because they know that school is almost out of if it is the weather but they were in rare form this morning. Kalie woke up in a mood and needing extra attention. We sat in the rocker and did brushing for about ten minutes to get her to reality. Then Douglas started in with the lights and his helicopter being missing. 30 minutes later and it was John Michaels turn. He is not as easy to calm down as he other two so this took time. We started with deep pressure and wrapping him tight in a blanket and ended with brush therapy. I think that by the time I got them to school they were doing great. But oh what a morning it was.

Lets hope that when I pick them up that they are okay..

Today is a busy day for us, I have a dr appointment this afternoon to have my ankle checked from my fall last November. We are doing an MRI to make sure it healed properly. Keep your fingers crossed. I am not looking forward to the possibility of surgery to repair it.

To seperate them or not

That is the question of the day. It is one that as a mom of multiples I have so many mixed feelings on. They will be going off to school next year, kindergarten, we are very excited about. The issue at hand is do I put all three in the same room or do I separate them in to individual rooms.


When they were born I was elated to know that it was not up to me if my children would be in the same room or not, it was in fact up to the state and school district. I was livid and thought there is no way a school is going to tell me if my kids will be in the same room or not. I also thought they will be in the same room, that there is no way they would be ready to be separated.

Now here I am with all the advice from the doctors, therapist their teachers right now and everyone says the same thing, separate them. They all have different needs and everyone thinks that it would help them to be more sure of them selves and not depend on the others as much.

I have till late June, early July to make the decision, but right now I am leaning towards putting them each in their own class room, but then again I have several months before school starts so who knows what I will do.

So what is Sensory Processing Disorder, or SPD

I have been asked this a good bit in the recent past, in fact since blogging about the kids and what is going on with them I get it more and more. So I thought why not kill two birds with one stone and try and explain what is going on with the kids.

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) is a disorder of the brain, it has often been said that children with SPD are actually on the spectrum, but this has yet to be said as factual. It is in fact a disorder of the brain and results in people with SPD not being able to process all the informaiton that is coming in. When in loud places they have a hard time processing all that is going on, it is difficult for them to process sounds, touch, taste, vision, and movement to name a few.

Children and or adults with SPD have a hard time processing information as it comes into their bodies, their brain in fact does not interpret the experience as they should. A child with SPD do not experience things the same way as we do. A simple change from walking on grass to dirt while barefoot to us is no big deal, to a child with SPD it could result in confusion, pain even and they could have a melt down.

While other children with SPD will seek out activities like this, they may have to lick everything they see, they seek out high impact activities, seem to be rougher and more "Boy" than other children, have a difficult time sitting still or in one place for extended periods of time.

As a result of these difference children with SPD have difficulties with self calming, gross motor and fine motor skills will be affected, they may have a difficulty with speech and may not talk at the same time as their piers, writing is difficult as their fine motor skills are delayed.

As you see this is just the basics. You can learn so much more by visiting various SPD sites like

http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/


I will have follow up post on the different types of SPD. Thank you for reading.