In this episode Jason, Mark and Rick each give an update on their child and the current challenges they are facing for their age category.
Dexter, the walking man!
Jason’s Dexter is two years old and is now walking. What a big milestone walking is! Go Dexter! Jason has been having trouble finding the right preschool for Dexter. Unfortunately they have had trouble with schools refusing Dexter based on his disability. Is that even legal? The worst one was the school that his older child attends. That school turned Dex down without even evaluating him. It seems that Jason and Colette have found a home for Dex now and it is working out, but it did bring them a lot of stress. So I guess Jason’s big challenges are now related to school, but walking was a big milestone that happens in the 2-3 yr range for our kiddos. Aren’t they cute when they just learn and they stumble around like drunks? I love that age.
Luke and the nerds
The Owens Family is working on academics. What nerds we are! Luke seems to love letters and we have been pushing reading and writing with the Learning Program, Handwriting Without Tears, TV Teacher, magnetic letters, foam letters in the bath and the iPad. He seems to be sucking it up. In fact he just pointed out a typo for me while I was writing this. We have been facing some school issues. Our county wants to place him in Kindergarten this year even though he barely makes the age cutoff. We want to hold him back. We want him to REALLY be ready when he hits kindergarten where we plan to push for full inclusion! Negotiation with school officials I think will be our big challenge going forward.
Kayla and her court
Kayla turned seven years old recently. Happy birthday, Kayla! Kayla herself was unavailable for comment but Rick says their ‘current challenges’ revolve around school as well. Rick’s big thing is communication. It is important to respond quickly when things aren’t working. If you put things off and say things like ‘we should just give it another month’, you can quickly miss a whole school year in an sub-optimal environment. Rick says to keep pushing and go after the things you need. We also talked about inclusion and what Kayla’s day was like. Making friends and fitting in is also a challenge.
That’s our episode. Sorry for the hiatus. We had two postponements in a row. One by a guest and one that is all Mark’s fault. However we have some really great guests coming up so stay tuned!
We are the Down Right Awesome Dads and thanks again for listening!
~Mark~
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