Tag Archives: reality

upcoming visit to see our son for Christmas

Today, I leave for the community where our son is in a residential facility.

It is 500 miles each way.  10 hours by bus.  When you have an auto-immune illness the trip takes twice as long. Frequent breaks are needed.  Lots of rest periods.  If I drive, I take it in two days with a hotel stay each way.

In the end, it will be worth it.  This is the eleventh month of him being in this particular facility.  Every time we talk he mentions that he wants to come home.  While I wish that I could be bringing him home this trip, in reality that isn’t going to happen.  While he has made significant gains, it isn’t enough.  When the time comes, we will need a step-down facility.

A step-down facility is a transition between the current environment, and home.  An intermediate placement if you will.   If he comes close to home, then we can do home visits, and try to work him back into the school.

Because of the distance, my health, the kids in school and the weather, we have to visit him when we can.

With regret, mom and the other kids won’t be with me this trip.  I will be taking lots of photos of David.  He will get some Christmas presents this weekend.  The rest he will have to wait until closer to Christmas to open.

So with thoughts of safe travels, Christmas in New Orleans Squarewish me luck.  It is my belief that the trip will be without incident.  I hope my visits with David go well.

Honestly?  Going to see him, even though it is difficult to do, is so worth it.  I wish that we could afford to see him more frequently.  Mom and Aunt went to visit in October.  So we do get out there.  We have been there 4 times this year.  While it is a far cry from the weekly visits we had in the prior facility, it is better than nothing.

His behavior dictates the length of his stay.  Stability is the goal.

I am going to use the R word.

Mental Health Awareness Ribbon

Mental Health Awareness Ribbon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

[kc_background_pac_3_underline_3 size=”35″ color=”#000000″ ]Reprehensible[/kc_background_pac_3_underline_3].

I can define reprehensible, or you can look it up over at Dictionary.com.

Talk of gun control legislation without talk of Mental Health service expenditures is reprehensible.

We can not have one conversation without the other.  It would be irresponsible of our society to assume that guns are solely to blame, just like it is irresponsible to automatically assume that Autism is what caused the horrible tragedy in Newtown.  I think that in time, the killer will show through records that he had severe mental health issues above and beyond an autism diagnosis.   Autism is not the cause here.

I am certain that I will receive hate mail for this.  I seriously doubt that there will be significant legislation that with-stands constitutionality tests by the Supreme Court.  Whatever law our congress comes up with will be debated for years.  Now, I am not saying that gun control legislation is not a good move, nor am I saying that it is.  I am an advocate for responsible gun ownership.

We need to remember a couple of things regarding Newtown.  The killer, didn’t own the guns.  According to news reports he stole them from his mother.

Before we can talk successfully about anything, we need to let the Newtown community mourn the loss of the innocent.  The heroism of the teachers and the heroic efforts of the first responders in their attempts to save the survivors.

[kc_background_pac_2_highlight_3 size=”36″ color=”#000000″]I know this – [/kc_background_pac_2_highlight_3]

My son has Autism.  Largely he is bashful in most social situations.  It is through the efforts of his classmates in our school district that he is as socially aware as he is.  Being the father of kids on the spectrum, and kids with severe mental health issues, I hold the mental health industry to a higher standard, as I believe we all should.  We need to advocate for better services for those with mental illness.  We need to advocate for better access to those services.

Like everyone I have talked with about Newtown, I am both shocked and deeply horrified by the situation.  As a parent of a kid with autism, I am also horrified that people would assume that a child with autism is a violent child.

[kc_background_pac_1_background_10][kc_background_pac_1_heading_10]Wait!!![/kc_background_pac_1_heading_10][kc_background_pac_1_sub_heading_10]One other thing to note[/kc_background_pac_1_sub_heading_10][/kc_background_pac_1_background_10]

In today’s technological age, the media, (any news organization) are very quick to jump on the bandwagon with experts and pundits who try to articulate meaning where none can be found with a lot of study and investigation.  The media was for the most part irresponsible in the way they handle some aspects of this incident.  Releasing the name of the gunman, on the day of the incident was premature.  Saying that the gunman was autistic was premature.  Saying that the gunman killed his mother at the school was premature.  Saying anything, beyond “There was a shooting at a school in Newtown, CT.”  is premature.  Speculation is causing a lot of issues right now for people on the spectrum as well as those who work with them.

As citizens of the world, we need to hold our news organizations to a higher standard.  We should not be sensationalizing the Adam Laska’s of the world.  The conduct of the media in this matter can also be deemed reprehensible.

The opinions stated are my own.  I have a brain and am not afraid to think for myself.

 

Newtown

Newtown (Photo credit: jdolan)

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Reblog: What the Hell? Witholding a High-School Diploma for “Cursing”?

Maybe my stint in the Marine Corps has warped my perspective on what constitutes bad language. But I found the story of an Oklahoma high-school valedictorian whose diploma was withheld by the school principal because the girl “cursed” absolutely outrageous.

Kaitlin Nootbaar, 18, was giving a speech to the Prague, OK, high school class of 2012 and talked about the difficulty she was having setting on a career choice. “How the hell do I know? I’ve changed my mind so many time,” she said.

According to her father, Kaitlin(who graduated with a 4.0 average) was referencing the book, Eclipse–volume three in The Twilight Saga series. In the movie, there’s a scene that takes place at a high school graduation, and one of the characters–also talking about career choices says this:

“When we were five, they asked us what we we, theranted to be when we grew up. Our answers were things like astronaut, president, or in my case, a princess. When we were ten, they asked us again and we answered – rock star, cowboy, or in my case, gold medalist. But now that we’ve grown up, they want a serious answer. Well, how ’bout this: who the hell knows? This isn’t the time to make hard and fast decisions, this is the time to make mistakes.

As the father of two college students, I think that remark is dead on. And given how popular the Twilight movies and books have been, I guarantee that Kaitlin’s classmates got the reference.

So the question is this: What the hell is the matter with the school administrators? Why are they so out of touch with popular culture that they didn’t catch the literary reference?

 

 



Armin Brott

 

Armin Brott

Dad of three, best-selling author, speaker, nationally syndicated columnist and radio host, Marine Corps vet, spokesperson, and, generally speaking, a pretty nice guy.

Website: http://www.dadsoup.com

Twitter: mrdad

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta