5 mins read

The Value of Pictures for Children With Special Needs

Autistic kids are visual learners. They often understand and can handle visual input much better than they can absorb visual or auditory words. Our child has been receiving autism-related services since he was fifteen months old. We learned a long time ago how to help him when he’s struggling, we use pictures. One way was social stories. What is a social story? A social story is a tool used to help a child who struggles to understand their social world. Social stories do this by showing a child a social situation explained in pictures.

7 mins read

Obsession with Our Children’s Happiness Could Doom Them

Ive been doing it all wrong.This whole parenting gig.Seriously. After I read the cover story of the July/August issue of The Atlantic, which told parents that if youre focusing on trying to make your kids happy youre likely gearing them up for future therapy sessions to undo all the super-positive, encouraging blather youve been feeding them, I was initially ticked off.

4 mins read

Does My Butt Look Big?

Do you remember the humorous Kellogg commercial featuring men sitting around a bar obsessing about their bodies as though they were women? It certainly got a laugh, but was it actually funny? Women and body image is complicated at best. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? If your response is negative, know that you are not alone. For many of us, the reflection we see tends to be as distorted as …