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RSVP and birthday parties A few weeks ago, I was playing with my then three-year-old son, Jude, when I noticed an eyelash on his cheek. Playfully, I asked him to make…
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You can pre-order my book, All Across the Spectrum, here. Happy Autism Awareness Day! You know what they say… Autism Awareness is every day at our house. But I’m not…
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Get Eileen Lamb ‘s book, All Across the Spectrum here Autism and the #ActuallyAutistic community I usually keep controversy off my blog but tonight I’ve decided to use my platform to…
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Get Eileen Lamb ‘s book, All Across the Spectrum here Before I became a mom You know when I was the best mom I’ve ever been? Before I actually had kids.…
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Thank you Maxi-Cosi for sponsoring this post. Keep your little adventurers comfy, safe & stylish with the Maxi-Cosi Magellan™ Max 5-in-1 Convertible Car Seat! Hi there! I’m Willy, Eileen’s husband, and…
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Settling in at our new house Decorating our new house is coming together nicely. Our home is twice as big as our old place so we’ve been buying a bunch of…
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Home Sweet Home We’ve just been on the road for two weeks and as much as I love road trips, it feels good to be home. I’ve been looking forward…
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This post was sponsored by GOJO, the makers of PURELL® products, and all opinions expressed in my post are my own. Can you believe it’s already time to prepare for back-to-school?…
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This post was sponsored by NABISCO as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own. During the summer we like to…
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This post was sponsored by Aflac as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own. When I look at the sky,…
![Charlie’s Therapy Center Reported us to CPS.
I debated sharing this for obvious reasons, but I believe this will be helpful for many parents. I also know a lot of you follow me for my honesty and vulnerability, so it didn’t feel right keeping this a secret now that this is over.
A few weeks ago, Charlie pushed a chair up to the counter to access our vitamin cabinet. He grabbed a bottle of children’s melatonin gummies, opened the child-resistant lid, and ate most of the gummies. We called poison control right away, who told us we needn’t worry—what he ate was not dangerous to his health. Still, as parents, we felt terrible.
Because of what happened, we ordered locks the same day and kept the cabinet sealed with several feet of Charlie-proof Gorilla tape along the edge of the door.
A couple of weeks later, Charlie ate a dog treat. Again, we took action right away by moving where we store the dog treats to the pantry that has a lock.
Willy and I take full responsibility for the incidents that happened. We’re good, loving parents, but we’re also busy, flawed humans. Raising a severely autistic child who has no sense of danger means you either need to have eyes on them at all times, or have a highly-secured environment if you’re going to, say, step out to go to the bathroom. It only takes a second for something bad to happen. It’s stressful, but it’s our responsibility. We know it.
We told our team of therapists what had happened because while securing cabinets is our responsibility as parents, we rely on them to help Charlie gain fundamental skills. PICA is common among autistic children, and Charlie doesn’t have the skill-set to discriminate between consuming safe and unsafe items. So we went to our ABA team hoping they could help.
Instead of support from our BCBA, we heard a knocking at the door a few hours later to announce that because of those incidents, she filed a report with CPS. No warning. She didn’t even check to see if we had hidden the dog treats and secured the cabinet. She reported us to the same agency that takes children away from abusive and neglectful parents.
[End on the blog —LINK IN BIO]](http://scontent-lhr3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.2885-15/e35/c12.0.1416.1416a/s320x320/79520802_109469130385707_1638510406839191628_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent-lhr3-1.cdninstagram.com&_nc_cat=103&oh=46e7b48c0ccc174bac50ff122ed860ba&oe=5E7F52DB "Charlie’s Therapy Center Reported us to CPS.
I debated sharing this for obvious reasons, but I believe this will be helpful for many parents. I also know a lot of you follow me for my honesty and vulnerability, so it didn’t feel right keeping this a secret now that this is over.
A few weeks ago, Charlie pushed a chair up to the counter to access our vitamin cabinet. He grabbed a bottle of children’s melatonin gummies, opened the child-resistant lid, and ate most of the gummies. We called poison control right away, who told us we needn’t worry—what he ate was not dangerous to his health. Still, as parents, we felt terrible.
Because of what happened, we ordered locks the same day and kept the cabinet sealed with several feet of Charlie-proof Gorilla tape along the edge of the door.
A couple of weeks later, Charlie ate a dog treat. Again, we took action right away by moving where we store the dog treats to the pantry that has a lock.
Willy and I take full responsibility for the incidents that happened. We’re good, loving parents, but we’re also busy, flawed humans. Raising a severely autistic child who has no sense of danger means you either need to have eyes on them at all times, or have a highly-secured environment if you’re going to, say, step out to go to the bathroom. It only takes a second for something bad to happen. It’s stressful, but it’s our responsibility. We know it.
We told our team of therapists what had happened because while securing cabinets is our responsibility as parents, we rely on them to help Charlie gain fundamental skills. PICA is common among autistic children, and Charlie doesn’t have the skill-set to discriminate between consuming safe and unsafe items. So we went to our ABA team hoping they could help.
Instead of support from our BCBA, we heard a knocking at the door a few hours later to announce that because of those incidents, she filed a report with CPS. No warning. She didn’t even check to see if we had hidden the dog treats and secured the cabinet. She reported us to the same agency that takes children away from abusive and neglectful parents.
[End on the blog —LINK IN BIO]")
