Welcome to Autism Awareness Month!
- Betsy Ridgway, M.S.
- Apr 1
- 3 min read
Welcome to Freshness!
With our season of spring, we highly anticipate fresh beginnings! My newly designed Sparkling Hope website will be blossoming with new blogs and added resources. My new book is waiting to inspire and raise your awareness with tips and techniques for parenting our special needs kids! Becoming aware of our child's unique needs is the ticket to transformation. What's first on the journey to awareness?
First, Confusion!
As a new mom, within two years I was raising two brothers we adopted. Each had their own special needs, and life felt chaotic and confusing. I was at a loss for finding answers to their unusual and demanding behavior. Normal didn't exist and seeking help for their complex issues seemed fleeting.
Thirty years ago, our main source of education was reading books on the subject and trying to network with other moms with similar issues. Just about every mom I knew had a child with Autism. My younger son was cognitively and developmentally delayed due to a large brain tumor at eight months old. At age two, we celebrated his remission as we started the process of adopting his four year old brother, who suffered from emotional trauma. Although each son suffered from sensing processing issues, they were not labeled as Autistic. I was walking the road less traveled.
As I spent more time networking with other moms, I began to realize we all had more in common than I first thought. We all had to fight loneliness as our kids' lives kept us busy and isolated. Most of our kids also had social issues, leaving them lonely as well. We all led very stressful lives, which often ushered in marital conflict. Attending support groups tremendously helped me. Check out the Resource page under "Support Groups."
As my youngest entered high school, a strong desire was growing in my heart to help other moms. I had gained a lot of knowledge over the years attending our sons' Individualized Education Plans (IEP) meetings. During these stressful meetings, we sat at a large table with a group of school professionals to examine test scores and make conclusions about educational goals using the test score statistics. It was grueling, but I learned a lot!
I was blessed to have the knowledge and understanding of statistics derived from test scores. My math skill and heart for helping led me into helping teach parents this basic knowledge so they could communicate effectively at their child's IEP. They needed to know what services their child was legally entitled to.
For a few years I gained valuable knowledge of how to use new and innovative teaching techniques with high school students with learning abilities. When I realized that I could weave my educational knowledge and parenting expertise of our special kids into a book and website, Sparkling Hope was born!
We All Need a Friend on Our Journey!
As parents on this rocky parenting road, we all need support! My blogs and resources will help you discover everything from Autism Awareness, ADHD, and Dyslexia - to learning how to take a quick daily respite for your survival. No matter your child's diagnosis, you will find support here!
My book, created just for you, recounts my journey to hope, while highlighting the many scary and spectacular stories of raising our two very special gifts from God. THE SONG OF MY HOPE, How to Travel from Despair to Hope While Raising Your Special Needs Kids will help you find resilience in the face of exhaustion, unshakable peace during stress, how to strengthen your marriage and will guide you to become aware of purpose in your struggles.
I will be writing many more blogs, and since April is all about Autism Awareness, I will continue on this theme for the rest of this month. Make sure to come back! If there is a particular subject you would like me to research and write about, please contact me.
Click here www.SparklingHope.net for more support and inspiration!
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