Autism Journey with Dak

08/17/2026

Our young man has been working hard lately, between online school, picking up the slack of chores that his Niece usually shares with him(She is 7 months younger), she has been away for a week and is supposed to come home today, painting his room and helping us with trimming hedges, cutting grass with our elderly neighbor, and homeschool bowling! Super proud of the young man he is becoming!

08/09/2026

Our young man went out and worked yesterday afternoon mowing grass with one of our neighbors, he came home filthy dirty, he said the wind was crazy blowing grass and dirt back at them as they mowed!

08/04/2026

Another issue we had the other evening at Back to School night was the Owner, Head Mistress, Lead Teacher, she wears many hats, told us it was fine if we still wanted to attend Back to School night even though our son was only going to be attending tutoring this year due to not having other kids in his grade level, anyway back to the topic! My son and I were just awkwardly standing there while they chatted up the new families and she made a comment to one of the new families about my son, I cannot quote her word for word, but said something along the lines of the big teen boy is not going to be in the same class as your kid that he will be by himself with her and the Math tutor. I found this to be distasteful and disrespectful since the family said nothing about my son, never asked about him, so why was it necessary to even say anything. She did email me back at 2AM this morning going on and on again about the things we had already resolved with the office via email. I replied with that information was already discussed and understood, but communication has been awful for at least the last year and I did not appreciate constantly being reminded of when payment is due since I am not able to pay the invoice until the invoice has actually been sent. I had this problem all year last year and instead of trying to figure out why the invoice never gets sent I was met with “it must have gone to your old email”, no it did not because there is no old email! She did reply with an apology and wanted to have a conversation since things had calmed down, I told her I appreciated the apology, but at this time we didn’t have anymore to talk about and we are just done. I know our boy will succeed and am thankful for his two years at the Micro-School and know they played a huge role in his academic growth, but I am done! There have been red flags along the way, but we supported her and stood up for her and highly recommended her! There are no original staff members from the beginning and there are no more students left that started out with her on day one, we were the last one!

08/04/2026

One lesson I’ve learned as the parent of a child with autism is this…

Good intentions are not a substitute for good communication.

For more than a year, we’ve dealt with the same issues over and over: invoices that weren’t sent, confusion over communication, having to repeatedly follow up for answers, and excuses instead of solutions. We were consistently reminded that payments were due on the 1st of each month, yet the invoices needed to make those payments often never arrived.

As parents, we’re expected to meet deadlines, return paperwork, make payments on time, and be responsive. That’s reasonable. But accountability should go both ways.

If a parent is told to call a personal cell phone and receives no response…then has to send an email instead…then has to follow up again because no one communicated whether a meeting would be by phone or in person…that’s not effective communication. That’s a pattern.

Our son has Level 1 autism and benefits from individualized academic support. Like every parent, we simply want to work with professionals who communicate clearly, follow through on commitments, and value parents as partners.

We were one of the very first families to believe in this school when it opened. Our son was one of its original students, and we supported the program from the beginning, we totally understood from the beginning that if there were not other kids near or in his grade level, they could not create a lesson plan around one student.
We paid our tuition on time every single month, and we were even told we were the only family consistently doing so. Loyalty, respect, and professionalism should be mutual.

07/28/2026

Our young man is bored, he ran over one of our big oak tree roots last week and bent one of the new gator blades. He felt bad and offered to pay for the new ones. I ordered the new ones and he paid for them. We got busy trying to remove the bent blade to replace it and turns out there is more damage. Ordered the new parts, unfortunately they won’t be in until this weekend! Our older neighbor has been by twice to see if the mower is fixed so our man-child can help him mow some of his rental property’s. We explained to him the first time what happened and his immediate response was for us to borrow his trailer to take the zero turn to the repair shop! We explained the first day that we appreciated it and would let him know. Today he came by the 2nd time, we explained that the parts are ordered and when they get here we fix it!

07/22/2026

Met with our young man’s School Director yesterday to discuss his upcoming school year. Things are going to be different this year as he is their only High Schooler(he attends a Micro School), but it is a wonderful school and he really loves it.

07/18/2026

Our young man is growing up and maturing in so many ways! He worked at the Scout Camp this year for three weeks and really enjoyed it. He spent some of his earnings, but decided to save most of it. He volunteered again this year for Vacation Bible School at our Church and is working on his Religious Award for scouts. At the end of last school year I asked him if he wanted to just take an online course to get his High School Diploma since he is a year behind in school, he said no, he wanted to go back to his Micro School! I told him that was fine, as long as his school can continue to accommodate him and he is happy, then that is where he will be. Next up we need to get new glasses and try to pass the eye test at the DMV to try and get his Learner’s permit, then I want to get him into Drivers ED. I tend to nudge him out of his comfort zone to see what he can accomplish and more often than not, he decides to try and it works out.

01/06/2026

Wishing this awesome young man a huge happy 17th birthday!

10/06/2025

***UPDATE***
He did not get the job, but I am super proud of him for trying!!!

Super proud of our young man, he is going on his first job interview today, he is a little mad because of what he has to wear(he lives in shorts), Mom is being mean and won’t let him wear his favorite ball cap to the interview. I said we can compromise, bring the hat in the truck and put it on as soon as you are done.

07/04/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/1JVEseyhnr/?mibextid=wwXIfr

“Autism parenting: Where ‘normal’ is whatever works for your family, and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”