Each Saturday I am going to post a link for Special Needs Bloggers Link Up: Gains and Struggles. Yes I realize I am a day late, but no time like the present to start this. I know I have talked about the Yippe Conference over the last few months. One of the things that I really liked was taking the time for our group to talk about the gains. It was amazing being able to share with people who understand that a Gain is a big deal. Not that people don’t understand, but some don’t understand how the littlest gain is a big deal in the special needs world. I don’t want to sugar coat things either so if you need support for a certain struggle. Well then you got it. It meant the world to me to have “like minded” people around me who understood what it is like to be a special needs parent. It became a new normal. The conference ended and we all still keep in touch via email/facebook/facebook group. I would love to see more of this in the blogging world.
I also created a Facebook group for Special Needs Bloggers so we can share our posts there and support each others blogs as well. At the bottom of the post you can link your post to the Gains and Struggles Weekly Link Up.
A couple weeks ago on my birthday a friend had called me to wish me Happy Birthday. I started talking to my friend about the Yippe conference. After I hung up my son said that I had better not sign him up for any more conferences like Yippe. There was a person he didn’t really care for there that pushed him out of his comfort zone. So I simply said to him that I signed us up for the conference for a reason. These were things that he needed to learn about. He then responded to me that I could teach him. I looked at him and said I can’t teach him everything. These were things that I had to learn to. He started to get snarky at first.
I said Dakota if you want to be able to make choices in your life you have to learn these things. He grumbled a bit. I then went on to the topic of guardian ship. I said I don’t want to have to take away his rights. I want him to have as many as he can possibly have. I started to explain that guardianship meant I had control over money and health care decisions. Out of the blue he said that is okay with me. I was really caught off guard because of the fact that I thought I was going to hear, I am 18 I can do whatever I want. I explained that I wasn’t make decisions to be mean. He said I understand. Again totally shocked me. He then started asking more questions about the guardian ship and was like I am totally ok with this. I don’t know where he will be when the time comes. He maybe able to do a lot more things then I think he can do right now. Time will tell. I felt the need to talk to him about it as I didn’t want anything to be a surprise to him later.
I also mentioned to him that I know he doesn’t like school work but it’s something that he has to do. He said well I don’t like all of it, but some of it. I was like, ok where did my son go?? Again I was totally surprised.
Tuesday we were working on some self advocacy skills. The topic was on career choices and there was a link where we could assess his likes and his good qualities and it would match him up with job suggestions. Well he scored pretty high in Arts and Technology. We got on the subject of possibly exploring photography a little more. So that is another elective I can add to our homeschool. We are working on Web Design and 3D Character Animation. Those are two things he has found interesting. So I am slowly learning things that he likes. It’s like picking tooth and nail to get answers from him, when he doesn’t know himself. I also learned he seems to like Science a lot more then I thought. He like history as well. So that is a plus.
What you don’t understand is that serious conversations are not something we have a lot of. I get a lot of sarcasm and talk back a lot of the time. So this was really HUGE!! The fact that it happened on my birthday made it the best present ever that no money could ever buy.
Do you have a gain to share? Are you struggling with something?
To join the link up make sure you share your post on a gain or struggle. Stop by and visit other people who have joined the linky. The link will be open until Friday night and it will close. New link will post on Saturday.
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