Our son, who has autism spectrum disorder (ASD), was often an inadvertent contributor to his problems by his lack of social savvy—but not always. Bullies can rise up anywhere and everywhere. And at any age. (Apparently, bullies never grow up.) They may even take the more insidious and impersonal form of institutional and systemic bias.
Children with physical, developmental, intellectual, emotional, and sensory disabilities often seem to have a prominent “Kick Me” sign on their backs, a seemingly irresistible target for the bullying mindset. Try as our son might to blend in or stay unnoticed, his “marching to a different drummer” routine attracted attention—especially from those kids who judged him ripe for their mocking, harassing, teasing, taunting, badgering, and bullying.
Often, bullies’ exploitive route is through their victims’ lack of peer support. Having friends can prevent and protect against bullying. But children with special needs often fail to make friends, and may have difficulty getting around, trouble communicating and navigating social interactions, or display signs of vulnerability and emotional distress. All of these challenges mark them as “different,” and increase their risk of aggression from bullies.
Stepping Stones: our pathfinding adventure with Asperger’s introduces the concepts required to continue organizational change. And to all parents and caregivers of children with ASD, this true tale offers pragmatic guidance, self-help encouragement, and real reason for hope. tinyurl.com/4c6bxw4s
Supportive relationships bring vitality to reality. We are very grateful to our friends and family who have stood by us during some of our most challenging times. This year, we were able to publish our story of raising our youngest son on a high functioning sliver of the autism spectrum. As the first student in the school district diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, he became the blunt instrument of change it required but didn’t know it needed.
Each phase of life can be a stepping stone to progress. From the distinct advantage of countless wayfinding steps more than 20 years in the making, we’re now able to tell the tale of our passage. But at the time, we hadn’t a clue to the route, or the fuss we would create.
Words of faith determine the journey’s end before I arrive. In October this year, we celebrated our 45th anniversary. We couldn’t have imagined most of what our lives have become, but we know Who holds our future, and that faith has both carried us through and worked out all things for our good.
Intentional steps bring opportunities that alter destinies. In February, Philip obtained a position as a Research Engineer, after the persevering quest of 7 years and 840 job applications. We helped move him to Webster, NY and unload the truck during a winter squall off Lake Ontario with -10° windchill and near-whiteout conditions!
A strong sense of purpose overrides the pain of fulfilling it. The bold statements in this post come from several of the chapter openings in Stepping Stones: our pathfinding adventure with Asperger’s. In it, we share how we hadn’t planned to be pioneers in an arduous journey—but that’s where we have found love, courage, hope, faith, learning, humor, growth, failure, trial, and triumph—everything that rounds out a life well-lived.
Only by overcoming challenges to my progress do I advance toward it. Stepping Stones is a trail guide of hope for all the parents and caregivers of children who: appear to have advantages, but somehow do not; want to be happy and fit in, but largely cannot; yearn to be treated respectfully, but usually are not.
I affirm the worth of my potential and progress toward a favorable future. Despite advances in diagnoses, therapies and other accommodations, many systemic inequities against the neurodivergent remain to be dismantled. This book introduces the concepts required to continue organizational change. And to all parents and caregivers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, this true tale offers pragmatic guidance, self-help encouragement, and real reason for hope.
Ignorance imprisons the mind, but learning liberates the spirit. Philip wrote the last chapter of the book, recounting the life lessons he learned in grad school and in securing a full-time job. He also created the back cover artwork and others in the book. Produced by solving and plotting the results of hundreds of millions of polynomial equations, and then stacked and colorized, he’s named this type of mathematical art “polyplots.”
Sit in peace. Stand on principle. Soar with purpose. Stepping Stones is available in print or ebook through our website timandcarolherd.com, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other booksellers.
We believe in the message our little memoir contains, and we’re trying to reach as many people as possible. We are available for speaking to groups and for book signings. If you are an active Amazon customer, you can post a review, regardless of where you have purchased the book.
We offer this story of our experience to the great range of parents, caregivers, therapists, and support networks—as well as those who are on the autism spectrum themselves—as our like-missioned, kindred spirits. And we thank you for your support.
another heartwarming episode of “Life as I Remember it Ought to Have Been”
Today is another day of cancelled school while the populace waits for its hopeful interrupting snowfall. In anticipation, the streets have already been sprayed with snow-melting solution, the public works guys are counting overtime hours, and it’s a great excuse for a surprise holiday.
Remote workers: you got nothing.
But back in MY day, an accumulating snow, much less a forecast of it, was no reason for changing the day’s plans.
(Disclaimer: my bachelor’s degree is in forecast meteorology; and this is no bash against my brother and sister prognosticators!)
But as I was saying, back in MY day, things were different.
I have a vivid memory from a particular wintry day back in the early 60s, when Good Ol’ Bus 4 ambled up our unnamed road to our farm in rural Moore Township, Pennsylvania. Cold. Windy. Snow covering the yard, feeding troughs, fields, road and everything. Me, bundled in my red coat with the hood up and tied tight round my face with a threaded shoestring, wearing tall, black rubber boots, each with a half-dozen railroad-track latches, and clutching my metal Donald Duck lunchbox with matching thermos inside, I stood dutifully next to our mailbox held aloft by a red, white and blue painted plank figure of Uncle Sam.
The bus arrived just as expected, I giant-stepped into the maw of the yellow beast, and it trundled its load of captive minors toward another day’s sentence in jail (which today might be called “The Learning Facility.”)
But in just another two hundred feet or so, the bus lodged itself in a blustering snowdrift that had dammed the roadway between our barns. “Schlegel,” the bus driver, gave it the old college try to plow his way through, but today the game appeared to be already decided with the low score of Stubborn Snowdrift: 1, Good Ol’ Bus 4: 0.
I quickly and opportunistically offered to hop off and go back to the house and tell my parents. But Schlegel wouldn’t have it. With an order to his charges to “Stay on the bus!” he abandoned us to trudge back to the house. Inside, my parents allowed him to use the party-line telephone to call the school (what were they thinking!?) and let them know we were stuck in the snowbank between a pair of barns isolated in the backcountry wintry wastes.
Eventually, Schlegel returned and resumed his seat at the front of the bus, and closed the bifold door. And there we all sat in the damp cold on the hard bench seats. And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And then, in the distance, appeared an growing yellow smudge amid the swirling snow: Rescue!
Another bus crawled toward us from the other side of the world, turned itself around, backed up to “Our Drift,” and invitingly opened its door to the frigid wilderness.
With Schlegel stomping a path through the monstrous frozen whitecap, each of us snow-hopped across to Mean Ol’ Bus 6, retook our seats, and resumed the long, cold trek to No Excuses Consolidated Elementary School.
I couldn’t possibly tell you what I learned that day in class, but the memory of that singular adventure is a permanent fixture of what happened back in MY day!
Note: I sure wish that my dad had hustled outside with his Argus and taken a Kodachrome of that stuck school bus, but he stayed inside while all us kiddos built character. Instead, I offer these photos from another winter’s day when the Township’s bulldozer eventually got us plowed out—after we had run out of food, and my dad had skied into town to fetch some groceries.
