Thriving in the Midst of Chaos: Parenting With Special Needs Kids

Episode 10: Imma Gonna Drive My Car

In those episode, we discuss the constant grossitude of our car: the piles of seltzer carcasses, rotting food, phantom smells... Our children only semi-dislike car rides, but Alex now throws toys, steals Benji's toys, fusses, then falls asleep. Benji occasionally plays with toys, but truly loves looking at the vehicles passing by. His favorite car ride past time is asking millions of questions. However, they are all difficult existential questions with no definitive answer, so after hour 3 of question time, it gets rough. Zoning out helps us manage the car rides, although as a passenger, Jess likes to flip through magazines or play games on her phone while answering questions. At some point, Jess acts out different characters, or makes Benji "mommy" so she can drive Benji nuts. As a last resort, we tell him it is unsafe to distract the driver. Alex is portable, so it is easy to get him into and out of the car. Benji is tougher, as he is a loose cannon and likes to run into the street and try to hug cars. Plus, he has to inspect everything that ever existed, so it is a lot harder to get him into or out of the car. Throwing toys, asking us to pick things up, having meltdowns, asking us to dig for snacks and wipes, and asking us to look at things behind us make the driving much less safe. Our longest car ride was 5 hours, which was brutal, due to lots of screaming, Benji having croup and Alex having severe diaper rash. We are going to hold off on long car rides for a while.

Affiliates:

Melissa and Doug

Fat Brain Toys

 

Links:

The Thinking Atheist

Email us if you have any questions or ideas!

We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group! Please subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast. 

Show Music: Lion Roar: "Lion Roar" by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Intro Outro: "Intro Outro 2" by Mattias Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Theme Song: "90s rock style" by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Self Care Song: "Green and Orange No Water" by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple

Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.

Copyright 2019 Jessica and Lewis Temple

Episode 9: Is Eating In Restaurants Worth The Stress?

In this episode, we discuss our experience eating out in restaurants with our special needs children. We converse about the amount of food and table items thrown on the floor, the salting and peppering of the table (ours and other people's), the yelling, the running, and the fussing. We talk about the places we have taken the children to eat and how poorly it has gone. We chat about how covered in food we are and how covered the children are. We converse about how many children are usually in our laps. We discuss coping with going out to eat with children. We talk about how we handle the waiting times and how we keep the children busy. We also discuss if we as parents ever get to eat or taste our food.

Email us if you have any questions or ideas! We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group! Please subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast.

Show Music: Lion Roar: Lion Roar by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple

Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.

Copyright 2019 Jessica and Lewis Temple

Episode 8: Vacation, Trip, or Catastrophe?

In this episode, we discuss the 1.5 vacations we took, and shared horror stories about them (multiple emergency room visits). We discuss the expense and time drains of vacations, as well as expectations vs reality of the vacations. We reminisce about how hard it was to get any of the children to sleep, how none of the children ate food, and Jess was constantly covered in food. We share the activities in which we engage on vacations vs which activities we would like to do. We discuss the mess of nap-time, how noisy everything is at the beach, and discuss the merits of various modes of transportation. We ponder what it would be like to travel on a plane with our children. We also discuss the complete lack of enjoyment we gained from the trips.

Resources:

Eliana’s Light

Resources

Apply for support

 

Email us if you have any questions or ideas! We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group!

Please subscribe to our podcast in the Itunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast.

Show Music:

Lion Roar:Lion Roar by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias "MATTIX" Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple

Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.

 

Copyright 2019 Jessica and Lewis Temple

Episode 7: Language Regression and Balancing Parenting With Self-Care

In this episode, we discuss the language regression we observed in Alex and how we felt finding out how severe the regression was. We talk about our hypotheses for what might be going on and how we are attempting to assess and treat these impairments. We discuss the guilt and the sadness we experienced once we found out the results of the evaluation. We converse about listening to our parenting instincts when something tells us there might be something wrong. We also discuss balancing evaluations, parenting, and self-care.  

Email us if you have any questions or ideas!

We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group!

 

Please subscribe to our podcast in the Itunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast.

Show Music:

Lion Roar:Lion Roar by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias "MATTIX" Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple

Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.

Copyright 2019 Jessica and Lewis Temple

Episode 6: Make New Friends, But Keep The Old

In this episode, we discuss how family and friends reacted to the diagnoses of our children, some well and some poorly (read: unsupportive and invalidating). We talk about how coworkers reacted and which coworkers we chose to disclose to. We talk about how often we keep in touch with friends vs how often we see friends in person. We examine the pros and cons of old vs new friends. We discuss the crazy logistics of trying to get together with friends, and how long that can take to set up. We talk about what we typically do when we get together (mostly do things with the kids) and what we converse about (mostly the kids). We converse about which topics are fair game for us and which we tend to avoid. We speak about how to go about finding and making new friends and how we held on to them.

Links: 

DragonBallZ Parody: TeamFourStar

 

Email us if you have any questions or ideas! We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group!

Please subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast.

Show Music:

Lion Roar: Lion Roar by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias "MATTIX" Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple

 

Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.

Copyright 2019 Jessica and Lewis Temple

Episode 5: Bonus Episode. Child and Parent Shaming.  

This is our second mini episode. We discuss child and disability shaming (especially through children’s books) as well as parent shaming. We also discuss the sad fact that some providers for children with special needs do not accommodate for the extra needs of the children when scheduling appointments or making sure the children can be seen in their office.

 

Email us if you have any questions or ideas! We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group!

Please subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast.

Show Music:

Lion Roar: Lion Roar by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias "MATTIX" Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple

 

Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.

Copyright 2019 Jessica and Lewis Temple

Episode 4: Financing Children's Medical Conditions   In this episode, Jessica discusses paying for treatments for the medical conditions of her children and the lack of public/government funding to assist with the incredible expense. She discusses how expensive it can be, even with insurance. She discusses applying for things such as SSDI, to the DDA, DSS, LISS, and the autism waiver.   Links: Some of these links are specific to the state in which we live. However, you can google to find the most appropriate program for your state.  Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA)- There is one for each state.  Department of Social Services (DSS) Autism Waiver Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Autism Society Autism Speaks Pathfinders Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) Low Intensity Support Services (LISS) Medical Assistance      Email us if you have any questions or ideas! We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group!     Please subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast.    Show Music: Lion Roar: Lion Roar by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias "MATTIX" Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Outro: Hi Daddy by daveincamas under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)   Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple   Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.   Copyright 2019 Jessica and Lewis Temple

Episode 3: Getting a Diagnosis

In this episode, we discuss what kind of research we did to know who to go to with our concerns about our children (mostly searching the internet), and what type of doctors we went to in order to receive diagnosis for our children (developmental pediatrician, psychologist, physical therapist, and occupational therapist). We talk about the types of assessments the children went through (Physical therapy, Occupational therapy, Developmental evaluations, Autism testing, and Cognitive testing). We discussed the cost of testing and how long it took to receive the diagnoses. We talk about the whirlwind of emotions we felt when we received the diagnoses of stroke and autism, the lack of time we had to grieve, how difficult it was to cope with the diagnoses, and how we really didn’t have a lot of support helping us to get through these difficult times.

Email us if you have any questions or ideas! We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group!

Please subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast.

Show Music:

Lion Roar: Lion Roar by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias "MATTIX" Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple

 

Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.

 

Copyright 2019 Jessica and Lewis Temple

 

Episode 2. Going Down the Doctor Rabbit Hole

In this episode, we discuss the totally different experiences we had noticing things were atypical with each of our kids and what the push was to take the leap and get them evaluated. We reflect on how stressful the wait was before they were able to obtain an evaluation, and how difficult it was not only to cope, but to find the time, money, and energy to even try to cope with this waiting period. We also discuss how going to one doctor might send you down a rabbit hole of then going to see many different doctors and getting many different evaluations, some of which are accurate, others of which are totally wrong.

 

Email us if you have any questions or ideas! We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group!

 

Please subscribe to our podcast in the Itunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast.

 

Show Music:

Lion Roar:Lion Roar by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias "MATTIX" Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Outro: Hi Daddy by daveincamas under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

 

Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple

 

Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.

 

Copyright 2019 Jessica and Lewis Temple

 

Episode 1: A Different Kind of Perfect

In this episode, we discuss how hurtful and dangerous some terms for "special needs" could be, and how there is no real consensus about what is a good term for having different needs.

 

Email us if you have any questions or ideas! We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group! Please subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast.

Show Music: Lion Roar: Lion Roar by Iwan Gabovitch under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org)

Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple

Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment.

Copyright 2020 Jessica and Lewis Temple