How It Got Started

The Story

Maintaining our sanity is a phrase that was developed by the originators of the site as parents of Autistic children.  As we raised our children interfaced with education and medical professionals we were challenged and developed both an academic and personal perspective of the experience of parenting special needs children.  This site will provide both the technical and professional ways to interact with systems to support your children.  In addition, we will share the personal reactions and emotions associated with raising children in this modern world.  

​

Dr. Reed is a professor, who has worked as a school psychologist, clinician, and researcher.  The information from his posts are to inform parents of information to assist them to avoid difficulties when accessing services for their children.  In addition, he seeks to differentiate practices from law to help parents obtain needed support and best services (practices) in healthcare and education.  He will also seek to share information about new discoveries and techniques in the field of special education and medicine applied to all of the developmental and educational disabilities that apply to special education law. In addition, the site will discuss obtaining services for conditions that do not fall under the IDEA special education laws. 

​

Mrs. Reed is an education researcher and scholar who has to pause her educational and professional career in order to obtain services for her children and family.  She will share personal stories, stories of her support and advocacy services, and stories of how systems treat mothers of special needs children.  She will tell of supporting our children who have multiple health and educational issues including autism, heart disease, severe food allergies, and gifted designations. She will tell of victories of a son who obtained gold medals in integrated sports tennis, and participated and placed as part of a Destination Imagination team in the world championships.  She will also tell of school systems who have called social services and made complaints of child neglect as a child with heart disease was diagnosed as failure to thrive (mother’s fault) or when an autistic child had potty training issues in kindergarten (also mother’s fault).

The goal is to truly help parents understand these are the challenges that we face raising special needs children in the United States today.  In addition, we will share how these issues become magnified for parents of minority, economically disadvantaged and/or rural children.  Throughout this journey we seek to encourage you to smile, keep advocating for your children and to care for yourself. It is essential that we all Maintain our Sanity as we see our children become wonderful unique individuals.