Today’s Special

Jill has come up with 10 can’t-miss tips and pointers for Early Intervention providers and service coordinators, based on her (sometimes exasperating) experiences with Alex in EI. With just a right amount of edge she recalls the bad stuff that could have been done better and the great stuff that was done well to make her family’s EI work the best it could, and to give Alex a start toward school.

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Saturdays, school holidays, vacations… anytime’s a good time to go crazy with Alex at home. He loves structure; we love to sit around and catch up on reading, do a little housework, sip coffee. In short, no structure. This is fine for an occasional weekend. But a long school break (and we’re on Day 9, with a few days to go) brings its own challenges. Here’s a slice of what it’s like and how we cope. This podcast is available in our archives.

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Inheritance versus trust. Pooled versus private. Grantors versus trustees. Payouts and benefits cutoffs and “testamentary” and “inter vivos” and what does all this mean when you’re just trying to have a life with a special-needs child!? The nuts and bolts of establishing a special needs trust for your loved one’s future can be befuddling, and in this session we look at some of the terms they’ve learned in setting up a trust for Alex. We also provide many print and Web-based sources for more information.

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Few issues come with more emotional freight than whether to create a special-needs trust — monies put aside for your disabled child’s adulthood, when a parent is no longer around. We’re wrestling with the many, many, many pros, cons, and details of creating such a trust for Alex. In this first podcast discussing trusts, we talk about how we feel that such a fund may well be necessary for his future.

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Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Alex pours milk down the sink … asks for pizza/chicken/hot dogs in a restaurant, then won’t eat them … refuses to sit at the table with us. Sometimes it’s typical 8-year-old behavior; sometimes it’s autism. Whatever it is, it’s frustrating. Especially on a long weekend. Here’s how we cope.

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You’d think, with two kids, two parents, and one salary, we’d be rolling in it. You’d be wrong. Life is expensive, and not just because we live in Manhattan.

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When we’re out with Alex, sometimes people can’t believe what they’re seeing: an autistic 8-year-old boy who occasionally does something deranged.

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Jill and Jeff Stimpson discuss special-needs parenting. They have two sons, Ned, 5, and Alex, 8, who has PDD-NOS, a notch on the autism spectrum. Concerns range from money, regrets, and illness, to camp, sleep and worries over Alex’s future. Previous posts detailed a family vacation to Cape Cod, a bout with the dreaded stomach flu, regrets and holiday presents. In December we explored how Alex fits in to family get-togethers and what makes a good present for a boy who doesn’t talk much. If you aren’t able to access an early podcast and you’d like to, please contact us through this site or through Jeffslife.net.