A radical idea: Be friends, make movies, respect disability

By Louise Kinross Zeno Mountain Farm in Vermont has an unusual mission: create lifelong friendships by bringing together diverse people to make films and plays or do sports or music. Last week 30 of these friends were in New York City for the premiere of their new film: Becoming Bulletproof. It’s a documentary about the remaking of a 1920 Western, with a twist: its actors include people with Down syndrome and cerebral palsy as well as those without...

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'I'm ashamed to be jealous:' A special-needs dad

Yesterday this candid piece about being a special-needs dad on LinkedIn blew me away. It's such a rich account of the many emotions experienced by parents of children who don't meet conventional milestones. Author Mike Cook, a manager of Enterprise Services at Dell, Inc. in Oklahama City, said we could reprint it here. Enjoy! Louise By Mike Cook I have been blessed with an amazing family, starting with my wife (my rock). She is truly superwoman,...

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It's hard to tell when special-needs parents are 'drowning'

By Tina Szymczak In 2010, our darkest times as a family, I began to use the analogy of a swimming pool to describe the difficult parts of our adoption and disability journey. I hope the analogy will strike a chord with other people who struggle to care for another family member, young or old. When my husband and I decided to pursue adoption, we never expected it to be easy. However, there was no way to know how very hard it would...

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Sister turns step-by-step picture stories into life-skills app

By Louise Kinross Growing up Nadia Hamilton drew pictures and instructions to help her brother Troy, who has autism, do things around the house. “These were handmade social stories before we knew what social stories were,” she says. “We knew he benefited from a visual guide that was a structured breakdown of an activity.”Today Nadia is the mastermind behind MagnusCards—a free mobile app that allows users to collect and create decks of cards with...

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Bulletproof 'is an experiment in extreme diversity'

In the opening of the trailer for Becoming Bulletproof, one of the actors says: “You never really see anybody with a disability on TV.”Becoming Bulletproof documents the remaking of a 1920 Western film called Bulletproof, with a twist: its actors include people with Down syndrome and cerebral palsy as well as those without disabilities. One of the filmmakers describes it as “an experiment in extreme diversity.”The actors meet every year at Zeno Mountain Farm in Vermont to write, produce and star in short films. The farm was...

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Wanted: Dads raising kids with disabilities

By Louise Kinross Matt Swan has been raising his daughter Leah, 16, on his own for over seven years. Leah was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus and uses a wheelchair and g-tube. Before he separated from his wife, Matt worked from home so he could be primary caregiver. He’s eager to connect with other dads of kids with disabilities, particularly those who, like him, have full custody. BLOOM: How did you react when you learned Leah would...

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This time my husband used a new line: 'He has a brain injury'

By D. Christine Brown   We were sitting in a nice Italian restaurant in Kingston, Ont., en route home from our vacation. Our son Lucas was very tired, hungry and cranky. He wasn't settled or quiet. We were in the back room by ourselves when the hostess sat an elderly couple in the same room. It wasn't five minutes before the man approached my husband and asked him to keep the noise down. Now, usually by this point, there are a...

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Happiness is parenting a special-needs child

By Val Lusted I never thought I’d be writing my very first blog with this title! However, when 2015 appeared on the horizon, I decided to start journaling on the concept of “happiness.” I used the 22 lessons from a film I’d seen called Hector and the Search for Happiness as my template, noting when I felt happy. Simple right? It’s eight months into my New Year’s resolution now and as I look back I find it interesting that most entries relate...

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What do you read most on BLOOM?

By Louise Kinross Almost 200 people responded to our 2015 BLOOM survey earlier in the summer. We will report more fully on the findings, but I wanted to share with you the results to our question: What topics do you read most on BLOOM? Click on the image above to see the results clearly. I don't think it's a surprise that "Real family stories" was most popular, followed by "Disability news," "Parenting tips, experiences and resources," "Growing...

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Think other special-needs parents have it 'together?' Think again

By Louise Kinross When Autism Comes To Roost: A Family’s Journey From Denial to Acceptance is a new parent memoir out next week. Canadian psychologist Alicia Hendley writes candidly about her son Max’s diagnosis of autism and how it caused “the ground [to shift] under me. Suddenly unable to juggle the roles of therapist, wife and mother of four with anything resembling grace, I stumbled head-first into a major depressive episode, which was quickly...

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'I felt so small:' Parent tips on speaking up with specialists

By Sue Robins and Isabel JordanWhen my son was diagnosed with Down syndrome 12 years ago, our family was thrust into a world of medical specialists that was foreign to us.I still vividly recall this harrowing experience with a cardiologist.Aaron was a month old, and we’d been sent to our children’s hospital to make sure he didn’t have a hole in his heart. After the testing, my husband and I sat nervously in the clinic with our wee baby, terrified...

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