New Beginnings

I love the New Year. It’s a time for new beginnings for all of us. We can put the past year behind us and start fresh with new goals, new adventures and new promises.

It’s hard not to think about what has happened to us and our world in the past year but moving into a new year gives us new hope and new promises that things may be different and look different.

If you have a child on the spectrum, you may hope that things improve over the next year. It could be behaviour, learning challenges you’ve been experience, developing speech, fostering or creating friendships and most importantly happiness.

Personally, for me as a parent, I am always setting new goals for myself with regards to my children. There are always things that we need to work on and I develop a plan of how to achieve them throughout the year. One example is health. I have had many challenges with both of our children over health issues. One is an eating disorder and the other one is a compromised immune system in which supplementation, diet changes and constant modifications and continuous tests to ensure that the health remains stable.

My goals as a parent are not the same goals that my children have for their life, but it is important for me to ensure that I am always striving for better for them to get healthier.

It is important to make spiritual goals as well. I have my own spiritual goals and I also have spiritual goals for us as a family. If I am being honest, over the past year, family spiritual goals have been difficult. It’s hard when the church has not been open very much and especially not for programs. I think our family has definitely felt the sting from this as a whole. Everyone always seems to be on a different schedule and honestly with lots of school (at least in our house) being still on-line, it is difficult to ensure that we can all participate in church.

The one thing though that is constant is that God doesn’t care where or how we worship or pray to Him. He is there for us no matter what. This gives us more opportunity to be in close contact with Him as we go about our day.

I want 2022 to bring more spiritual changes for me as a person as well as for our entire family. How will we achieve this? Well……. I will have to come up with a plan. What that will look like right now, I don’t really know.

I love the verse Isaiah 41:10, “Do not fear for I am with you; do not be afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold onto you with my righteous right hand.”

I know if we make God a priority and honour Him that our lives will be so much richer!

Please let us know how we can support you and your family this year.  Let’s brainstorm together, ways and resources to make God a priority in our home.

Shelly Wedge
Exceptional Families Coordinator
Amberlea Church

Christmas Expectations

It’s approaching Christmas and it is very busy. It’s hard to balance everything that needs to be done while also trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. In our house, things are always busy, but more so right now.

We have to intentionally slow things down and remember the reason for the season.

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you;

he is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:11

We try to make time to get everything done in our home without being rushed so that we can enjoy the moments.

We pick a time to put up our Christmas tree and we do it as a family. It’s one of the few things we can actually do together where we are all relaxed.

With having two teens on the autism spectrum, our Christmas and the expectations may be different from other families. For example, for our son, sometimes it is difficult for him to figure out what he wants for Christmas. We have done different things over the years including going shopping and taking pictures of items that he wants. To going on websites or flyers that come to our house and he picks out a few items that interest him.

It’s the same for our daughter but in a different way. She usually can figure out what she wants but it’s almost like you have to keep reminding her to get her list together as she is a very last minute person.

“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son,

 and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).”  Matthew 1:23

I like to talk about the real reason for Christmas but I usually do this at various times.

Today my son and I were walking the dog and we were talking about the Christmas story and the real meaning of Christmas.

“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. 

I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” Luke 2:10

With Covid, it has been difficult to have the same experiences as we normally do at church, but we try our best to be as involved as we can. This season, Amberlea Church is having a Live Nativity Walk-Thru and my son and I will be a part of that experience. It is really nice to be involved in a church and outreach to the community so that others can enjoy Christmas through this type of experience.

As for other expectations on Christmas Day when we get together with family, we have learned just to go with the flow. If one of our children is overwhelmed, then they just take a break in a quiet area. We have learned to let them be themselves and to honour their feelings in the moment.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and I hope that you remember the true meaning of Christmas!

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, 

because he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

Be sure to register for the Christmas events that are going on at Amberlea Church by going to www.amberleachurch.ca and let us know how we can come alongside and support you and your family.

Labels – what do they mean?

There are labels around us all the time. There are labels on our food products, our makeup, our shampoo, type of shoes – you name it, there is a label for it.

There are also labels for people as we all know. People can be mentally challenged, they can have a physical disability, anxiety, depression, autism, mood disorders, skin conditions, cancer, multiple sclerosis, dementia, heart condition – there are just so many…… it never ends.

Everyone has an opinion on how they wish to be addressed in terms of their condition. It’s very individual in how a person wants to be referred. In my humble opinion, a person is more than their label and I feel that is so important to remember. It’s so easy to just refer to someone in terms of what they might have. For example, “Tom has cancer” or “Steve’s mother has dementia”. 

In our family, we refer to our children as being on the autism spectrum. They don’t have autism, or they are not autistic as these words are describing them in a negative connotation. They don’t have a disease (unlike other people).  They have struggles in certain areas which cause them to be part of a spectrum. And really, the only reason for the label is so that their needs can be understood. So they can get assistance in school or in other settings where it may be necessary to make accommodations or changes to meet their needs.

I dislike it when anyone refers to a person’s label first, and treats them like a person second. That should never happen. For example, I don’t say, “My son has autism and he can’t do…”.  I say, “My son loves to take photographs and he is very artistic.” I may add on further information, depending on the situation, but he is an individual first. He has interests, feelings, things that he excels at and things that he struggles with. And yes, he is on the autism spectrum, which can create communication challenges.

I never look at either of our children as less than, or not being able to do something. I look at them and know that they both learn in unique ways, even different from each other. They are both intelligent human beings who have the ability to achieve anything.  In fact, I am always encouraging them to pursue their interests, and maintain their happiness. I never want them to feel like they are not “normal” whatever that really means. If a teacher makes a comment to me about either of them, I calmly explain the way in which they learn and I ask them to think about this when they are teaching lessons. If I see work come home and I see that the approach is not the way my child is going to understand the concept, I contact the teacher and try to figure out a different way for them to break it down.

People may judge us in this world, but be rest assured that God NEVER judges us! He loves each and every one of us no matter what. We are all God’s children and we must remember that. We also must remember that God wants us to love everyone and show kindness, empathy and understanding, even if we really don’t understand a situation fully.

Mathew 7 says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”

I hope we can all remember this and no matter if you think the same way as I do about labels or not, it doesn’t really matter. I think the important thing is to respect what an individual is comfortable with and realize that it is okay to ask them directly.

Shelly Wedge

Exceptional Families Coordinator