School Safety: Avonte Oquendo's Legacy

The Riverview School as seen via satellite from Google Earth.

The name of the school sends shivers down the spine of any parent to an autistic child. The Riverview School, a school for children with special needs, screams danger right there in the title yet the security provided the children of that school was nowhere close to being proportionate to the level of danger provided by its surroundings. A satellite view from Google Earth of The Riverview School. It indicates that those warning bells are justified.

On October 4^th 2013, 14 year-old Avonte Oquendo slipped away from his class while on the way to a technology room. He allegedly ran past a security guard, out a side door and was never seen again.

Upon Further Review - 2012 Blogging Advent Calendar Day 8

“There is no planet, sun, or star could hold you if you but knew what you are.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think it is time to do something… Time for a re-evaluation of Bianca’s IEP.

I am NOT looking forward to it.

Until this year, Bianca had always struggled with returning to school. After a few weeks though, she would get adjusted to her routine and settle in. This year, has been tougher for her.

I don’t know if it is the longer school day (she now goes all day as a first grader) or that her classroom got changed and moved to a smaller room, maybe it is just her. At any rate, she is not where we would like her to be at school. She is making some progress, but she is also constantly out of her seat, escaping from the classroom, mouthing stuff before the paras and teachers can get to her and head-butting the staff on a daily basis. Every morning as Bianca leaves, my wife and I place a bet on who gets head-butted and where.

The Chair Necessities - 2012 Blogging Advent Calendar Day 6

It seems that I am always in some sort of war with our health insurance company. As always, I will not name which insurance company we have, I will just refer to it as Azure Cross Azure Shield or ACAS for short.

So as I have referred to many times in my posts, Bianca is an eloper. It has gotten better, but when the mood strikes… FORGET ABOUT IT. That kid is gone. Vapor. “Asses and Elbows” as we used to say back in the day. With age comes height and with height comes longer legs and with those longer legs comes a larger stride. Now you wouldn't guess it by looking at me or my wife, but we aren't really runners. So now at the age of 7, catching Bianca is requiring the understanding of pursuit angles like an NFL Safety.

Autism Dads

You are involved.

You are present.

You consider 5 hours of sleep a "good night".

You are patient.

You have become immune to the stares.

You know that you can indeed give more than 100%.

You drive your child around from therapy to therapy.

You walk for your child.

You have mastered the art of remaining calm when things escalate.

You are a fighter.

You are tired.

You give your wife a shoulder to cry on.

You are a mind reader.

You know it is OK to cry.

You know showing emotions doesn’t make you less of a man, but more of one.

You advocate for your child.

You are engaged.

You go out to eat anyway… screw em!

You scour the web for information.

You hurt when your child hurts.

You are scared.

You survive on no sleep.

You somehow manage to be functional at work.

You wish you could fix it.

You accept that you can’t and love your child unconditionally.

You try desperately to communicate with your child.

You change your priorities.

You raise awareness.

You smile.

You are a master at body language.

You are deaf to the whispers.

You shake your head at the injustice of the health insurance companies.

You have been hit, bitten, scratched, and pinched all in the matter of minutes.

You celebrate every milestone like you just won the World Series.

You honor your vows

You educate.

You laugh.

You have perspective.

You cope.

You have your entire belief structure come into question.

You ask, “Why me?”

You ask, “Why not me?”

You know the greatest gifts you can give a child are not presents, but presence.

You want things to be better, but don’t know if you would change a thing.

You love your child so much that you could burst.

You redefine the word “Dad”.

You are everything a man should aspire to be.

You are the father to a child with autism.

You are a hero.

If you are an autism dad and are struggling to find answers, I would like to suggest a few good places to go where you can read about the trials and tribulations as well as thoughts and ideas of other dads with kids on the spectrum. These are just a few that come to mind of the top of my head, if you know of others, please post them in the comments below.

Happy Father’s Day boys!

Ancora Impartial
Autism Daddy

Autism Light
Bacon and Juice Boxes
Both Hands and a Flashlight
Fathers for Autism
Find My Eyes
Gingerheaddad
Happy Trouble
Jason Hague

Joel on Autisable
Just a Lil Blog

Lost and Tired
Pancakes Gone Awry
Pucks and Puzzle Pieces

Run Luau Run

Stuart Duncan

If you have not already, please take time to watch my videos, "Fixing" Autism and Autism Awareness with Nichole337 and share them with your friends.

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Summertime Blues

For 12 years of my life, there was nothing I looked forward to more than the last day of school and the start of summer vacation. I hated school. Probably more than the average kid. I liked seeing my friends enough, but the structure of school and the homework was just not my style. For some reason those three months of summer vacation seemed like an eternity. There were so many adventures to go on and so much to do with friends. Summer meant sleeping in, baseball, riding ATVs and family outings. My friends and I lived it up each summer as we would regularly go to one of my best friends’ cabin on a lake and go boating and tubing. There were summer romances and festivals to go to… all in all, summers were a care-free easy going time.

Now I have a six year old with autism spectrum disorder and summers mean something completely different. They mean breaking old routines and fighting to establish new ones. Searching desperately for summer programs and making sure that we build upon the advances she has made in school with one on one interaction. We are always fearful that Bianca will regress. Summer programs aren't cheap and when your budget is already pretty tight as it is, you want to make certain you are paying for something that is going to be a benefit.

A Real Concern

If you are an autism parent, you have all sorts of information stored in your brain that B.A. (Before Autism) you would have never imagined knowing. You know “1 in 110”. You know about self-funded and fully funded health insurance. You have learned a string of acronyms that made your head spin when you first heard them, but you now rattle off like a maestro conducting Beethoven’s 5^th.

If you have done any investigating into research and funding, I am also certain you have come across, as I did when researching for my “Fixing” Autism video, that more children will be diagnosed this year than with AIDS, diabetes and cancer combined.

This is a pretty startling statistic. But bring that statistic up, and right away proponents of other causes go on the defensive. The most common argument that I have seen used is the following:

“AIDS, diabetes and cancer will KILL you! They are terminal! I have never heard of anybody dying of autism!”

It is usually also preceded or followed by insults.

Trick AND Treat

Yet another year of little ones dressed like everything from scary to funny, superhero to anti-hero, dead to undead and then the ones that you don’t know how to classify.

Bianca had a class Halloween Party, so my wife and I went to take pictures, help out and meet other parents of the kids in the room. I have gotten to know the kids pretty well since I volunteer to help with recess once a week, but I am not that familiar with the other moms and dads. The kids seemed to enjoy their pumpkin decorating and nachos. The cookie decorating was a particular favorite of Bianca because she got to eat a cookie, and because she inhaled every possible candy sprinkle she could find.