Opinion, Parenting, Resources, Therapy Tips

My 15 Favorite Special Needs Blog Posts

This week I’m celebrating my birthday by writing my 100th blog for the Friendship Circle.  My editor Tzvi asked me to take a look back, and make a list of my favorite pieces.

I’m grateful to Tzvi and the Friendship Circle, because I’ve had the freedom to experiment with different writing styles and types of content - even blending research, product reviews and humor within the same article.  I guess that’s the kind of life that parents like me live: always on the lookout for evidence-based practices backed up by hard data, sniffing out the baloney dished out to us by people with very good intentions, pulling through on not much sleep with the ability to laugh. Most of my articles were born from my personal experience - sometimes from anger at obstacles that I encountered, sometimes from an “aha” moment, but usually from my excitement about my children’s little achievements.  Friends also started asking me questions that I had to look up, and I often overheard things that I could turn into a blog. So here’s a list of my 15 favorite essays for the Friendship Circle:

1. Ask Me About Autism 

I was hanging out in the parent lounge at the Friendship Circle one evening, when another parent said, “Great t-shirt, Karen - you should blog about that!  Tzvi will love it!”  This was my first blog for the Friendship Circle.

2. 5 Steps To Getting Started With Play Therapy

I’ll be upfront: most of my articles promote play therapy in some form.  I think it’s one of the most effective and under-utilized forms of therapy for any person with special needs.  It benefits both the caregiver and the focus person, it has no side effects and it is either free or low-cost.  When you play, you can’t lose.

3. How To Get Through 82 Days Of Summer Vacation

Summer vacation is a challenging time for families of children with special needs.  I found some things that worked for my family, so I decided to share it here.

4. 10 Ways To Nurture A Positive Relationship With The School Team

My husband chose this as his favorite, because it’s “a useful reminder to stay productive in working with the teachers. Although parents have to handle the child's day-to-day living difficulties, the teachers are held responsible for moving forward with the child's learning disabilities, with pressure from all sides - administration, parents, social workers.”

5. Meltdown Management: How To Manage And Prevent A Panic Attack 

This was part of my meltdown management series.  Meltdowns are a frequent topic of discussion among parents of kids with special needs, and there is plenty of misinformation out there.  Panic attacks are often mistaken for temper tantrums in young children, but they need to be treated differently from sensory meltdowns or classic tantrums.

6. Special Needs Parents: How To Cope With Grief

I started getting a lot of questions about grief and burnout, so I tried to think about what I had done for my mental and emotional health.  We all have good days and bad days.  Some people tell me that I’m living on the edge, others remark on my strength and positive outlook - it depends on the circumstances.

7. The Cause Of Stimming: What’s Your Stim?  

Too often, physicians, therapists and teachers tell parents that a behavior has no discernible cause or meaning.  This is always false. Behaviors and conditions such as stimming, echolalia, pica, synesthesia and face-blindness are all well-documented in medical literature, but poorly understood among the general public.

8. 10 Ways To Remove Separation Anxiety From Your Special Needs Child

I was given an unhealthy dose of bad advice and misinformation regarding separation anxiety when my children were young.  I thought it was important to make available correct, readable information on this subject.

9. 24 Great Toys For Kids Who Don't Play With Toys 

To do the research for this article, I looked through photos and toy boxes in my basement.

10. A Special Needs Guide to Haircuts and Nail Trimming

My husband and I used to joke that everything other parents consider easy, like feeding their kids, cutting their kids’ hair, getting their kids dressed, was impossible for us.  But the things that other parents consider difficult, like potty training, teaching reading/phonics and explaining death, were a piece of cake for us.  After 12 years, we have finally conquered the haircuts and we’ve almost mastered getting the kids fed and dressed.

11. How To Respond To Unhelpful Comments: Top Ten Comeback Lines For Individuals With Special Needs

Last night my husband told me that the hurtful comments still sting after all these years, especially when they come from family members.  At the request of a friend, I collected the hurtful comments in another post, and in this post I suggested possible responses.  Every person with a disability and every parent of a child with a disability deals with this at some point.

12. A Complete Guide To Service Dogs, Therapy And Emotional Support Dogs 

Another hot topic of discussion among families of children with special needs is how to get a service dog.  There’s some confusion about the different types of service dogs and the work that they do.  It was fun to track down the different organizations that train and provide service dogs.

13. 20 Special Needs Parenting Tips For Sticky Situations

This was my first attempt at a humor piece.  I would love to re-write it as a stand-up routine, but I don’t think it would be a hit at an urban hipster comedy club.

14. 11 Ways To Strengthen Memory In a Child With Special Needs 

This article was the product of many years of brainstorming.  We struggle with memory every day at home - for example, yesterday my son said he needed to use the bathroom, stood up, then looked confused because he forgot why he stood up, and sat back down.  Through trial and error, plus a lot of research, we’ve found some methods to help him remember, and I was excited to be able to share these ideas.

15. What Is Self-Regulation?  

I lie awake in bed at night thinking about things like self-regulation and Attachment Theory.  I had this article in the back of my head for about 9 or 10 years before I finally typed it out late one night (that’s why it has so many typos).  It was such a relief to write it, and it remains my most cherished essay, but it’s also one of my least popular pieces. Please suggest topics or questions for future blogs in the comments below.