Parenting

I don't remember hearing about children with autism growing up in Montreal. It only came onto my radar when I was older, and I had some co-workers with autistic children. From what I was told, these children seemed to have mild cases of autism. This was later confirmed when I saw posts on Facebook recounting academic and other successes. Many years later, while working at the local classical music radio station, I interacted regularly with two adults who had much more severe cases of autism. Both individuals seemed to know more about classical music than I did, and I am a professional musician! But neither of these two adults appeared to be able to function in a so-called usual manner.

That got me thinking about how I would parent a child who was autistic. So, let's look at the facts, and then I'll offer you some resources on the subject. But first, here's the definition of autism.

Autism is a developmental disorder with symptoms that appear within the first three years of life. Its formal diagnostic name is autism spectrum disorder. The word "spectrum" indicates that autism appears in different forms with varying levels of severity. That means each autistic individual experiences unique strengths, symptoms, and challenges. Source: Autism Research Institute

This video from The Mayo Clinic explains what autism is.

The diagnosis

You can't do a blood or

We parents want to keep our children safe from anything and everything. That's always our biggest worry. When I was raising our children, keeping my daughters safe meant showing them how to cross the street and how not to speak to strangers. But, fast forward to the 21st century, and keeping children safe comes with a whole set of digital challenges, besides the analog challenges of crossing streets safely. Smart TVs, tablets, computers, and smartphones can consume vast amounts of a young person's time when we allow that to happen. However, what concerns me most is the quality of the material available on all those digital devices. We don't want our children watching inappropriate content or playing violent games on their smart devices, do we? That's the rationale behind controlling our children's screen times. So, here are a couple of tips on making that happen.

Create healthy screen habits.

Children are curious. Insatiably so. They want answers. They want to explore. And they want to have fun doing it. Create healthy screen habits by configuring your child's smart devices to be tools for learning and exploration. That will open up vast worlds for them to explore. The kid who dreams of building a robot can find tons of information about robotics. The same with the arts, sports, literature, languages - you name it, her smart device will have it. The trick is to configure her smart devices so that she can only access the good stuff, not the

I have written about the issue of over-protective parents recently. The subject intrigues me because I have always wondered what drives parents to be that way. Why would any parent want to disempower their child? After all, that's one of the downsides of being over-protective. Unfortunately, I can only speak authoritatively from my own experience raising two daughters and two sons. In this article, I will refer to and quote more knowledgeable people to explain what's involved with raising bubble-wrapped children.

How we raised our children

We were always concerned with our children's safety. Fortunately, the communities where we lived were safe. Back in the 70s and 80s, we didn't have to worry about social media and video games. As a classical musician, I recall being appalled at some of the popular music my children listened to. But they had caring, experienced teachers in the private schools they attended. We provided enrichment activities including horse-riding, music lessons, summer sessions at talented and gifted schools. Looking back at those times, I must confess that I probably would have been a helicopter father, that is, if my dear wife had let me act that way. But she didn't. She never missed a trick. Nothing escaped her when it came to her children. Absolutely nothing. Her secret was to let her kids make mistakes. I remember when our eldest daughter came in 30 minutes after she was supposed to be home. Her mother was waiting patiently and greeted a

Teen Travel In Uncertain Times

Traveling in uncertain times is a challenge for most of us adults.

So, imagine how many dangers, real and imagined, a young person will face.

• Recently, I flew to Aguascalientes, Mexico. Although I have been flying for many years, I became acutely aware of how challenging flying has become in this pandemic era.
• Masking and social distancing aside, I encountered many new obstacles that were not part of my travel experience even a few years ago. I'll point some of these out.

Canva generated this picture of a teen walking in an airport terminal corridor.

The young traveler

Whether you send your child off to visit her grandparents or send her back to school, you know she has to travel safely.

• After all, you have experienced just about every situation and glitch you can imagine during your travels.
• But remember that you were traveling as an adult.
• You had the financial resources to book a hotel room the minute the airline canceled your flight, and your flight out was early the following morning.
• You knew what to do to comply with TSA requirements as you made your way through airport security.

Most importantly, you were streetsmart, aware of your surroundings, and ready with an exit path in case of a crisis.

• These are just a few of the things that you need to teach

Velcro is a hook-and-loop fastener that sticks things together. It also has become a popular term for describing a certain kind of over-protective parent. The other term used to describe such parents is helicopter parent. The term drone is also used. I was curious about the phenomenon as I don't recall that Nancy or I were that over-protective with our children. My research indicates that hovering came into vogue with the advent of smartphones. Texting and apps make keeping in touch with your children very easy. It is very easy to be too involved. That is not good for your child, and her school will not appreciate your velcro tendencies. There has to be a balance between hands-on involvement and a hands-off approach. So, let's approach the issue from that perspective. We will look at how this applies to each grade level as your children progress through their schools.

Pre-school

I was one of those lucky fathers who drove his daughters to their pre-schools. In those days, back in the 70s, I was on the staff of a large Episcopal church on Long Island. Our house was about 2 miles from my eldest daughter's preschool. The preschool was located in the Sunday School classroom wing of the church. The school had just been established because of the strong demand for pre-schools in that South Shore community.

Literally, the two of us would get out of the car and enter the front door of the church