It looks like you're going to have me crying all day! I still worry if my younger two were damaged by the chaos they grew up in.
All three of my children were born in less than three years, with the younger two being only 11 months apart. …
What a wonderful question. I wish people had asked me back in those days instead of just assuming my son's behavior was due to lack of parenting. So I'll add just a few:
1. Don't say, "Give him to me for two weeks and I'll fix him." Don't recommend the…
Along with what everyone else has said, I would encourage you to read up on Pathological Demand Avoidance. It's an autism profile that's getting a lot of attention (and funding!) in the UK but isn't used here because its not in the DSM-V (the big book of psychiatric problems kids…
What a great article -- thank you. My oldest son is autistic and, looking back, I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere on the spectrum myself. It would explain my whole childhood.
However, I took the test and had a very low score -- not even in sight of the spectrum! But I think that's because I'm 54 years old and have a lifetime of experience adapting...so much so that many neurotypical traits now come naturally to me. However, I realized that I started by approaching them intellectually -- purposefully -- rather than intuitively.
Just pointing that out so that someone who feels like they're on the spectrum but "fails" the test doesn't feel discouraged about finding an answer.
Have you heard of the Mandela Effect? It’s when the public’s memory of a thing or event is different than the reality. It was named the Mandela Effect because of the number of people who insisted he died in prison in the 1980s, even though he lived until 2013. (Follow…
I also found another one I wrote, inspired from the same struggles you're going through: "How the heck do I send this supposed adult out into the world without me?
I know posting links to your own work in comments is sometimes considered spam. I posted these because I thought they might help other parents who are going through the same stage with their autistic children. But I'll be happy to remove them if you prefer.
I might use the word "accuracy" instead of "correctness," because my thoughts immediately went to political correctness and how challenging it can be to navigate ever-changing norms. But I agree with you completely and have to compliment your willingness to work with new writers. Detailed feedback is always a blessing, even if the comments are hard to take.
But I have to say that I hate Grammarly...particularly its lack of picking up on context and nuance. I'll use it if a client asks me to, but I reject most of the suggestions.
My biggest problem is my vision. It's always blurry by the end of the day, and I have to increase the text to a ridiculous size to catch typos!
Today is #WorldAutismDay. And, while awareness is always good, World Autism Day shares some of the same problems as #RacefortheCure. The #KomenFoundation focuses exclusively on women whose cancer can be cured. It leaves out the thousands of women with #metastatic breast cancer who are focused on living with cancer rather…
Thank you; that's so sweet. It's the culmination of 18 years of playing it by ear when it came to parenting this amazing young man. He's extremely talented, but he doesn't know how to navigate the neurotypical world. I'm sure we'll be having many conversations about it!
Great article! There are so many differences between the $50 writer and the $250 writer (and, if you target brands rather than bloggers, it can go quite a bit higher).
I also tend to be somewhat of a devil's advocate when it comes to a niche. I've written about everything from cold-water survival gear to how to make your website W3C compliant. If I had to choose, I'd say my niche is business. And that's what I offer my clients that drives my rates past $250: I help them identify a business purpose for each piece of content, and then I write content that achieves that purpose. Once you start asking the right questions, you'll discover that a lot of clients don't know exactly what they want a particular article to accomplish. If you can help them pinpoint that, you're already offering way more than other writers.
