Addressing Parental Concerns, Knowledge is Power. Communication is the Key

It takes a lot of courage in today's world to be brutally honest. To basically expose the raw, true feelings you have will open you up to commentary, more so then ever with social media! And to go even further, and "open up" in your own community, your back yard, to possible even further potential commentary from your fellow neighbor, that takes courage.

Opening up from the heart, and sharing your perspective can create a fury of negative comments. Add the factor of a special needs kid, and you can hear a wide variety of comments, as I have thru the years - in both private, catholic and public school arenas. When my younger son was in a class with a special needs boy, a big comment was about "inclusion" or "why are my kids exposed to special needs?"

I was very moved to receive this GREAT letter from a parent (name excluded) of a Down Syndrome boy in our Kindergarten class. My younger son has provided a lot of information about this in hos daily report" after school. How the day went, What we learned, and play time with new friemd. He has also learned about Down's in class, but it was so refreshing to get a letter addressing parental questions and concerns - directly. Parent to parent... BRAVO!


Addressing Parental Concerns, Knowledge is Power, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

Sometimes there isn't enough communication about the important stuff and supporting our special needs community. I did email the mom "kudos" on her really well written letter addressing curiosity and questions. I just had to share...

If you are reading this post, please post a comment below on what you liked - or didn't  - about this read. Does the topic interest you and you want to know more? Submit a question and I am happy to tackle it.

I do feel that's it's often unfortunate that these letters even have to go out, however Downs Syndrome and special needs situations are beyond the experience (and therefore the understanding) or many families. However, even with out the knowledge, empathy should always be present.

All you need to do is say "Hello." If you can't say hi, at least smile in their direction. Don't exclude a special needs kid because of how they look or talk, that is a CHILD who wants compassion as much as "normal" looking kids do.

I've made plenty of mistakes in the special needs arena (like telling a new mom of a Down's baby that she looked great {having lost all the pregnancy weight}, she replied Honestly: it was due the depression she was coping with and sitting crying on the shower floor - insert foot in my mouth!), but I correct my own ignorance, learn from experiences, and most importantly try to exemplify good, true, loving behavior for my kids to observe. Like simply saying "hello!"

(As for all those complaints, it's often what those yelling the loudest don't see. A little kid, who is just a little different. Who hugs, smiles and can share just like their kids. . . It may take them a little longer, or they may be shy at first. But the real problem here is not the special needs child, the real problem is us parents, who can't see beyond their illness/disability. My kids luckily just see their friend!)

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Our family has had many adventures through the years. Mom, the @Minstr0Interior had an a-ha moment . . .  Suddenly I See what we will have filled our life with, ADVENTURES! We travel, craft, sing, dance, collect insects and spend loads of time together. Sometimes too much time together. Our kids have recently begun to document their own adventures, and so this channel was born. Enjoy our adventures. Or not. WANT MORE? If there is a blog post accompanying this video we will share it here. Sometimes we will include the ingredients list of the craft or recipe, or the itinerary of our trip. In the meantime click play. 

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Sorting School Work that comes Home and Our Word Wall

My younger son is in Kindergarten and comes home with lots and lots of paperwork! His teacher has a great approach to keeping monthly Math Journal where the kids do math work nearly everyday. She's thematic so we have Winter based projects, like Penguins theme or the Gingerbread man. Then there is my favorite work - popcorn words - which have allowed us to build our word wall.

One year later.

I often find my younger son standing in front of the wall, where we have taped up his word projects that he taped and wrote, and he is reading his words! My favorite moments are when his lil' sister stands next to him repeating what he says.

Most recently my younger son read a bedtime book to me!! It was "Hop on Pop." He needed some prompting to sound out words like WHere and THere, and then after we read the page with corrections he said: "Mom, I got this." And he reread the page again on his own, sounding out the words. I know now that my happiness tears were because I was so proud of his determination to reread the page correctly and without help!

Sorting School Work that comes Home & Our Word Wall, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

The "popcorn words" strategy that his Kindergarten teachers uses is not a rote memorization technique. The kids interact with the words, building them by cutting out and sounding out the letters and words. My older son had to memorize 150 words in his Kindergarten class, he also had to write sentences even tho he wasn't sounding out words (as we wrote because I didn't know better as a new mom). 

Older son didn't read until 1st grade. I can see the difference in how they learned the words and did and didn't interact with the words directly impacted how they learned to read, and how quickly.

This other photo is of my younger sons school work. I kept many pages of my older sons school work with his binder bursting at the seams. My younger son will have photos of ALL his work with select pieces he and I choose as our favorites in his binder. 


Sorting School Work that comes Home & Our Word Wall, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

I just love when the kids hit these milestones with leaps and bounds.  

Update: In 2015 My younger son entered school "behind" in reading (level B instead of C). He has since caught up and made leaps and bounds in reading. More importantly he loves books. And now that he has started reading he is reading by choice, for his own pleasure. 

I have my older sons 150 kindergarten sight words which we use to supplement his school list in 1st grade this year. Learning those base of sight words really did make a smoother reading transition for my older son. At the time i was anti-flashcards, feeling they PUSH information versus actually learning it. I was wrong. I think flashcards and sight words have a place...we just have to make it fun. 

• Play memory with the sight words
• Speed race once my son learned 60-70% of the words list
• and learn it in manageable portions of about 5-8 words per week.
• Keeps last weeks mastered words and add more words next week, now having 10-16 words. 
• Continue every week. Through summer as well.

Make Mistakes, Breathe, Reflect and Laugh.Out.Loud.

Crib Converts to a Junior Loft Bunk Bed for Younger Son

Younger Son wanted a bunk bed for his birthday. And then Older son wanted one too. We started talking more and more about his birthday and we decided we would celebrate on our trip to Jamaica (which you can read about our Packing Guide for Travel with Kids on that trip here).  We tabled the bed discussion so I could start my mommy homework. A low cost bunk bed option. I never want to spend a lot of money. And, soon, I'll start posting all the furniture - PERFECTLY GOOD FURNITURE - that people put in there alleys around Chicagoland. I have a few pieces in my home, sshhh, don't tell husband.

I first looked online at retail ideas. So I could see what's trendy, price ranges, and get inspired. After reviewing simple loft beds, I felt guilty spending even one penny let alone $200 when we have great perfectly good beds at home. My older son has a beautiful hand me down wood frame, younger son has his fire engine bed, found in said alley, and baby girl has her crib (a family hand me down from when my Older son was born).


This is the original crib assembled as a crib. The photo is from when my young son was a baby and the mattress support was attached high on the support beams. 

I didn't include traditional wood option bunk beds because those were waaayyyyy out of my budget. I did save birthday money for some time and had about $500. . . however, we have perfectly good beds at home. Also the wood options are bulky chunky and take up way too much room. I also wanted to take advantage of the high 9 foot ceilings we have in the bedrooms.

Then I hit Pinterest for more ideas. And then Amazon, and then Ikea. I did find some nice simple steel framed Bunk and Junior Bunk Beds for $100 each. Again, the rather specific mom that I am, some would say very Type A, I would want new mattresses (latex of course) and now we are paying $500 PER mattress on sale at my wholesale find price.

UGH! I realized this is not the right decision to buy BRAND NEW BEDS when we had perfectly good furniture at home. What a HYPOCRITE I am trying to be cost conscious, environmentally aware, recycling, blah, blah, blah and here I am shopping.

I did find a few ideas on Pinterest, dresser conversion to changing tables, parents who built frames for bunk beds they wanted. Even craigslist had some great gently used versions. But - still NO - spending too much.

Then it was bedtime one night, mundane usually. I was changing baby girls diaper and my older son was hiding in the "dungeon" under her crib. I was already starting the consider the time I'll need to convert her crib into a toddler bed. This was a selling option of the crib a few years ago. And it hit me - as I thought through the toddler bed conversion instructions - to "reverse engineer / assemble the crib."


Crib Converts to a Junior Loft Bunk Bed for Younger Son, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

How I Set Up My Junior Bunk Loft Bed from a Crib:
(basically I assembled the crib upside down)

- I could simply flip the crib upside down,  
- reverse the bed base upside down
- install the crib rail upside down

This would basically reverse assemble the crib upside down, elevated off the ground to a "Junior Bunk Bed Size."

Looks like a young boy sleeping in his crib. It's actually our Younger 5 year old son sleeping in his new (to him) converted crib to bunk bed. Super sturdy and safe!

So Now all we need is a ladder. See this post on how I made our Junior Bunk Loft Bed ladder for under $8.

NEW UPDATE :: YOUTUBE CHANNEL INFO ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT BLOG

Our family has had many adventures through the years. Mom, the @Minstr0Interior had an a-ha moment . . .  Suddenly I See what we will have filled our life with, ADVENTURES! We travel, craft, sing, dance, collect insects and spend loads of time together. Sometimes too much time together. Our kids have recently begun to document their own adventures, and so this channel was born. Enjoy our adventures. Or not. WANT MORE? If there is a blog post accompanying this video we will share it here. Sometimes we will include the ingredients list of the craft or recipe, or the itinerary of our trip. In the meantime click play. 

From our family: 👍 + 🙃 + ❤️ ( Thumbs up, emoji face, hearts! )

See It Live >>> 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2mGpujQIVgxdfTImFnQuLA

Originally Published on February 1, 2014

Make Mistakes. Breathe, Reflect. and Laugh.Out.Loud