Handing over the Reigns of Advocacy

I'm working on some posts about autism and teens.  There are several situations and experiences that are typical in the teenage years.  While these experiences are typical, the reaction and the way they have to be handled are drastically different when dealing with someone with autism.  This is not to say that the experience or the reaction is bad , just approached differently.

When you are training a captain (remember that series?), you eventually have to hand over responsibility for some important things, like advocacy.  We have advocated for Logan his entire life.  I have been known to remark to people working with Logan that I can be their friend after I am done being Logan's advocate. It is important that Logan trust me to vocalize his needs when he can't or won't for whatever reason.  Being his advocate is the most stressful job that I have as his mom.  You have to firm but polite.  You have to know what your child needs even when he is unable to vocalize or process those needs to you.  It is now time for us to hand this responsibility over to Logan.

It is still our goal that Logan will be able to live independently from us at some point in his adult life.  This may only be achievable with supports in place but that is a different post altogether.  What we do realize is that this will not be achievable unless he learns to self advocate.  He has to learn to effectively speak for himself.   What we have to do is teach it to him while he is safely enclosed in the confines of your house.  He has to start to feel comfortable doing it on a regular basis.  This happens by handing it over in small increments.

One way we have transferred some of this responsibility is in the area of  his food allergies.  We have started to make him be responsible for making sure he can eat when we are at other people's house or at a restaurant.  Recently a situation came up at church that was perfect for practicing this exact skill.  At the last minute, the new youth pastor who is not completely familiar with Logan ordered pizza.  This meant that Logan would have to watch everyone eat since he is gluten free.  I got him out of youth early to avoid that scenario but gently suggested that he email the youth pastor to take care of any future situations.  Logan is in the beginning stages of self advocacy.  I have to self talk the steps out loud so he can see the appropriate path to take in certain situations.

Logan did not email the youth pastor.  He saw him the following Sunday and had a conversation with him about it.  While it was not exactly what I suggested, he did take care of it.  What manner he uses to take care of it  is irrelevant here.  The fact that he took care of it  appropriately is all that matters.  I need to keep that in mind as well when I set up ways for him to learn this all important skill.  Yes, it's a lot of work to hand over responsibility.  Yes, he will fail at it sometimes.  But I would rather he fail now when I can help him learn from it than to fail later when the consequences could be more severe. In the end , all I care about is that he learned it and was able to effectively take care of his needs. Isn't that what we want for all our children, autism or not?

Florida History Without A Textbook

It's no big secret that we live in steamy Florida.  My husband and children have lived here all their lives.  I, on the other hand, have only lived here my adult life along with a few years in early childhood.  I know what it's like for the seasons to actually change.  I often jokingly remark that Florida has one season.  Just different shades of summer.

Starting this year, we are learning Florida History. It is important that the children learn about their native state and it's rich history.  Being that it's not the state I learned about in elementary school, it will be a learning experience for me as well.  Thus began the great experiment!  We are not using a textbook although there are several available.  The local library even has the one that our public schools uses to teach 3rd graders.  We are doing it a little different.  You know being the rebel homeschoolers that we are!

Seriously, no textbook.  We are going to learn about the state bird and flower in nature.  We are going to incorporate some Florida artists and composers in our art and music studies.  Yes, we are going to read books with Florida as the setting like Because of Winn Dixie.  Books about Florida folk tales like Cracker Tales, which is our current read a loud. Some part of Florida history will be touched on in every subject.

My favorite part of this new way of learning is the field trips.  Yup, we are going to take field trips around the state to learn hands on. Field trips about history, agriculture , government, nature,  along with local customs and food It's no secret that my children are visual learners.  The memories that go along with these field trips will forever cement Florida history in their minds.  All while having fun and spending time together.  I heart homeschooling.

Our local news station has these great books called One Tank Trips.  They are little day trips that one can take to lots of places in Florida that are simply one tank of gas to take.  With the price of gas the way it is , this is an important factor.  We can't break the bank while learning about Florida.  The great part about living in Central Florida is that we are smack dab in the middle of the state.  We can go north or south usually on one tank.  This makes it easy to learn about the complete state.  There are 52 trips in each book so theoretically you could one per week. Our schedule , budget nor our car will allow that schedule for us.

So far, we have been to the Alafia River Rendevous (frontier Florida), The Straz Center , The Orlando Repertory Theater,  Florida Pioneer Museum in Dade City, the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg , The Butterfly Rainforest at the Museum of Natural History in Gainesville and the Port of Tampa. We've u-picked strawberries in Plant City and checked out native plants at a neighborhood plant nursery. Last week was the Port of Tampa . A phenomenal boat ride learning about how the Port helps out the Florida economy and what the history of it entailed.  One of my favorite field trips. I update my Facebook page with all the photos from our field trips. Have you "liked" me yet?

Tell me homeschooling friends, what do you do for state history?  Follow a curriculum or not?  Do you even touch on state history in your homeschool?  This seems to be working out well for us. I'd love to hear what ya'll are doing as well.  I will add a page to my blog where I will put all the things we do to cover Florida History in our little homeschool.

When someone attacks your faith

Recently we went on a field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Fl.  I was quite excited to take the children to what I deemed a real art museum.  We have been a little lackadaisical in our art studies but we do have some artists in our repertoire.  An added bonus was that they were offering an ancient Egypt exhibit too.

All was well, we quickly had to have a conversation about how there might be some nudity in the paintings and pictures.  The children were instructed to use caution near the paintings and sculptures.  Imagine our surprise when we ran into a docent leading a tour through the ancient Egypt exhibit that we were able to join with no problem.

In hindsight, I should have known something was amiss when she explained some myths regarding Egyptian gods like they were fact.  Although uncomfortable, I brushed it off as she was simply playing a role.  All of the children in the group were quite enthralled with her renditions.  Besides, none of the other homeschool moms seemed to be bothered by it.

Then we hit the Jewish slave area.  I was aghast at her assertion that the Jews were not Egyptian slaves.  Her argument was that they were being fed & quite well.  Therefore, they could not have been slaves.  It was quite a preposterous statement to say the least.  Two breathes later, she asked who believed that the Jews crossed the Red Sea.  Lots of hands went up.  It was at that point that she announced it was not really the Red Sea but merely a quicksand pit.  When questioned if she meant the Biblical Exodus, she said yes.  She did not deny that there was a mass exodus from Egypt by the Jewish people during the reign of Ramses the Great.  That much has been historically proven.  What she debunked in her own theory was that they did not cross an ocean but a quicksand pit.  She then quickly ended the tour and left the area.

I want to say that she is just ignorant or misinformed.  There was really no need to say it during the tour .  It was completely unnecessary.  I do belong to a Christian homeschool group that was in attendance that day.  Many of the children had church shirts on with Scripture verses.  The docent clearly saw that we were a Christian group.  She then deemed it necessary to "educate" us on her version of the truth.

I was not able to confront her on her clear bias.  I'm not sure that I would have to be honest.  It came out of nowhere so I did not have time to collect my thoughts to debunk her misstatements.  A lively discussion was held over lunch with my group about how we knew her statements were wrong.  We also had a great discussion with the children on what one should do when someone attacks your faith.  I would like to think that we responded gracefully and respectfully.  It was a great learning experience for everyone, children and adults. 

So , tell me dear friends.  What do you do when someone insinuates that the Bible isn't accurate?  How do you teach your children to stand up for their faith with respect and grace?  I am still struggling with this issue and whether we should have said more at the moment.  What are your thoughts?

Weekly Wrap Up: Half Marathons, Family , Field Trips Edition

What a great week we had!  There was no formal schooling actually taking place as we took a trip over Easter weekend to Tennessee and Alabama.  One of the reasons was that Michael and I participated as in actually completed the Oak Barrel Half Marathon in Lynchburg, TN.  It was long but oh so gratifying to cross the finish line!  We did ok considering that it was our first half marathon and there were hills.  Lots and lots of hills along with one killer one.  There aren't a lot of hills in Florida to train on so we were at a slight disadvantage.  We weren't last though and we finished.  That's all that matters, right?  The children hung out with Michael's mom aka Grammy while we were half  marathoning!



Cousins

After the half marathon, we returned to Aunt Diane's house for our Easter celebration.  She lives in Jacksonville, Alabama.  The weather was beautiful.  The company was awesome.  I didn't have to cook anything. Life was good.

Aunt Diane was a most gracious hostess. She has a beautiful home and yard not to mention that she is a phenomenal cook.  I could not live near her as I would be as fat as a house. lol  We spend several days with her visiting, eating and planting in her yard.  Grammy had a great visit with her as well.  A visit that helped her grieving heart, I'm sure.



 On the way home, we stopped at the Butterfly Rain Forest in Gainesville, Florida.  We really like butterflies.  Plus, I needed to get out of the car to stretch for a while.  There were massive amounts of local and exotic butterflies.  Plus many little birds and lizards.  It was well worth the money spent to get in.

The Butterfly Rainforest is located inside the Museum of Natural History.  Since we had a few minutes to spare before our time on the parking meter ran out, we walked around a bit too.  It was a rushed visit but the children enjoyed what they did see, especially the fossils.  I did not like the clearly evolutionary tone to the display but we had a wonderful discussion about it.  I love that my children can discern that evolution goes against the Bible thereby making it not factual (evolution not the Bible).  Their faith is so refreshing!

That was our week in a nutshell.  Other than that, we unpacked, did laundry and generally got back to our regular schedule sans lessons.  Never fear though, lessons resume on Monday.

Linked up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.



Guest post on Hip Homeschool Moms!

Hop on over to Hip Homeschool Moms where I guest posted about My Top 5 Reasons We Homeschool Year Round !

9th Grade Term 1

I guess since I told you what  Madison is doing for first term 2012, I should probably tell you  what Logan is going to do to start high school.  Not only that but I should probably tell you before we finish the first term as well which will be this month.  I also need to post about what we do together.  That's a completely different post altogether.   Since this post is late, you get to hear how it's going as well.

Logan was quite apprehensive to start high school.  I think he had heard so much about high school from the youth workers that he didn't know what to expect.  Of course public high school is a much different social scene than the one Logan is accustomed to at our little academy.  I don't think he made the connection that what the youth teachers were talking about didn't pertain to him.  We really had to talk him through his anxiety at the beginning.  His anxiety has increased a great deal in the past few months which we have had no choice but to address.

Just like with Madison, we are doing Ambleside Online completely and fully with Logan this year.  After looking through all the options , this was the most affordable but challenging option for him.  We can find most of the books at the library as well.  It is a change for Logan that he isn't able to read the books all at once .  He can only read the portion that is assigned then he must put the book away. It teaches him to pay attention the first time he reads it.

Bible

Continue memorizing the Psalms and do a research project on a Bible character.

Saints and Heroes Vol 2 by George Hodges


Narration

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  He reads the chapter out loud then writes 2 paragraphs about it.

PE

Run 3 miles 3xs per week with the goal of completing a half marathon sometime this year.

Booklist

The Age of Revolution by Winston Churchill
Salem Witch Trial Transcripts
Autobiography of Ben Franklin
The Royal Road to Romance by Richard Haliburton
Are you Liberal, Conservative, or Confused? by Richard Maybury
Ourselves by Charlotte Mason
Mere Christianity by C.S.Lewis
Isaac Bickerstaff by Richard Steele
Days with Sir Roger deCoverly by Joseph Addison
Gulliver's Travels by Johnathon Swift
Tales of a Tub by Jonathon Swift

Free Reading

Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester

Math

Algebra 1 which we are using the Life of  Fred series

When a movie requires a conversation

Madison

It all started with both kids excitedly reading The Borrowers.  Madison, bless her everloving heart, read the book in a matter of days just because I mentioned the movie was out.  Now, both my kids now that I am a sucker for the line, "We read the book .  Can we see the movie?"  If it gets them to read a book not on their book list then I am all for it.  I, however, had not read the book in a long time so I vaguely remembered it.

On a stormy afternoon with nothing else to do, we scampered off to see The Secret World of Arriety.  I had warned the children that it was Japanese animation.  Something we are not accustomed to on a regular basis.  Blah, blah, blah.  We settled in our seats with our ginormous artery clogging popcorns and massive drinks. 

The movie starts off relatively innocent.  A boy who is sick goes to stay with his aunt or maybe his Grandma. Either way, he is spending the summer in his mom's childhood home with an adult and a caretaker. It is apparent that there are little people that live in the walls.  They appear harmless to the humans.  As the scene shifts to their little home in the walls, it quickly becomes apparent that they steal things from the humans to live. I was ok at this point.  We have conversations here in the Rogers all the time about what constitutes stealing.  If the theater has a sign out front that says no outside food and you bring in candy then you are stealing from the theater.  If you use coupons fraudulently then you are stealing.  If you would not take it if Jesus himself were next to you then it's probably stealing.

The little family gets in trouble and is in danger because the daughter disobeyed her father.  I was incredulous.  This clearly was not ok.  The daughter deliberately disobeyed her father's order not to contact the humans thereby causing the family to take refuge in another house.  This made an after movie conversation more than necessary.  There is always a reason that parents tell their children not to do something.  Children need to respect their parents enough to follow their decisions. 

I'm not talking about blindly following.  Children can respectfully ask why & parents can explain it .  In the end though, children need to be taught to respect their parents & be confident that their parents know more than them when they make a decision.  This was not what the movie espoused at all.

In the car on the way home, I nonchalantly asked what they thought of the characters.  I voiced my concern with some of the daughter's decisions.  We talked about her morals and the consequences of her actions on not only herself but her family as well.  We talked about how sometimes we get caught up in other people's sin.  We need to remember that our decision can affect not only us but others as well.

Was it worth it to watch the movie?  In a round about way, yes.  It facilitated a rather lively discussion with my children that I probably wouldn't have thought to have at any other time.  It gave them concrete examples in a safe environment of how one person's actions affect others.  Sometimes it's worth it to see a questionable movie just to ignite a discussion. Call it character training.