Today is grocery day in The Autism Dad household. It's everyone's favorite day of the week for obvious reasons. I try to time grocery delivery for once every week or week and a half. It's tough to keep groceries in the house but I manage. I want to give a huge shout-out to all of the delivery people who make this possible for my family and all the other families out there like mine. I'm so grateful for everything.
This week has been pretty rough, and that's by our standards. Thus far school has been a technical frustration for the boys and they're quickly forming an opinion that will be difficult to work through. The boys are very turned off to school at this point and there are only so many battles I can pick right now. I need this to work. Admittedly, I'm really frustrated with it myself and have questioned whether or not we chose the right school. I will say that the school staff seems really cool. I've spent a good bit of time on the phone with various teachers and administrators this week. Everyone is super nice and wanting the boys to have the best experience possible. These technical issues will hopefully be resolved in…
I'm not gonna lie. Distance learning has not been a positive experience thus far, but today is a new day. Elliott and Emmett are back at it and giving it yet another shake. Thus far, Elliott's been met with more frustration and technical issues but Emmett seems to be doing pretty good. He's currently in his first live lesson. They haven't been working but he was able to login today. Fingers crossed. So far so good for Mr. Emmett. Elliott was only able to get some of his work done because the rest wouldn't load. The plan is to try again in a couple of hours. The school sent a message saying that due to all the problems, the next 2 weeks will not count against the kids. We're using…
We just finished up the 2nd day of distance learning and it's been a disaster. The school appears to be over capacity and struggling to meet the demand. Yesterday was full of connectivity issues and today has been the same. We are getting messages that too many kids are trying to log in to the same live lesson and therefore Emmett was unable to gain access. Elliott tried to do his live session but the audio went out and the video kept freezing. I totally get that things happen and that they may be able to get these issues fixed. I get that. My concern is that autistic kids tend to generalize and their very first experiences with distance learning have been negative and frustrating. I'll be honest and say…
The new school year starts tomorrow morning and we're as ready as we're going to be. We spent the day working around the house. I sat down with each of the boys an went through school stuff. I tried my best to mentally prepare everyone for what feels like a monumental undertaking. Elliott and Emmett's schedules are going to be a little different because Elliott is taking more classes. I don't foresee that being a huge problem though. I understand distance learning will be challenging. The first couple of days will be spent going through the motions and getting accustomed to their new schedule. For the most part, the boys can create their own schedules. There are some live classes that are required but the rest of the time is…
It's been a really long night. I want to explain and at the same time, make an important announcement as well. I began my blogging journey over ten years ago with Lost and Tired. Eventually rebranded to The Autism Dad during my first separation in 2014 because I was starting a new journey. Eventually, I merged the two sites together and aside from a small gap of roughly six months, everything I've ever written is here. The missing six months happened during the merger and had to do with data corruption, if I recall correctly. During that period of time I wasn't really writing much anyway and while I wish I had everything intact, I've accepted this loss of data. When the sites were merged, I shutdown Lost and Tired.…
School beings on Monday and I feel woefully unprepared. I'm taking on distance learning this year because it's the safest option.
I'm spending way too much time on the phone today trying to manage several problems at the same time and it's just a lot bit overwhelming. While I'm on what feels like a perpetual hold, waiting for a representative to answer, I'm working on tomorrow's podcast release. The kids are really demanding my attention today and there's simply not enough of me to go around. I feel incredibly flustered right now because I can't seem to accomplish anything today. Trying to find a balance between work and kids is so difficult right now. I imagine it's only going to get more difficult as school re-enters our life. I can't record anything until my replacement Rodecaster Pro arrives today. It's being replaced under warranty and I'm sorta dead in the water…