Praise God, Zach is in his ‘adult day program’ and he’s enjoying it. I can’t say enough about much he needs the program and the routine. Those 3-4 weeks he was at home everyday took it out of all of us; he didn’t mean to be difficult. He just doesn’t have the cognitive ability to understand and know what to do.  Yet he’s continually improving a little bit at a time, and that continues to give me contentment and hope.

                The program picks him up at 8am and brings him home at 4pm Monday through Friday and it gives us the structure and allowing us time for other things. I also have the greatest respect and admiration for the staff that works and cares for my son. Without them our lives would be completely different and limited.

This past month was extremely emotional; Zach has graduated from high school. This isn’t to say ‘he’s graduated’, it’s to say he no longer goes to school. He’ll reach his 22 birthday this month and no longer qualifies for public school. His teachers put together a graduation program for him and two other students, it was amazing. They had on caps and gowns, the principle came in wearing his and presented certificates to each of them. There were about 30 friends and family attending and not a dry eye, it touched me emotional in a way I’ve never been touched.  It was like each one of those three students knew something special was taking place. Zach even wore his graduation cap; we’ve never been able to get him to wear a hat. I feel blessed to have been part of it, to have witnessed firsthand the event and to have individuals in Zach’s life that want to do things like this for him – THANK YOU.

Now our next step is transitioning Zach to an ‘adult day program’ I’m not sure how this is going to go. We can already tell he misses the bus, school routine there have been a couple of times in the morning that he ready to go to school. He’ll go pick out a shirt that he’d typically wear to school and then want his hair combed, it breaks my heart. I know what he wants and I can’t give it to him, we also know he’s getting bored at home and wants/needs a routine.  Hopefully we can develop that level of passion for him in going to the day program.  

As I’m going trying to find solutions and maintain a healthy perspective with things life events I’m constantly looking for God’s hand. I want to know that God has my family’s best interest at hand and that whatever happens is for the best. I’m learning to read His word daily this way I can know Him and not just go off of what someone else says. During the past few months I’ve notice my stress level has gone down, I’m not think so much about all the possible future scenarios, I’m praying about each situations,  asking God’s to blessing each one and that I will know what to do. Another thing I’ve learned is to pray that God would go before me to prepare the way and to prepare those individuals that we will encounter. That their hearts would be sensitive to God’s movement, this seems to be working.   

Two weeks ago we painted and rearranged our son Zach’s room (he has autism), it turned out nice. His videos where organized, his Thomas the Train Engines where in containers, his pictures and books where on shelves. This created extra space in his room and it looked good, Kelly and I were impressed with what we’d done. We brought Zach up to show him his new room and he just stood there. For over 5 minutes he just stood there and stared, it was like he didn’t know where he was. We finally got him on his bed, (where he sits and watches his shows) turned on a Thomas video and he started to act a little more normal. Kelly and I were dumb founded, we thought he’d like having everything organized. Our other son Tyler happened to walk by us standing in Zach’s room and heard us talking and said “that’s not a very nice thing to do to a person with autism, change his environment he’s familiar with’. It was like someone hit us in the stomach, we hadn’t thought about it from Zach’s point of view. Then we started laughing about it, how we were trying to do something nice and in turn caused confusion in Zach’s world.   And it was our younger son who saw the flaw in our plan. We’ll Zach has adjusted to his new room, learned where things are and enjoys his new view out his bedroom window. 

You have to be able to laugh at yourself once in awhile, because it helps to lighten things up.

Ray

Welcome, and thank you for visiting Dads 4 Special Kids. It's our desire to create a place where dads that have a child with special needs can go to and find support, understanding and resources to be the dad in their childs life. We want to have this place to be on the internet and a host monthly gatherings where dads can meet other men face to face.

D4SK is a reflection of the dads that currently make up this organization, so as you become part your life will be reflected in it. You will find that there are other men dealing with similar issues, so please share so we can help you become the dad you were designed to be.

Ray