My son loves a good conversation. I see his eyes light up when I talk to him. He knows words can do wonders- make him visible, express his needs, make friends, and magically get things done. Most importantly, it can play his favorite songs on TV. The only problem is, he has almost no words. …
If I had a penny for every time someone has suggested that since my son has autism, he must be a whiz kid, or a child prodigy, I would be a millionaire by now. I am not sure if I should laugh or get upset over their gross ignorance. The media — social, print, and…
Every morning we get up to a barrage of inspirational images and quotes filling up our social media pages and text messages, teaching us the best way to lead our lives. Inspite of this, I highly suspect if we learn much from those sunset images with calligraphic texts. What we really learn from is life…
Today is going to be almost 3 months since my son’s school closed due to lockdown and is now into summer break. I probably won’t be sending him back to school anytime soon even if it reopens in fall. My son is just not where he would keep a mask or a pair of gloves…
I have been happy lately. Very busy, exhausted by the end of the day, but very content and much at peace. So, In these times of pandemic and lockdown, what is it that’s making me smile more often? It’s the fact that we are not meeting people. While I have had some wonderful experiences and…
Sitting in my living room, I watched my son slumped on to the couch like a ball of slime. No strength, not the usual hyperactivity, not the random sounds he makes, just silence, dotted with a few groans of discomfort and some whimpers. As I watched him, I wondered how it must be to not…
My son has learnt to accept being ignored, or so it looks like. He has also probably learnt to accept the fact that he is different and that people are not comfortable around different. Others have learnt to treat him as invisible. So, although his autism probably limits his ability to show emotions, his personal…
I was recently interacting online with the mom of a little boy who is on the autism spectrum. She said that although her boy was bright and could spell words and add numbers as per his grade level, his teacher was not ready to give him the scores he deserved !!! Her rationale? Well, although…
After my son’s diagnosis, our life changed in many ways. Visits to friends went down and trips to doctors and therapies shot up. The more we met various therapists, the more we learned how complex the process of a child’s development is. We now had a fancy word for everything our son did – sensory,…
Being a mom is a feeling that’s hard to explain. Add to it a layer of being a special needs mom. No matter how closely you’ve known a family of a child with special needs, you’ll find it extremely difficult to understand their emotions – the joys they find in little things, the challenges they…
