Vaccine-autism link: New investigation
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Sample page for the biomed book
I was asked to post an example of how I used the Adding/Removing page. Here it is:
I said it in red but I think it's worth saying again - use it in a way that will work for you. Make changes if you need to.
A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury
You have no idea how bad I want to just post the whole thing here. Seriously. Just like I did when I first started this blog and contributed to the ruination of the internet with my lack of netiquette. But since I'm not ruining the internet anymore, I can only say: must read!
AoA has the Executive Summary here.
Check it out. Good stuff.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Another new look
You might have noticed the new clothes. I know, it seems like I just got new clothes and yet here we are, changed again.
I really don't plan to change it up often and I'm sorry if it has been jolting. You see, this time I had to do it. Blogger has updated their interface and the old template, which I very much liked, wasn't working with the new blogger. I'm saddened by it but I must move on if I want my blog to be readable. That whole "everything in Georgia italics" thing was a bit hard on the eyes.
Anyway, hope you like the new look!
I really don't plan to change it up often and I'm sorry if it has been jolting. You see, this time I had to do it. Blogger has updated their interface and the old template, which I very much liked, wasn't working with the new blogger. I'm saddened by it but I must move on if I want my blog to be readable. That whole "everything in Georgia italics" thing was a bit hard on the eyes.
Anyway, hope you like the new look!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
I'm sorry. Excuse me. Pardon me. My apologies.
I know some people believe that forced apologies are insincere. I've heard it over and over again and while I understand the fundamentals of the belief, it doesn't change the fact that we should apologize when our children can't.
Some of you are probably wondering what I've been smoking to say something like that. The truth is, if parents didn't care about what others thought of their child, they wouldn't have behavioral therapy. They wouldn't care about social skills and focus on life skills, educational skills, and vocational skills. But that's not true for most. We want our kids to have friends in school. We want them to make friends as adults. We want them to have girlfriends and boyfriends, husbands and wives. We want them to have children. We don't want them to be social pariahs.
Honestly, how many apologies do people make that are sincere? Not many. Every person we bump into with a rushed, "excuse me" or "I'm sorry" isn't steeped in genuine remorse and guilt. And rarely are people as emphatically remorseful as they sometimes make it sound.
Yes, there are some things we do that keep us up at night because we feel so badly about them. But not many. Most things are forgotten about within five minutes.
Does that mean we shouldn't apologize? No.
Apologies are a social construct. It's a display of politeness. It's a social skill. We can't teach our children social skills by excluding the apology unless they mean it, especially when they are likely to be even less remorseful than a typical child because logically, why should they apologize for something they didn't know? They should do it for the same reason you get a ticket for speeding in a residential area when there is no posted speed limit. Not knowing doesn't excuse the behavior. Everyone knows it's twenty-five mph in a residential area, posted or not.
It's not about whether or not they have autism. Austism might be why they don't understand that biting is inappropriate, but that still doesn't excuse the behavior. The majority are able to learn. Having a consequence for biting is something I'm sure most parents have, but they don't always make their kids apologize or apologize for them. This is a mistake. If the child were typical, the likelihood of a forced apology is much greater. Don't let autism be an excuse. It's not. The whole point of behavioral therapy is to teach them what is acceptable behavior and what isn't.
Apologies aren't meant to always be sincere. Remember - it's a social construct. It's about being polite. Acknowledging that something occurred. Having a consequence to hitting a child isn't the same as having a consequence and making the hitter acknowledge that hitting is wrong. Apologizing makes a person internalize what happened as being offensive as opposed to just suffering through a time-out because mom's pissed. This occurs even on a subconscious level. This is how we learn expected behavior.
One could say that apologizing is only meant to shame the offender and well, yes. That's true. Get ready for the obvious...because it's meant to teach social skills and right from wrong. But a person can only feel as much shame as they allow. Through good and bad acts, rewards, punishments and apologies and praise, we learn to put that "price tag" on our acts.
How much shame does one feel when they apologize for bumping into someone? None. How much shame does a person feel when they steal someone's husband? Probably a whole lot. Because doing bad things in the past have taught us the degrees to which we should feel shame and apologies are a part of that.
I'm sorry (see, another insincere apology but socially it's expected because I'm expressing an alternate view than others and hopefully doing so in an inoffensive way - that's always debatable with me but I digress), but apologies are a part of life. They are a part of learning appropriate social behavior. If typical behavior is what a parent wants their child to learn, teach that child to apologize because more people expect it than don't. By not teaching them to apologize whether they mean it or not, parents are setting their kids up to be ridiculed and hated for being a rude and pompous ass by their peers in the future. I don't think that's what parents want for their kids.
Whether or not a personal belief is to like or dislike the insincere apology, until insincere apologies are passe in society as a whole, give your child all the tools they need to succeed in the society as it is today. They are already starting behind the eight ball, why make it harder?
Some of you are probably wondering what I've been smoking to say something like that. The truth is, if parents didn't care about what others thought of their child, they wouldn't have behavioral therapy. They wouldn't care about social skills and focus on life skills, educational skills, and vocational skills. But that's not true for most. We want our kids to have friends in school. We want them to make friends as adults. We want them to have girlfriends and boyfriends, husbands and wives. We want them to have children. We don't want them to be social pariahs.
Honestly, how many apologies do people make that are sincere? Not many. Every person we bump into with a rushed, "excuse me" or "I'm sorry" isn't steeped in genuine remorse and guilt. And rarely are people as emphatically remorseful as they sometimes make it sound.
Yes, there are some things we do that keep us up at night because we feel so badly about them. But not many. Most things are forgotten about within five minutes.
Does that mean we shouldn't apologize? No.
Apologies are a social construct. It's a display of politeness. It's a social skill. We can't teach our children social skills by excluding the apology unless they mean it, especially when they are likely to be even less remorseful than a typical child because logically, why should they apologize for something they didn't know? They should do it for the same reason you get a ticket for speeding in a residential area when there is no posted speed limit. Not knowing doesn't excuse the behavior. Everyone knows it's twenty-five mph in a residential area, posted or not.
It's not about whether or not they have autism. Austism might be why they don't understand that biting is inappropriate, but that still doesn't excuse the behavior. The majority are able to learn. Having a consequence for biting is something I'm sure most parents have, but they don't always make their kids apologize or apologize for them. This is a mistake. If the child were typical, the likelihood of a forced apology is much greater. Don't let autism be an excuse. It's not. The whole point of behavioral therapy is to teach them what is acceptable behavior and what isn't.
Apologies aren't meant to always be sincere. Remember - it's a social construct. It's about being polite. Acknowledging that something occurred. Having a consequence to hitting a child isn't the same as having a consequence and making the hitter acknowledge that hitting is wrong. Apologizing makes a person internalize what happened as being offensive as opposed to just suffering through a time-out because mom's pissed. This occurs even on a subconscious level. This is how we learn expected behavior.
One could say that apologizing is only meant to shame the offender and well, yes. That's true. Get ready for the obvious...because it's meant to teach social skills and right from wrong. But a person can only feel as much shame as they allow. Through good and bad acts, rewards, punishments and apologies and praise, we learn to put that "price tag" on our acts.
How much shame does one feel when they apologize for bumping into someone? None. How much shame does a person feel when they steal someone's husband? Probably a whole lot. Because doing bad things in the past have taught us the degrees to which we should feel shame and apologies are a part of that.
I'm sorry (see, another insincere apology but socially it's expected because I'm expressing an alternate view than others and hopefully doing so in an inoffensive way - that's always debatable with me but I digress), but apologies are a part of life. They are a part of learning appropriate social behavior. If typical behavior is what a parent wants their child to learn, teach that child to apologize because more people expect it than don't. By not teaching them to apologize whether they mean it or not, parents are setting their kids up to be ridiculed and hated for being a rude and pompous ass by their peers in the future. I don't think that's what parents want for their kids.
Whether or not a personal belief is to like or dislike the insincere apology, until insincere apologies are passe in society as a whole, give your child all the tools they need to succeed in the society as it is today. They are already starting behind the eight ball, why make it harder?
Friday, April 15, 2011
Some personal thoughts on ADHD and stimulant meds
I've been doing things all these years to try to alleviate the ADHD with little success. Things are only marginally better with biomed. I haven't tried everything - I'm calling my doc to see if we can try hydergine (he's already on 2 other non-Rx nootropics but I've read that hydergine in combo with other nootropics is like night and day). I've been doing biomed for over 4 years and haven't made any headway with it so I've decided that if I can't take care of it without stimulants then I will try them when he gets to the grade where grades matter which is, I think the 4th grade. I have a couple years still to work on it.
In many ways, I feel like autism masked his ADHD. As he recovered from autism, his ADHD just got worse. Like we had been able to blame the autism for so much until the autism wasn't there to blame anymore.
I admit to sometimes wondering if I'm just doing him a disservice by continuing to wait. If you know anything about ADHD, language issues are quite common and his pragmatics just aren't great - something I used to attribute to autism until I learned how prevalent it is in ADHD and realized that is the last of his autism I needed to get out that is just a toughy. Getting him to speak was easy. Getting him to speak and comprehend at least somewhat close to typical, totally different... I often wonder if these would solve his problem and he wouldn't have to play catch up so hard.
Speaking to others with ADHD and having them tell me that the first time they started their ADHD med they finally felt normal really makes an impact. Hearing them tell me how the world finally righted itself and everything made sense because of their meds does give me great pause.
I dunno what the answer is. Part of me is just too chicken to even give the meds after doing biomed for so long. I don't want to put something like stimulants into him not knowing what the long term effects are. Another part of me feels like I'd just be a huge hypocrite if I gave them, I used to be one of those people that thought stimulants were a crutch of bad parenting. If I just find the right biomed combination, the right key, find the root of what's happening... And then another part of me feels like I could be giving him something right now that could potentially make it all go away and I'm not; and wondering just how bad of a mom that makes me.
It's a daily struggle to know what the right thing is. I do feel like he's just too young to be taking stimulants and that's my main driving force behind doing everything I can before going to meds. I don't have a lot of confidence that I can avoid that, though. From my answers on the Connors test, wow. He's got it bad.
In many ways, I feel like autism masked his ADHD. As he recovered from autism, his ADHD just got worse. Like we had been able to blame the autism for so much until the autism wasn't there to blame anymore.
I admit to sometimes wondering if I'm just doing him a disservice by continuing to wait. If you know anything about ADHD, language issues are quite common and his pragmatics just aren't great - something I used to attribute to autism until I learned how prevalent it is in ADHD and realized that is the last of his autism I needed to get out that is just a toughy. Getting him to speak was easy. Getting him to speak and comprehend at least somewhat close to typical, totally different... I often wonder if these would solve his problem and he wouldn't have to play catch up so hard.
Speaking to others with ADHD and having them tell me that the first time they started their ADHD med they finally felt normal really makes an impact. Hearing them tell me how the world finally righted itself and everything made sense because of their meds does give me great pause.
I dunno what the answer is. Part of me is just too chicken to even give the meds after doing biomed for so long. I don't want to put something like stimulants into him not knowing what the long term effects are. Another part of me feels like I'd just be a huge hypocrite if I gave them, I used to be one of those people that thought stimulants were a crutch of bad parenting. If I just find the right biomed combination, the right key, find the root of what's happening... And then another part of me feels like I could be giving him something right now that could potentially make it all go away and I'm not; and wondering just how bad of a mom that makes me.
It's a daily struggle to know what the right thing is. I do feel like he's just too young to be taking stimulants and that's my main driving force behind doing everything I can before going to meds. I don't have a lot of confidence that I can avoid that, though. From my answers on the Connors test, wow. He's got it bad.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
From autism to ADHD
In so many ways, this is good news (so far). It looks like it means they no longer think he has autism (yay, me! I worked hard to get it that way!) but now they want to assess for ADHD.
To be honest, they could've just asked me and saved us all the time. Yes. There ya go, no need for a questionnaire. In everything I've done, I've managed to deal with the autism but the ADHD is still such a huge problem. I'm not sure what more I can do.
Gryffin had a diagnosis of moderate to severe autism and to see the autism fade has been more than I could've ever dreamed but sometimes I look at the ADHD issues and think it's harder to crack than autism ever thought it could be.
Who knows, maybe we'll have our IEP and instead of saying they don't think he has autism, they'll say they think he has autism and ADHD. That ought to be a riot since the autism diagnosis specifically excludes any other diagnosis as part of the condition.
But I don't think that'll happen. When I see Gryffin, I see ADHD, not autism.
Sheesh. It's hard to even think about it right now.
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