kids
sastyk | February 10, 2016We came back from the developmental pediatrician yesterday in a jubilant mood. Two of my sons came to us with significant developmental delays. Both of them have made wonderful progress, so last night was an occasion for celebration.
A lot of parents have children who are delayed in some ways. Some kids catch up. Some catch up part of the way. Some never do. It can be a huge struggle to trust that you are doing things "right." After almost 16 years of parenting kids with significant disabilities, I've come to feel that as long as you are in there working to support your kids and get…
sastyk | June 3, 2013So it has been an embarassingly long time since I last wrote anything for this blog. Long enough that I owe you all an apology. It started out simply enough - I did something I've done a million times, picked up a full water bucket for our cow. Not sure what I did differently, but I did something nasty to my elbow - my right elbow. I've had carpal tunnel syndrome for years from too much time writing books, and as long as I'm careful about not overdoing it, I can write, but this made it a lot harder and more painful. It also meant that when I did wedge my arm into a comfortable position…
sastyk | February 28, 2013No, not about sex, we've been having variations on that one for years. But Eli will be 13 in a couple of weeks, Simon is 11 1/2, Isaiah is 9 and Asher is 7. Meanwhile most of my recent placements have been school-aged kids, several on the cusp of (or over it) puberty and adolescence. So here's the most important talk I give to older kids - the one that I append to every other big discussion:
At the moment you think (and it will probably happen to you eventually - it does to most kids your age) "I am all alone" or "No one else has ever felt this way/done something this bad/been in as much…
sastyk | January 24, 2013I wrote this in 2008 - now Eli is a 5'9, 120lb almost-teen. We're getting ready to celebrate his bar mitzvah in a few months, which will be an adaptive celebration of not only what Eli can do, but also what our community has done for him over the years. Adolescence and autism combine with some pretty significant challenges, but Eli is also doing well and becoming an interesting and delightful big person. It seemed to bear repeating, since so many of us deal with these kinds of challenges and worries.
Yesterday morning, Eli put on snowpants and boots before he went outside. This was a big…
sastyk | January 18, 2013This is being sung in my household by a parade of boys carrying Baby Z. around and singing to him. I offer it to you, well, because I find it awfully amusing. Perhaps you can guess what's on the homeschool agenda here at the farm lately. It is mostly the work of the boys, with occasional suggestions from Mom and Dad.
(To the tune of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow")
You have bilateral symmetry/You have bilateral symmetry/You have bilateral symmetry/Two arms, two eyes, one spine.
You don't have radial symmetry/You don't have radial symmetry/You don't have radial symmetry/You are not a…
sastyk | January 3, 2013Brian Kaller has a fascinating and lovely essay about talking to his daughter about things that aren't real, or aren't here now. He begins from the point of Santa Claus, but the essay is a brilliant meditation on how a parent can talk to their children about the losses in the natural world in an age-appropriate way that doesn't terrify them.
Since she was a baby, almost every night, I told her stories about the natural world that existed until recently – trees so large many men could not form a chain around them, sloths that could look in her second-story window, beavers the size of cars and…
sastyk | November 9, 2012I wrote this five years ago, but I think all the discussion of free-range parenting merits a reconsideration. My kids are now 7, 9, 11, and 12, and they range much further and freer than they did five years ago, but still I'm more careful than my parents - not because of fear of strangers, but because of the number and speed of cars.
My neighbor and I were discussing a favorite children's book the other day. The book is Robert McCloskey's classic _Blueberries for Sal_ in which a mother human and her daughter go blueberrying, and have a minor mix up with a mother bear and her cub. The book is…
sastyk | October 21, 2012A week ago, one of our former foster sons celebrated his ninth birthday. He's now living with family in another state, and we have kept in regular touch. We sent a gift, a card with some pictures we thought he'd enjoy, and on the afternoon of his birthday, we tried to call and wish him happy, but the phone had been disconnected.
This was not a total shock. It had happened once before, during the process of getting him ready to move. His family loves him and he's very happy there - but they live very, very close to the economic margin. Both of the adults in his family have serious health…
carlyo | March 1, 2012
By: Gabrielle Levy, age 9, USA Science & Engineering Festival Volunteer and Ambassador, from Fairfax, Virginia.
It's time to learn about science! Let's visit the USA Science & Engineering Festival that returns to Washington DC on April 28 and 29. This year the USA Science & Engineering Festival will be held in the Washington Convention Center.
There will be everything from NASA, Universities, businesses, and famous television scientists. There will be many fun activities to learn about science in a fun way. Even if you think that you really do not like science, you will…
gregladen | February 26, 2012Budget Travel is running one of those ill-fated Internet Polls to help make a list of the top 15 places to go for kids before they are 15. Sort of like bucket list but instead of dying you turn 15. One small problem is that the Creation Museum of Kentucky has been intruding in the top ten, even top five, of this list. You need to go there and vote for something else! Like, all the attractions that you happen to like that are lower than the Creation Museum at the moment.
Click here to help save the Youth of North America from certain doom!
sastyk | February 6, 2012I am a homeschooler, a private schooler and a public schooler, and as such, don't have a strong ideological commitment to any of the above - I think they all have their place. My oldest son has severe autism and attends a private school for children with autism, but paid for and managed by the school district since they have no appropriate placement for him. My three younger boys are homeschooled, which we started not because of a dislike of public schools, but because our local school went to all-day kindergarten when my son Simon was ready to start. His birthday was late November, and at…
sastyk | November 14, 2011As you may remember, after waiting for a long time for a sibling placement, Eric and I took what was supposed to be a weekend placement of a little boy, M. back in October. We picked him up on a Thursday afternoon, anticipating he'd go to his father on Monday, but for various reasons, that didn't work out. They had already done an extensive search of extended family, and we were told that M. might be with us for the long haul, until his Mother was able to take him again - and for various reasons, it wasn't clear whether Mom would be able to take him back.
Now the first rule of foster…
sastyk | August 22, 2011Thursday was Eli's end of school graduation - and I thought in honor I'd re-run a post I wrote at ye olde blogge back in 2009. One of the hardest parts of addressing our changing world is dealing with shifting expectations and assumptions, and not getting mired down in sadness or anger. I think one of the things that has helped me is that we've had to do this in other ways before. This year is Eli's last one at the nurturing school for kids with autism that he's attended since kindergarten, and I found myself thinking about this a lot this week.
There are, of course, plenty of moments in…
sastyk | August 4, 2011I didn't expect to like _Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother_ - in fact, I expected to hate it. Instead, I found it funny, charming and moving - and give Amy Chua a lot of credit for having the ovaries to expose herself. I didn't just like the book, I loved it.
If that seems strange, give me a minute to explain before you assume I'm secretly Mommy Dearest ;-). I should note that I am not a Tiger parent, although Chua and I perhaps have more in common than you might think. You see, like Chua, I don't necessarily think that that assumptions of western parenting are always right. Like Chua, I…
sastyk | July 20, 2011I thought y'all might want to see as well as hear what's going on around here.
First, there's the baby goats:
(Asher with Midori)
(Isaiah holding Margarita)
(Poppy nurses little Grog. Stout is in the background waiting his turn.)
The baby goats aren't the only baby things we have in profusion:
(Marigold gave us 8 baby Cinnamon Rabbits, while Rosemary followed with another five.)
(Mama hen and her babies)
Meanwhile, the harvest is coming apace!
Everything is growing like weeds (including the weeds!). Check out the boys in the raspberry patch. They don't leave us much!
(Lavatera in…
sastyk | July 20, 2011Apparently Talisman Energy is taking the case for fraccing to kids in an adorable coloring book. As World Oil News reports:
Following Talisman Terry, children are simplistically introduced to the complex issues of unconventional drilling, pipeline
construction and land reclamation. Presented in before, during and after drilling images, the gas drilling process is introduced as
a gentle engagement with a natural environment. Post-drilling, a fountain-like rainbow appears in the distance and an eagle
soars over an innocuous-looking wellhead.
Of course it does! And the well goes on producing…
sastyk | July 13, 2011There's an article about a couple of recent cases charging people (read: mothers) with neglect if they (gasp!) dare to go to sleep around their children.
A couple of weeks ago in Delaware, a woman put her 3-year-old down for a nap and then took a nap herself. The 3-year-old got up and somehow escaped the house. After the girl was found, police charged her mother with child endangerment.
In New York, a woman's 3-year-old son got up in the middle of the night and wandered around. The woman woke up at some point and called the police. A man who had spotted the child had already called police.…
sastyk | February 15, 2011One of the projects we're working on is ways to bring more people to our farm. A lot of folks want to see what we're doing, and we've been contemplating open farm days, and possible ideas for classes we might teach. Well, while Eric and I were discussing it the other night, we came up with the idea of the "realistic farm tour" that gives people a real sense of what actually goes on on a farm - we could market ourselves a unlike all those other agritourism ventures that sell the dream - we sell the reality! Here are some of the activities we are sure people would pay us to do!
"Explore the…
sastyk | February 1, 2011Note: I wrote this piece in 2009, when my boys were younger. By now they chop food for dinner, Isaiah can indeed use the hatchet and Simon and Isaiah have their own flocks of birds, and the sale of any eggs they raise. The general principles are still the same. We still don't give allowances per se, but allow the children to do extra labor to earn money, over and above the chores they do simply because they live here. I found myself thinking about this book in the context of the discussion around the "Tiger Mother" book that advocates all of children's attention be focused on purely…
sastyk | January 11, 2011"It is soooo hard to wait, Mom!"
Isaiah is seven years old and when you are seven, uncertainty is torture. He asks me when the mail will get here 20 times a day, and can he go out and wait for the mail truck? I point out that it is 4 degrees F out there, and the mail won't be here for three hours, but he and his youngest brother still go out until the cold drives them back.
What's he waiting for? Not birthday presents or toys, he's waiting for the Murray McMurray hatchery catalog to come in the mail. Isaiah, you see, is a poultry addict, and his addiction is all my fault.
Last year we…