Category: Name It
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Once Upon A Time…
Once upon a time, there was a 10 month old baby boy who took his first assisted steps up and down the aisle of a church during Vacation Bible School week. The hands he held were those of a sweet little girl who would grow up to be one of his favorite baby sitters, as…
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Back on Track to Black
My son began training in the martial art of ninjitsu when he was 7 years old. From the very first lesson he loved it and was hooked. By the time he had trained long enough and showed enough mastery of technique to advance to his second belt, he had declared his intent to become a…
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The Day My Son Discovered My Blog
A few weeks ago, I was honored to have a piece I wrote for the blog about the realities of anxiety and panic attacks in children, republished on the incredible website The Mighty**. The day it was published, I forgot to click off the web page and my son found the article up on my computer. And he…
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The Story Behind We’re All A Little Broken
Why is the name of my blog We’re All A Little Broken? Until recently, I was crediting the title to something my husband said to me in the middle of a particularly emotional conversation about our son’s struggles. “We’re all broken.” I remember thinking at the time how wise and true that statement was. We…
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It’s Not a Phase…and 4 Other Things I Want People To Know About My Son’s Anxiety and Panic
I get it. People mean well. They are trying to be sympathetic and make us all feel better. Anxiety disorder and panic disorder are big, scary, frightening ideas. Nobody wants to know that somebody they know is struggling with something like anxiety and panic, especially not when that somebody is a child. So out of a desire…
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Between a Rock & a Hard Place
Parenting a child struggling with anxiety and panic is the personification of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Our days are marked not by hours, but by the spaces between anxiety fueled outbursts or shutdowns and panic attacks. We have very little control over the “rock” or “hard place” moments. But I’m beginning…
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Why Our Story, Isn’t Just “Our” Story
My intelligent, compassionate, musically gifted, goofy 10-year-old son has a level 1 autism spectrum disorder, and has recently been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and a panic disorder. As parents, we knew there was something wrong almost 2 years ago. We consulted various specialists, consented to a variety of tests and assessments, and our son has…
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Your Most Important Tools
I was able to do one of my most favorite things today – chaperone a class field trip. I was with my daughter’s 3rd grade class at a living history presentation about the daily lives of Native Americans. The educator giving the tour asked, “What was the most important tool the native people had?” My…
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The “Name” I Don’t Want to See on Caller ID
My cell phone rang a couple of hours ago. I glanced down to see who was calling, and felt a pit in my stomach when I saw the call was from my kids’ school. In the past the first thought would have been, “I wonder which one of them is sick.” Today my first thought…
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Ripping Off The Bandaid
These are the lessons I have learned since deciding rip off the bandaid to share both my son’s diagnoses, and our family’s journey, with the world. A “label” isn’t always a bad thing – We spent a long time not wanting to “label” our son, and therefore were not straightforward with him, ourselves or others. This came from a…
We're All A Little Broken 