Category Archives: From the Home Front

Good Golly, Miss Molly

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See that little ball of cuteness on the left? No, no, not the cat. The little puppy in my daughter’s lap. That’s Molly, the latest addition to our household. (For those of you who are keeping count, that makes 6 kids, 5 cats, 2 dogs, and 1 fish. That’s right; our four-legged children now outnumber our two-legged children.)

Why another dog? Because we like chaos, that’s why. At least, that’s what more than a few people must be thinking right now. But there’s a method to our madness. Molly is going to be our family’s therapy dog. We had been toying with this idea for a number of years, but recent events have convinced us that having a therapy dog is more than just a neat idea. It’s a necessity. Too many of our kids are dealing with anxiety and depression in addition to their ASD. Too many of them find emotional regulation a challenge. Too many of them lead too isolated a life and need help in getting out of themselves.

Molly is a mix between a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Cocker Spaniel. That means that she is pretty smart (Cocker), but also a love bug (Cavalier). It means that she will be perfectly content to sit in your lap for hours on end (Cavalier), but she will also love a good romp around the back yard (Cocker). Our hope is that we will be able to train her to recognize when one of our kids is getting too agitated, and feel free to go over to him or her and offer comfort and friendship. We also want her to sense when one of our kids needs a warm, affirming cuddle. And, of course, we want her to not pee in the house.

This is much more than sit, heel, and roll over. Our goal is to get Molly to the point where she can wear a vest and be recognized as an “emotional support” animal. We want to be able to take her out in public, bring her into stores, and even get approval for her to accompany one of our kids to school. So there’s a good deal of work to be done.

Of course, none of us is an expert in training puppies. Which means we’re going to need some serious help. Fortunately, Katie found a married couple who have experience working with kids on the autism spectrum and their dogs—and they’re willing to come into our home to train both the dog and us. This is so important. Training out on a farm or in the middle of a PetSmart can only go so far. Molly will have to become very comfortable performing her job in our home, and it will help our kids immensely if they learn about Molly in their own environment.

Oh, and these trainers are going to work with our older dog, Roxie, too. (That’s her below.) According to them, Roxie is going to train Molly as well, even as she gets some training herself. After all, she speaks dog! So by the end of the training—months and months from now—we’ll have two support dogs.

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So stay tuned. I’ll be giving you updates every now and then. Besides, she’s so cute!

No, It’s Not Okay

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So I met my son at a local minor league baseball game today. It was a happy coincidence. Our company was taking a day at the park as a part team-building, part pressure-relieving event, and my boy’s sixth-grade class was taking a field trip. So after spending some time with my colleagues, I went looking for my boy.

It wasn’t hard to find him. He was the only kid wearing a long sleeve sweater. It was in the upper 70s and sunny, so all his classmates were in shorts and tee shirts. But there he was, seated at the end of his bench, squinting in the sun, his head darting left and right with that vague here-but-not-here expression I’ve come to expect when he’s in a crowded public place.

Okay, I Guess.

As soon as he saw me, he smiled and gave me a big hug. He buried his head in my chest and rubbed it back and forth while I scratched the top of his head. It’s our thing.

“How’s it going?”

“Okay, I guess,” he said.

“Are you enjoying the game?”

“Not really. I know balls and strikes and home runs, but I don’t like baseball so much. It takes too long.”

“Okay, so what are you doing instead of watching the game?”

“Oh, nothing, just sitting here watching my friend play on his 3DS.” [He wasn’t watching all that intently. Just glancing over his shoulder every now and then.]

He seemed perfectly content to sit there in the background, sweating in the sun. He wasn’t engaged or absorbed in anything. He was just “there,” innocently taking up a seat and waiting for his teacher to tell him it was time to go back to school. I learned that he had been there for more than an hour already, and he wouldn’t be leaving for about another hour. And he spent the whole time alone, in his own world. No kids were seeking him out. No one seemed to care that he was on his own. His guidance counselor, who knows about his diagnosis, was sitting a couple of rows behind us, and even she seemed oblivious.

Happy Compliance.

It broke my heart. It was the first time in a couple of years that I saw him in his school element. I knew he had been like that in elementary school, but I thought he was coming out of himself. Not so much.

The thing is, it didn’t take much for me to get him involved. We watched the next few pitches and cheered each hit by the home team. We analyzed each misstep. We clapped at two home runs and followed the foul balls that flew over the net and landed in the stands. It wasn’t hard.

I also noticed that he had a packet of worksheets with him. They were filled with STEM questions he could answer for extra credit. He had done none of them. “My grades are good enough,” he told me. “I don’t need to do it.”

“Come on!” I said. “We can knock these things out right now. Don’t you like seeing your grades go up?”

“Okay.” No resistance. No fight. Just happy compliance.
So for the next 20 minutes, we tackled the problems. “What is the area of the baseball diamond?” “If Team X has lost three times as many games as they have won, out of 72 games, how many games did they lose?” “If you could interview the pitcher, what would be two STEM-type of questions you would ask him?” Simple stuff.

He happily dove into each problem and did a great job. (He is an honors student, after all.) But he wouldn’t have done anything if I hadn’t have been there to get the ball rolling. He would have remained static in his thought bubble, because no one seemed to care.

A Shove and a Nudge.

I suppose I shouldn’t care either. After all, my son was content. He gave no indication that he was feeling lonely or misunderstood or even bored. So why make a deal out of it?

Maybe it was the fact that no one seemed to notice that he was alone. Maybe it was the glassy-eyed look he had when I first found him. Maybe it was because I hate being passive myself; I always have to have something “useful” to do. Maybe it was because I got a brief glimpse into what his future might be like, and it scared me.

Whatever it was, I know one thing: I think it’s time to start planning for the next school year. Bone up on disability education law. Get to know a couple of his teachers. Observe him in some classes. Sketch out what an IEP might look like for him—and get ready to fight for it.

Because I don’t want life to pass my son by. I don’t want him to miss out on the relationships and the learning and the enjoyment that could be his if someone were to just welcome him. Because he’s a good kid. A bright kid. A kind kid. He should have the opportunity to let his light shine. All he needs is a little nudge.

And that means I’m going to have to do a bit of shoving

Which I don’t mind at all.

Adventures in Airport Advocacy

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Every now and then I am reminded of how far we have to go before our world welcomes people with disabilities and neurological differences. Yesterday gave me two such reminders back to back. I was at the airport at the start of a business trip to visit my publisher in St. Augustine, Florida.

“Gawd!”

The first reminder happened as I was standing in line, waiting to board the plane. I spot an older man (~70-75) walking in circles at the gate area. He is cross-eyed and has the pleasant-but-pouty look of someone with cognitive challenges. When his care giver walks him to the gate for pre-boarding, he hands his pass to the agent and declares in a loud, excited voice, “I’m ready to fly!”

The agent smiles back. “Yes you are, sir,” and shares an ill-timed high-five with him.

A beautiful scene. Until the woman waiting in line ahead of me (~60-65) grimaces and turns to her friend. “Gawd, I hope he don’t end up sitting next to me,” she practically spits. “I’m here to relax, not deal with his kind of people.”

Her friend nods. A knife to my heart. A very brief thought that maybe I should say something. But I decide against it. What’s the point? She does not seem the type given to respectful dialogue. Instead, I offer up three prayers: one for the man, one for the woman, and one for myself.

For the man: “Thank you, Lord, for this fellow’s joy. Please keep him safe in your arms.”

For her: “Lord, please help her become more understanding and welcoming. I cannot fix stupid, but you can fix everything. Please help her out here.”

For me: “Please, God, help me be more forgiving. And maybe more brave.”

The Regular Dads Club.

The second reminder happened on the plane. I sat next to a Navy JAG officer and his wife. Both about my age. A delightful couple. Pleasant, engaging conversation with a good amount of back and forth between the JAG and myself. (The wife was a quiet sort.) We talked about our travels: his deployments to Iraq and Addis Ababa, and my six months in Tehran and post-Soviet trips to Central Europe. We talked about school: him at the Naval Academy, and me at The Mount. We talked about politics—after some careful circling to tease out each other’s views, of course. (He didn’t like Trump either, so we continued amicably.)

Then we talked about kids. His daughter, a linguist who was getting her Air Force commission this weekend. His son, who just graduated from Cornell, his second son, with an MBA from Stanford. And his third son, who is graduating from high school with a swimming scholarship to Colorado. He was obviously proud of his kids, but not in a snotty way. He didn’t even humble brag.

Then he asked me about my kids. “You have a lot of kids. Have you got colleges all figured out yet?” When I told him that we weren’t so sure about who would be going and who wouldn’t, he looked puzzled and asked why. I told him about their ASD diagnoses and some of the challenges they face.

It got awkward. He tried to say something like, “Well, not everyone’s cut out for college,” and “There’s plenty of trade jobs out there that need to be done.” I tried to change the subject, but he had essentially checked out. The conversation politely petered out, and a couple of minutes later, he opened his laptop, plugged in his ear buds, and settled in to a movie.

I don’t fault him. He just didn’t know what to say. His world had been circumscribed by success after success—of course, with hard work and sacrifice—and he didn’t have any reference point to orient him to special needs parenting. It’s a shame, too. We were having a good conversation. For a few moments, I was a Regular Dad. I was part of the club. I was just like everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the club I’m in. It would just be nice to bridge the gap between these two clubs every now and then. 

Even better, it would be even nice if there were no gaps. No separate clubs at all.

That’s why we need to keep advocating.