TheMessyBlessyMommaMovement

Last year, my daughter attended a field trip with her peers in a general education setting. When moving to North Carolina, I expected education to be different and with a school district the size of Wake County, I recognized that the peers my daughter would have wouldn't be like the ones we had in our small New Jersey town. You see, where we were, families were known. All families. Children were included. All children. While life was not perfect and barriers needed to be broken, those of us raising children with additional support needs had a wealth of support in our local disability groups and also many of us found support from families that unlike ours were raising children with typical abilities. When we arrived in North Carolina, with an intense IEP, the teachers did what they could do honor it but the "inclusion" portion was a challenge. Our school segregated students in extended content from their typically developing peers. I shared my expectations of inclusion and...

 To say I am "Type A" is putting it mildly. Growing up, as an only child, I consistently heard that I had to learn to be more flexible, I had to be aware that things in life could and would change. I think back to my heartbreak time and time again when things didn't go just as planned. I would often hole up in my own world questioning how I could make it work out my way in the end and often I was disappointed. I had high standards, for myself and everything around me. In 2015, when my daughter was diagnosed with autism, I was still inflexible. I liked things laid out, properly or what was properly in my mind. My expectations for myself and those around me spread out onto the lives of my husband and children. Perfection was the only answer, in the home and in the presence of others. Slowly, I have learned to let go of what you cannot control. And when I say slowly, it's taken me 8 years to get to this place and sometimes I have to remind myself to be flexible.  Often, ...