You get the email and your eyes light up! "SPECIAL NEEDS SUMMER CAMP!"
Sigh... Few camps accept kids with the intense needs and behaviors many of our children present. I know of a camp in my state for girls on the spectrum. I have 3 girls on the spectrum!! When you read the requirements you realize, they want girls who are nothing like my three girls.
What do you have in mind for the summer break?
Kim
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A local art center has embraced the autism community by waiving the age limit for ASD kids and educated the staff on autism as well. They offer half day camps and you can pick which weeks you want. It is quiet and surrounded by a park. The college students who run the classes are awesome.
We will work on job skills by volunteering at church and I have started a business of selling used items on EBay. So we will be going to garage sales and the Goodwill Outlet to look for inventory. Also swimming, kung fu, Planet Fitness(much friendlier than any YMCA), art club and drawing lessons with another autism mom, continue work on lawn mowing, using a broom properly, daily living skills, running and forcing her to help me in the garden. Also $1 movie days at the theatre are good. Library had free 3-d printer classes last year so I'll see what they offer this summer.
Posted by: AMD | April 07, 2017 at 05:40 PM
Maybe we should all start a home exchange - all dancing Autistic houses...but then you think logistics and it frys my thought pattern to a burnt chip..easier to stay at home at least when he decides to push the barbie over it will be ours and not somebody elses - oh! happy memories?
Pharma for Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: angusfiles | April 07, 2017 at 05:03 PM
Ha! You must have been watching me as I opened yesterday's mail, Kim. A lovely brochure from the largest special needs org in our area, asking if we'd like to sponsor a special needs camper for the summer! Yippee! Beautiful photos of special needs folks smiling, laughing, playing, swimming...and no place on earth for my mostly nonverbal son who is prone to life-threatening seizures and violent outbursts.
Honestly, this all just starts to seem like we are living in some parallel universe version of the Seinfeld Soup Nazi episode. "No camp for you!" ("No program for you! No job for you! No life for you!"...)
Just shoot me now.
Posted by: I Give Up | April 07, 2017 at 03:21 PM
swim classes and day camps for art or music. I wish there were a special-diet-friendly camp for special-needs kids around here--or even just a day program. We will be moving to a bigger city that does have summer programs for kids with developmental delays.
Posted by: Carol Cordero | April 07, 2017 at 03:19 PM
It is indeed difficult to find a summer camp that will accept our children. Several years ago we enrolled our daughter in a camp which I shall not name. It employed an "Inclusion Counselor" who assured us that her autism would be no obstacle. But 36 hours after we dropped off our daughter, the Inclusion Counselor expelled her. (I know it sounds like a Woody Allen joke.)
But we salvaged the summer by moving quickly and enrolling her in Ramapo for Children, which I can't praise more highly. It's a camp in Rhinebeck, NY for autistic and at-risk children:
http://www.ramapoforchildren.com/
Both our daughters spent many terrific summers there. But I'm sure this session is filling up, so if you're interested, you should move expeditiously.
Posted by: Jonathan Rose | April 07, 2017 at 10:52 AM
Well, camp is out of the question. We haven't found one either. His diet and environmental issues are too intensive for people to understand let alone execute. Hotels, airplanes, and moldy cabins are chemical/allergy boxes that ensure the following 3 days will be hell on earth.
Its going to be weightlifting, studying for PSAT, and trying to coax him out of the house at least once a day. Walk around the outside of the mall on your own, extra points for saying hi to someone you recognize. Go for a run. Thick science fiction novels. Waiting by the mailbox for National Geographic magazine. Swimming maybe once a week so long as the chemicals aren't too bad.
We will find moments of joy in our lives....and I will curse that pediatrician to the day I die.
Posted by: kws | April 07, 2017 at 09:36 AM