Posts Tagged ‘parenting’

08
Jul
2020

I need better subject lines here, I really do.

categories: personal; word count: 514 words

One of the things that I did with my economic stimulus payment is go ahead and get myself a pair of prescription sunglasses made that I intend on keeping the frames of for as long as these frames are willing to last me… so basically, for as long as possible. These should help with my migraines, because at the very least they will give me the option of being able to put them on and still see whenever things get too bright for me (and let’s face it, having that option is always comfortable whenever I’m having a migraine). Before, it was either “put on my sunglasses and not be able to see because my vision really is that bad without my glasses” or “keep my glasses on and suffer because of the brightness of everything else”. I also got the kids some more books, another Lokai cause bracelet that had come out that Monster didn’t already have, and after reading Shiva Honey’s The Devil’s Tome, decided to make what I have affectionately begun to call “Baby’s First Altar” in my room since I got a The Satanic Temple flag, hung it up, and Bub has been intrigued in a good way by it ever since. You can’t make this kid like what he doesn’t like, which he inherited from me.

I think all I have to do is quote this part of the summary of The Devil’s Tome:

The Devil’s Tome: A Book of Modern Satanic Ritual explores non-theistic Satanic ritual as a means for healing, empowerment, and community building.

I always take small steps, especially when it comes to the kids. Why not start with just an altar?

Nice candles (that we will not be burning for now, because reasons… Bub), to include tealight, a small grimoire (“Baby’s First Grimoire”, even if baby now comes up to my chin), chakra stones, because they look nice, a chakra grid kit, crystal grid kit, and Metatron’s grid kit (since if Bub is having a meltdown, laying them out and naming them might help calm him down, and they are geometrically pleasing), some stones (this can be educational, and the same principle applies), and incense (that we will quite likely not actually light even though I have a few N95 respirator masks due to this pandemic, but it will still set the overall mood)…

And like I’ve said, Bub doesn’t do anything that Bub himself doesn’t want to do. There have been plenty of occasions where Bub hasn’t wanted to do something that I’ve wanted to do. Any interest that Bub conveys in something is organic. He has never been the kind of kid to convey interest in something because someone else has or is, which is actually something that I have fostered in him (and his brother) over the years. He just happens to be the considerably more stubborn child, which has made for “if I am interested in something, it is because I personally want to do this, not because anyone else wants me to do it or is making me do this”.

05
Jul
2020

Before I completely forget to make a post on it…

categories: personal; word count: 411 words

My thoughts on ABA (“applied behavioral analysis”) for autistic children, in a nutshell:
· causes C-PTSD and PTSD in many autistic adults who were… exposed to this as children
· Pavlovian dog training, or the equivalent thereof, for autistic children
· what you try to do because you want a neurotypical child and not the autistic child before you
· what parents need to stop inflicting on their children in the way of “aspiring for a neurotypical child”
· the literal end goal of this is to “have a child that is indistinguishable from their neurotypical peers”
· “planned avoidance” is abuse and I don’t care what anyone neurotypical has to say about this
· some clinicians strike the hands of a child when they stim, “even gently”, to get them to stop
· “taking away an autistic child’s special interest to force them to comply” is literally abusing them
· forces compliance without teaching the autistic child why you even want them to comply in the first place

I think I’ve made my thoughts on how ABA is frequently (“almost always”) practiced clear enough.

Love your child for who they are. Aspire to help them be the best version of themselves that they can be.

Don’t aspire to have a neurotypical child, or a child “indistinguishable from neurotypical peers”, when you have a lovely autistic child before you. No matter who they are (did I say that functioning labels are bad?), they will catch on to the fact that you don’t think that they are good enough if you don’t think that they are.

Parents of autistic children focus so much on “curing” their autistic children, “making their children (not) autistic” that in doing so, they very frequently break the autistic child that they have before them. Like I said up above, there is a difference between wanting the child before you to be the best version of themselves that they can be, and to be a completely different child — not at all the actual child that you have before you. I’ll eventually get into functioning labels and how damaging they are over the course of another post, because that would take up a complete post in and of itself to dissect the… rightful problems that are with them, and then they wrap themselves up in being “martyrs to the cause” for their children’s struggles as well.

The question that I want to end with: why is all of this okay to do to autistic children? Only autistic children?

03
Jul
2020

It took me awhile, but I eventually succeeded.

categories: personal; word count: 181 words

Surprisingly, it took me longer than I had thought to find an old copy of Windows Movie Maker (which is just the easiest thing for me to use at this time because it doesn’t have that much of a learning curve… I grew up using it, and I’ll teach myself something more complex later) to download. Apparently it doesn’t come bundled with Windows any more — shocker, seriously — and to get the 2020 one you have to pay for it, which I don’t want to do right now. Maybe I’ll want to do that at a later date, I don’t know. Just not right now. It still confuses me a bit why a basic movie “maker” (editor) that used to come bundled free with Windows now doesn’t, and to get one you have to pa— oh, wait a minute, profit. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?

I am so excited that I can actually use our camcorder as it has been intended to use, though.

Also note that I’m not celebrating the Fourth of July here, but instead Juneteenth, until further notice.

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