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GeorgiaMom

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Everything posted by GeorgiaMom

  1. Yep, HIS WAY. I probably have Asperger's, too. I was considered "unusual" in my teen years. I spent more time at Radio Shack than at the mall. I struggled socially in many of the same ways my son does now. Fast forward. I found a wonderful husband who loves me as is. I'm one of very few geeky female software engineers in my workplace, and I love my job! I wish I had found MY WAY and the confidence to do what made me happy at a much younger age Your son is blessed to have a dad who loves him for who he is and just wants him to be happy. Way to go, Dad!
  2. Thanks, @RememberSchiff. I hope your son is doing well, also.
  3. I have a son with autism in Boy Scouts, and I emphatically would not want him used as a teaching aid to help the rest of the troop complete a badge. He's come a long way in his social skills and speaking skills. He doesn't want to be singled out as different. Marginalizing Scouts as teaching aids is a terrible idea. I'm glad my son just finished his Eagle project so we can be out of Scouts soon. Love our local troop and the kids. Exhausted trying to deal with our council. I finally quit volunteering early this year. Gobsmacked at the greed and stupidity of national.
  4. Hi Lori, and welcome! Your idea sounds great! I hope it works well for you. I proposed to my troop's leaders and parents that we ask the scouts to make and donate masks to a local school, as we are in a state of emergency where we live, and this is a needed service project. I offered to buy and deliver all materials and coordinate the project. It went nowhere. One parent liked the idea. The other EP mbc in the Troop rejected the idea and instead gave a suggestion incompatible with social distancing. The scoutmaster said he'd try to put something together after the pandemic
  5. This forum has been tremendous help in my position as merit badge counselor. Thank you. Our troop has many boys, including my son, who need to complete requirement 7 of the Emergency preparedness merit badge. We had a troop drill scheduled in March with another mbc that was canceled by covid. I'm a brand new emergency preparedness mbc trying to help the kids finish (along with about 20 other badges). As a voluntold merit badge coordinator over the last year, I have begged the other parents to step up and become MBCs, but none have. It's just the rapidly shrinking core of Life and
  6. My son is on the high functioning end of the autism scale, so this subject is near and dear to my heart as well. Scouting has been *so* beneficial to my son. I will be forever grateful to the adult leaders who have given generously of their time and patience to help him grow. That said, I have to point out a major problem with Stosh's reasoning. The "how do you know until you try" attitude hasn't come up with us in Scouts (thankfully), but it has in drama at school. It was an awful experience for our son and for us. He finished the year, but he never wants to be in the school drama pr
  7. I haven't read every response, but I get the gist that some are unhappy about the encroachment of "couch potato" activities into the Scouting program. I'd like to offer another perspective as the parent of a child with high functioning autism who *loves* being a Scout. Disability friendly activities like STEM can encourage involvement by scouts who might otherwise be intimidated if the program is too challenging. I get that you don't want to see the outdoor challenge dumbed down. I also know that the STEM portions of the program are a place where my child is comfortable and can build
  8. I have been a professional author for over 20 years. I have seen how piracy is killing the careers and income of many content creators, including mine. I just want to say thank you to those who treat my work and the work of others with honesty and respect. GeorgiaMom
  9. IM_Kathy, as a parent of an autistic scout with auditory processing disorder, I appreciate your concern about doing the right thing for your Scout. I hope we find similar advisors when my Webelo transitions next year. FWIW, here is my take: Neurological issues of any kind are complicated and may not make sense to volunteers or teachers. We are in a constant state of explaining what our son can and cannot do. We have dealt with this for years. Our son sees speech therapists and occupational therapists every week. Our son has splinter skills, which are common in autism. He c
  10. Jblake47, good job teaching your daughters to protect themselves. My own daughter is in jiu jitsu. I think your daughter said it best: "No problem, I avoid problem areas and know how to take care of myself." In my mind, a crew where girls are groped and the leadership does nothing is a problem area to be avoided. Ditto any group where a child is sent to the hospital and nothing is done. I hope scouts can maintain a better environment than this for kids. How do you teach skills and values to kids when they don't even feel safe? Ga mom
  11. It wasn't my intention to misuse the term "Asperger's". My son has only been diagnosed for less than a year, and I am definitely climbing a steep learning curve. He has other learning disorders, including auditory processing disorder and dysgraphia. It is hard for me to know sometimes where one disability stops and the other starts. Thank you, RememberSchiff, for an excellent description. My son is also great at visual learning, but terrible at auditory learning. It is very frustrating when a child can repeat pages he has read verbatim, and yet cannot repeat back a 3 item list that
  12. Thanks, Perdidochas. I should clarify that it is not my intent to bully any volunteer by requiring they follow my child't IEP. That's much more legalistic than what I had in mind. I wish we could find a reasonable compromise between the admittedly granular and legalistic requirements in an IEP and the whim of an MB counselor who told my friend that learning disabilities are just a crock, end of discussion. It is very frustrating as a parent to constantly have to prove that your child really does have a legitimate issue, and I wish there was a reasonable way to provide documentation.
  13. Perdidochas, the lawsuit might be via the Americans With Disabilities Act. A mental disability like Asperger's or autism is no different than being in a wheelchair in the eyes of the law. Businesses and groups that serve the public are required to make "reasonable accommodations", such as allowing the father to help with those portions of an MB the son can't do. As the mom of a learning disabled child, I understand the father's frustration. To put it another way, would you object to the father pushing a wheelchair bound son on a hike to help him earn his Outdoorsman badge? If not, the
  14. Dear Fox 76, I'm so sorry to hear about how the father of your Asperger's Scout is treating you. It's awful that a lawsuit is being threatened. Thank you for volunteering your time with the boys. As the mother of an Asperger's Webelo, I have a few thoughts: 1. I love the gentle and nonconfrontational approach RememberSchiff described. I understand the trepidation a parent can have about being "out" with their child's intellectual disability. I haven't yet told my son's den leader, although I know I shouid. It's scary. I don't know how he may react. RS is describing a gre
  15. Sending a boy to the hospital is a big deal. So is the groping of girls in his Venturing crew. This boy's exit is already overdue. I would not allow my son or my daughter to remain in an environment in which they are treated in this manner. As the mom of a Webelo considering whether or not he should progress to Boy Scouts, I look carefully at reports like these. I find it unimaginable that it happened at all, much less that any organization would consider keeping a member like this. If packs, troops, and crews continue bowing to kids like this, and their parents, soon this type
  16. Hard to imagine a worse response from the BSA. A "good civics lesson"? I would be livid if my child had been held at gunpoint like that. GeorgiaMom
  17. To their credit, a couple of EE parents did their darndest to get my CPAP to work on the only time I did take it on a campout. They got the blower working on a car battery, but not the heater. I just couldn't sleep with freezing air blowing in my lungs, so I basically stayed awake all night. That's the last campout I went on. I've researched thoroughly with my doctor, etc, and if there's a way to make a CPAP work on battery power, we can't find one. I doubt my daughter would go for a pit toilet, but thanks for the suggestion. I think the whole culture of our pack has issues. The two
  18. I should probably just find another pack. Ours is run by two men (cc and cm) and three women. It was five until my friend with the newborn and I quit. I felt like the pack scullery maid. The female leaders did *all* the cooking, cleaning, hauling, shopping, paperwork and fundraising, while the cc and cm ran the pinewood derby and basically relived their own scouting childhoods. Of the five women who stepped up, all had younger children and babies. Sorry, but my three year old daughter just won't use a cathole in the woods. Fact of life: most women, especially those with young kids and b
  19. Dear chagrined Chair, I had a similar experience when volunteering at church years ago. It is dehumanizing. I get it. He is married. You are married. You're a mom volunteering. He has no business whatsoever behaving so crudely toward you. As a parent, I also would not want this lech mentoring my son. Ick It's not a petty concern, even with the cor's heart attack. They are two separate issues. The co should appoint an interim cor. In the meantime, there must be someone with the co who can hear your concerns. It sounds like the whole troop is a mess. If you can, I would consider f
  20. Yes, I have a medical issue. The pack leaders still asked me to do six different jobs last year because they badly needed the help. Why am I in Scouting? Because my autistic son absolutely loves being a Scout, and I want to make that happen for him. Honestly, the sarcasm here has gotten on my last nerve. I have also received some good advice and support here, which I appreciate, but lately it just isn't a friendly environment for anyone who doesn't fit the mountain man/boy mold. GeorgiaMom
  21. Foster children cannot be photographed in Georgia under dfacs regs. I was asked to remove several photos from the web over this, even with private links only for the parents. GeorgiaMom
  22. Some leaders have medical issues and cannot use the primitive camps. I and another parent in our pack had to stop attending campouts where no electricity is available for our cpap machines. It isn't always about convenience. GeorgiaMom
  23. Thanks for your efforts, Christineka. As the parent of an autistic scout, I can say that I wish all Scouters saw things your way. I had a similar discussion recently with the director of my child's church play. She offered a way to make participation easier on him as he was clearly struggling. I thanked her for making "the play about the kids instead of making the kids about the play.". At our former church, a different director had my son in tears as he absolutely couldn't understand her verbal instructions in a loud, crowded room, and she refused to provide a written script. Sh
  24. Scouting is not a treatment option. I just got back from one of my son's weekly treatments. $300 a pop with a PhD who has 20 years worth of professional experience treating kids with autism and auditory issues. The idea that scouting is a treatment for any medical condition is ridiculous. We take our son to medical professionals for that. What we do hope for from scouting is an environment free of bullying. I want my son to simply be able to take part to the best of.his ability. He is quiet and gentle. His biggest sin is that he sometimes can't hear the leader and that he has poor gr
  25. Jblake, you seem to have forgotten your scout spirit. "Institutionalize" is a harsh word to throw out to parents dealing with very real medical problems in their children. I do worry about my autistic son. I worry about the physical bullying he's already run into in elementary school. I worry about drugs and God knows what else in middle and high school. He is the sweetest little boy. No trouble at all in scouts or school, just vulnerable due to a medical condition he can't help. I wish scouts would make up their minds. Some tout the program as a safe haven for disabled kids to
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