Accepting The Unacceptable, Parenting Autism, Epilepsy, Special Needs

018 | How Our Marriage Survived Special Needs Parenting - Zach Warshawsky

Zach Warshawsky shares what he has learned about marriage and how hes managed to put his marriage first despite the medical diagnosis of our daughter Remy. Here are some of the links mentioned in the episode The router we use to manage parental controls for our teenagers. https://jodyslinks.com/disneycirclerouter It allows us to manage the amount of time they get and when they get it. It has filtering to block all the explicit content and you as a parent have complete control on thei...

017 | Self Care

Do you ever feel overwhelmed, stressed, bitter and resentful at doing the mother thing? When your kids act up or have a meltdown and you have only had 2 hours of sleep, how does that make you feel? I know for me that when I don't practice self-care, that's when the stress and overwhelm come in.  Today we are talking about the importance of self-care when raising a child with a disability. If we don't take care of ourselves and treat us with love, we may not be healthy enough to reall...

016 | Special Needs Siblings, How To Balance Siblings Needs

One of the biggest questions I get asked, is "How do you do it? How do you balance everyone and have a daughter with special needs?" The short answer is "whats balance?"  Being a parent is hard stuff. Trying to raise children, giving them equal attention and time is the trick we are all trying to figure out.  I have come to learn that it's not about being equal, but it's about nurturing each child's needs. In this episode, I talk about how we as a family have managed and not managed....

015 | So What Had Happened Was... (update on the podcast)

This weeks episode didn't go to plan. I recorded it, edited it and then just wasn't feelin it.  I want to always make sure that you get the very best content so I decided not to publish something I didn't find the value in. So today's episode is all about the direction of the podcast.  Heres a little secret, the next direction is up to you.    For the next several episodes, I will talk about what you want to hear.  So here is your homework. Email me and let me know what you want m...

014 | Autism, Nonverbal Communication

  One of the first warning signals we may have that our kids have autism, is the fact that they may not be able to speak. We look at the parenting books and see our kiddos are behind. We worry that they may never catch up. What if they are "non-verbal" forever? I think a lot of times, we skip ahead. We worry that they may never talk but before anyone learns how to talk, they learn how to use non-verbal communication.  Non-verbal communication is things like gesturing, pointing, using...

013 | Autism, How To Teach Your Child To Play With Others

012 | Autism, How To Get Your Child To Communicate

I remember when Remy was first diagnosed with autism. The first concern I had was that she wasn't able to communicate. If she couldn't communicate, she would never function in a way that could get her through life. But what I didn't realize is that communication and speaking weren't exactly the same thing. There are plenty of people who can speak but they aren't using words to form thoughts and communicate them to another person. I never knew what a complicated task that was for our brains...

011 | Autism, How To Get Your Childs Attention

Kids learn the most from watching others. They learn facial expressions, tones, sounds, speech, emotion etc.  Our kiddos with autism have a harder time paying attention to all the details from people. This makes it harder for them to learn from others.  A child with autism can become fascinated with an object or toy and miss out on essential learning opportunities that adults and other children can provide.  For parents, learning how to be interesting enough to get a child's attention ...

010 | Autism, Our Story

Autism has become a very big topic of conversation in our society. I never really cared about the conversation to be honest, until I wondered about my daughter.  The thought of autism is scary. We as a society fear it because we don't understand it. I know I didn't.  With Remy having seizures due to a genetic disorder, I never could have imagined that autism would also be a part of her world. But here we were seeking out a diagnosis and coming to terms that our child might be autistic.  ...

009 | How I Use Cannabis For My Daughter's Seizures

Cannabis There's so much talk about cannabis with our kiddos seizure disorders. It's also a big topic for kids with autism too.  Since our daughter Remy started having seizures, the number one topic people bring up is "Have you tried cannabis?" The reason is that medical marijuana has been successful at treating some of the worst types of epilepsy that the other pharmaceuticals cant touch.  Its only natural that we would be curious to see what it could do.  So in this episode, I t...

008 | Im Not Doing So Well At This Mom Stuff

Today I had a hard day. Do you ever have those days where you just feel like everything you do is wrong? You don't have anything figured out? The laundry is piled up, You haven't read your kid a bedtime story in forever, you haven't showered in 2 days, motherhood isn't quite fulfilling your sense of worthiness, you are questioning if you are doing anything right.  I had that day today. The to-do list was longer than the completion list. Sometimes I feel like I should know how to juggle eve...

007 | Making Peace With Drugs / Pharmaceuticals / Medications

Having a daughter (she's 5) who has such severe seizures, our medication protocol is essential to be the very best. But I have to be honest, drugs scare me. There are so many side effects. I wish I could have the magic pill. The one that would cure Remy (my daughter) with zero side effects and we could just live happily ever after.  So today we are talking about how the decisions of our kid's medications are critical to get right, extremely scary and risky and how its always going to be an...

006 | Acceptance, Accepting the Child You Have

Acceptance sounds like a poetic and silly thing to talk about. Especially when we are talking about a child we haven't lost. Sure, we all know that you should accept your child. But what if they have a disease or neurological condition and you just can't see how its fair or how to get over it. You might be thinking, sure I accept my child no matter what, it's their disability that I don't accept.  What if I told you that if you don't accept their disability, you don't accept them. Ouch, t...

005 | Depression and Grieving the Child You Thought You Were Going to Have

Depression is the peak of grieving and almost guaranteed at some point in the journey of special needs parenting. Depression affects all of us, and the reason why it's important to talk about it is that there are ways out of it. We don’t have to be depressed forever even though sometimes it feels like we will. What I have learned about depression, is that getting through it takes work. It's not something that just goes away.   Getting to the acceptance stage of grieving is the most cru...

004 | Bargaining and Grieving the Child You Thought You Were Going to Have

Have you ever thought to yourself that you would give ANYTHING to cure your special needs child? Would you do anything to take their suffering away? Do you ever regret certain choices you have made or thought you have obviously done something wrong to deserve a child who is sick? In this episode, I talk about bargaining and grief. When you bargain, it's your way of trying to gain control of the situation. It makes you irrational and miserable because it never leads to anything but pain. ...

003 | Anger and Grieving the Child You Thought You Were Going to Have

When you are grieving for a child you THOUGHT you were going to have, Anger is a big part of that grief. For me, watching my daughter Remy suffer through multiple hospital stays, seizure after seizure and seeing the apparent intellectual disabilities unfold, I have seen my fair share of anger. But the anger comes out in subtle ways. Snappiness, resentment, jealousy, being short-tempered not just the outbursts you think of. When you realize you have no control over your child's health, it fee...

002 | Denial and Grieving the Child You Thought You Were Going to Have

Do you feel anger, jealousy, and resentment because your child isn't who you dreamed of when you thought about being a parent? Do you feel way over your head and that you and your child have been short-changed due to a medical diagnosis? Grieving over a life you prepared for and fantasized about is totally normal and actually very healthy. Us moms feel such shame around grieving because we are supposed to be thankful and grateful for what we have. But sometimes life has other plans, and we a...

001 | Why Getting a Second Opinion is so Important

The topic of getting a second opinion isn't the most glamorous, I totally get it, but there is a reason I am starting here. When Remy first started having seizures, we assumed that the neurologist at the hospital (who sees thousands of epilepsy cases a year) would be able to guide us and show us the way. She was supposed to know everything there was to know about epilepsy and seizures and treatment, but as we found out, not only did she not know, she overlooked some critical information th...

000 | All About The Show - Starting From The Beginning

All About the Show - Starting From the Beginning When I first started on the road of being a mom of a child with autism and epilepsy, I was a fish out of water. I had no preparation or warning and not a clue of how to be the mom I needed to be for my daughter who obviously needed so much care. Out of desperation, I turned to every single place I could possibly think of to find answers. I came up pretty short and was shocked that something so known as autism or epilepsy had so few resources...

Update and Status of the show

I wanted to pop in here and give you a little update and tell you that I am just taking a little break. I haven't officially announced the show yet and I wanted to wait until after the holidays to do it. The official launch date of the podcast will be on Sunday, January 6th. The announcement will be on Monday the 7th. You can follow me on Facebook or Instagram to see the announcement.  Following that announcement will be the episode on Acceptance and grieving. That's the best one yet and w...

Defining the Title of the Show