I’m launching a new autism related website today. It’s a bit of an experiment this one and as you might guess from the name (Autism Parents Every Day) its having a bit of a sly poke at a certain organisation that claimed it showed ‘autism every day’.
What I want from this site is two-fold. Firstly, from a presentational point of view I want a site that is very much like Twitter, or has status updates like Facebook. So whilst it is, in essence, a blog, its a blog that has very, very short entries but possibly on a more regular basis than a traditional blog.
Secondly, from a content point of view, I wanted to present the actual truth about parenting an autistic child. The bad points and the good points – so that it really is ‘autism parents every day’. Not ‘autism after we’ve done our hair and chased our autistic kids into their safe spaces and provoked them into meltdowns every day’.
So far, I’ve got four parents signed up and I’ve asked another few. There’s a few parents I haven’t asked because I know they value their privacy too much to talk about their families so publicly.
So go and have a nose around. See what you think.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Hey,
I was just wondering – how do you sign up for the site?
Great site,
Dad got reorganized yesterday went in off vacation to hear the presentation. That night tried to work on a deadlock problem from a satellite payload. K, the child was all smiles and climbed into Dad’s lap. Dad didn’t mind, as evertyhing he did K found amusing.
Next day K was up at 4:30 am sleep pattern has been somewhat erratic lately probably still adjusting after being sick and staying up to 4am a coiuple of nights ago. Dad also found rispridol pill stuck to one of the pages of good night moon.
Yes, I want to sign up as well
My 19 autistic son doesn’t like change. Today the 2 hour delay for weather upset his schedule of doing things at the same time on school days. However it is very rewarding when progress is made. He has mastered tasks like counting to 100, working part time stocking shelves with an aide. We have a long road ahead of us.
Sue P.
How do I sign on? I’ve been twittering about Jakie with his grown sibs…so I’ve already got the hang of the strategy 🙂 .
So many websites for neurotypical parents with autistic kids (at least I know YOUR parenting site will be a GOOD one)… and still such a shortage of websites for us autistic parents raising little neurotypicals. I guess if I want to see a website like that I’ll have to find the time to create it myself someday…
I want to thank all the above for offering to sign on. Right now, I want to take it easy on the new site. I’m a great believer in staged launches 🙂
Rest assured however, when I’m happy its stable then you guys will be my first point of contact. I have yet to hear from maybe five more people who may be joining in the meantime.
Someone should totally hit up Elizabeth Moon to contribute there. Her experiences with her son, which she shares on her blog, are very inspirational.
Hey cool! It should be fun to read.
Cute. I’d volunteer, too, but I’m not home most of the day. Running around to schools and therapies and whatnot. 😛
As a neurodiveristy believer and Hub member are you not obligated to offer ONLY the “good”, whatever that is, about autism disorder, and NONE of the bad?
But, if its OK to only check in a few times a day, I’d love to volunteer, too. 😉
Kev, I’m terribly interested in participating. Things have been rough lately and frankly, I haven’t wanted to post about it on my blog.
Dammit Harold, you’ve a mind like a steel trap man!! I would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for you durn kids!
BWH – I’ll mail you offblog.
It looks good :).
I love it, Kev!!! Very excited about it. Email me, please if you would, when you’re ready for more contributors. I’d be very interested in this.
Very interesting.
Kev, I am not one of the regulars, but I would be interested in participating if you feel at some point you would like more contributors.
If not, it still rocks. Thanks and best to you and yours.
When you get done with stress-testing and shaking the bugs out to your satisfaction, please consider including me.
I actually wish that I’d been capturing more of the small moments in Jared’s life up to this point. Unless something huge happened that warranted a full blog entry, a lot of the fun, horrible, crazy things that go on around our house have either been forgotten or gone unrecorded. So I’d love to change that.
I read through a few pages… fun! Did anyone else look at the tag stats and see the enormous popularity of coffee and sleep? : )
None of us deny the bad parts of autism just because we say it’s not *all* bad.
Harold – All parenting has good and bad. autistic or not. There’s tons of times when my mostly neurotypical daughters are much harder to take care of than their autistic brother. There’s also tons of times when they’re way easier. So ya, good and bad, the way I see it. I think the pro-neurodiversity group has to push the positive because there’s so much negative that gets publicized. I wince every time someone asks me how devastated I was when I found out my son had autism… I don’t understand it. He was delayed before the diagnosis. Ya, I was a little disappointed it wasn’t just adhd, as I understood adhd, and love adhd (his dad’s adhd), but devastated, no. Elated they were putting my son in a preschool program when he needed it? hell ya. My husband was a bit more negatively effected, but he tends to focus on the negative a bit more than I do and comes from a family that has traditionally been intolerant of differences/disabilities (as many differences exist in his family, it’s ironic, but that’s a whole other story). Fortunately, Tristan’s autism has opened their eyes. I’ve even seen them be more understanding to my husband’s step brother, who has down syndrome, since then. They’re more understanding of others with other disabilities. They’re the first to acknowledge any advances Tristan has made, while others still see a very autistic child. So autism, in many ways, is quite great, actually, at least for our family.
I twitter, too, and I’d love to sign up for this. I’d seen it in your sidebar, but didn’t find this post until today. You can see my twitter (which I frequently use twitter for complaining so it’s got a bit more of a negative skew, not necessarily of autism, but life in general) at http://twitter.com/navi