Jenny McCarthy's Book

I finally started reading it this morning at about 10:45. Two hours later and I have about 30 pages or so left.

I couldn't pull myself away from it except that I called and scheduled to finally have my hair cut at 1:15.

It talks a lot about the programs that she put her son in, specific doctors, and she swears by vaccines and diets (both wheat and dairy free). It also talks a great deal about how many families become destroyed by having a child identified with autism.

If you would like to borrow it, just let me know. I'll be done with it by around dinner time tonight because it's on my A-list of priorities for today.

It doesn't really say much about what specifically they did because Jenny wasn't the one doing it but rather paying professionals. He was in a neuropsychiatric hospital for schooling, 1:1 teaching happened there (and here we're lucky if we can have 4:1 children:adults while there they had 1:1 student:teacher) and she paid for numerous doctors, B12 shots to boost immune systems, all the special diets, and he was going through seizures. However, it's honest, it talks about how you can sit down and take it or you can stand up and fight with your child.

What I really took away from it is turning off the mommy/daddy/family member/teacher instinct of knowing what a child wants and just giving it to them and rather, making them ask for it. Making them work for it no matter the cost. Jenny spoke a lot about it and said that it was worth it. And how giving wait time, she talks about asking her son a question, giving up on waiting a response from him figuring that it was never going to happen, and then getting one 45 minutes later because it took him that long to process the question being asked. That astounded me because I don't know of any teacher who provides 45 minute wait time for answers to questions and how when a child has a difference, that is how long it might take them. Being in the role that I'm in, I get to see a lot of teachers in various roles. Not even just at the school I'm in now but when I was still an IA back in NY. Some, have the same temperment no matter the child and the difference and expect question/answer to be that quick as you just read it. Others understand that we don't all process the same way. I know I don't process the same day to day. Ask me a question on a day that all 7 boys have had their own version of a fit and needed 1:1 redirection and if there is something going on in my personal life (or in my world, everything happens in threes) then I may not even realize someone is talking to me. In the world of these children, they hear every noise (the clicking of a clock, the leaky facet, the truck down the street for example) as if they were front row next to the speakers of an ACDC concert. Every little nuance of the light of the room that they are in makes them refocus. Every texture that they come into contact with needs to be explored and makes them feel a different way that they are constantly aware of. We take for granted how carpet feels against our feet and just go. Children who have differences like our boys, they can't. There are preferred textures, things, experiences. I see it daily in our room between oral fixations, preference over carpet/tiling, beanbag chairs/typical classroom chairs/rocking chairs. And no one is the same. 7 boys, 7 different preferences. 7 things that they work for. Stars, stickers, prizes, twizzlers, mints, praise, computer time, thomas the tank books, blue's clues, movie, 1:1 time, trips in the hall, all depending on the day and student.

I'll post more as I finish the book, but I should get moving because I have less than 20 minutes to get across town and I have yet to even brush my teeth today because of this book.