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High-Functioning Autism / Asperger’s in adults Lots of people have trouble maintaining relationships, and social phobia is also a common fear. I’ve met many people in my life who didn’t like…
Browsing Tag
communication
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This is a snippet from my book, All Across The Spectrum. You can pre-order here. Autism: It’s okay to grieve When my therapist said those words, “It’s okay to grieve,” I…
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Autism and motherhood I’ve been (over)thinking a lot the past few days. More so than usual. The fact that some people could think that I don’t love my son specifically because…
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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of ABLEnow. Raising a child with special needs When Charlie was first diagnosed with autism almost three years ago we didn’t…
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Happy Halloween! Every year towards the end of August, I start thinking about what costumes I want the boys to wear for Halloween. This year, for the third year in the…
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Thank you for supporting my blog If you had told me a few years ago when I still lived in France that I would be working with brands like Coca-Cola, Google,…
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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Skinner® pasta. The perfect meal for any occasion It’s finally starting to feel like like fall here in Texas. The…
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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Fresh Step® Litter. National Cat Day on October 29, 2017 Did you know that National Cat Day is October 29,…
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This post is sponsored by Pampers at Sam’s Club, all opinions expressed are my own When you become a mom, there are special moments you look forward to. The first…
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I’ve been trying to write this post for a while but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Why is it so hard to write about not having friends? At…
![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]")
