But, here you are post-corona outbreak starting to navigate the world of as speech-language pathologist (SLP) or even a speech-language pathologist assistant (SLPA).
If you are now your child’s SLP, we’ve got this!
If your child is connecting via tele-therapy and you are the SLPA, we’ve got this.
Let’s start with great tools and resources for parents who are implementing speech and language therapy from home.
A couple of years ago, I took a trip home to Virginia to spend some time with my parents. We were stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina at the time, so the short four-hour drive to extended family was a welcomed retreat.
While I was visiting, they took me to one of the Civil War battlefields to walk along the paved paths and soak in some beauty and fresh air. On this scenic route, I was accompanied by my furry walking partner, Bailey. Now, Bailey is a sweet, black Labrador Retriever, but she has awful leash manners. She will pull and tug the first 15 minutes of any walk—guaranteed. She is on a mission to find things to sniff and locate other dogs. As she nearly pulled my shoulder out of socket during this particular stroll, I started to get increasingly frustrated with her lack of chill. Didn’t she realize there was no hurry? There was so much to see and look at and soak in right where we were. Why was she in such a rush? Her hurry was making me miss some really beautiful things.
In that moment, I realized that I can often be the same way—always looking ahead to the next thing, running on the hamster wheel of life, missing what’s right in front of me.
I live with my family in Northern Italy, essentially ground zero for the Coronavirus. I’m not going to lie—some days are hard—but we are adamant about finding the joys and the silver linings all around us. We are going into our fifth week of schooling from home and each week, while the “schooling” portion of it gets progressively easier to navigate, the restrictions and mandates by the Italian government get harder and harder. We are quarantined, and if I am honest, this is not how I planned to spend our final months in Europe.
DoDEA Europe hasn’t even gotten to Spring Break yet—we have two more weeks before we dive headfirst into staring at each other without the distraction, continuity, and structure of school. As I laid in bed last night after Italy imposed more necessary and important restrictions, I tossed and turned worrying about all the things I know I can’t control. I started fretting about how we are going to amuse two children for 10 days of Spring Break. I mean, there are only so many movies, Netflix, board games, and books that we can tolerate before we pull our hair out. But then suddenly, I was inspired!
Ready? Over Spring Break we are going to have Spirit Week!
Before I met my husband, James, I had no connection to military life beyond my grandfathers who both served in WWII. In my world, the military was a foreign, invasive force that attracted only those who sought out and enjoyed violence.
It wasn’t just the US military. I felt this way about all those who I believed chose war—otherwise, why choose to be in the service?
In those initial months dating James, I had so many questions. I could not put together the idea of this tremendously kind, gentle, compassionate man who I was getting to know to be the same person who I would have assumed to choose violence and anger before anything else. Needless to say, this was the early part of my journey of transformation in my beliefs about military service—where I can now stand by my husband with pride as he serves our country, and I feel honored to be a military spouse.
Gonna be honest, I’m hoping that by using the word “spring” in my blog title the universe will decide that we can be done with winter. But, since it’s currently supposed to snow a few more times in the next week, I’m not holding out any hope.
Onto the topic at hand!
Maybe you’re wondering if by “Spring Cleaning” I mean things like vacuuming and dusting, or dishes and yardwork, easy stuff like that.. No way I’m letting you guys off that easy! While scrubbing floors and toilets like Cinderella sounds amazing (no, it doesn’t), I actually mean the type of deep life cleaning that can be painful, but incredibly necessary. Sometimes you’ve just got to purge all the extra crap in order to make room for the stuff that actually matters!
Right now, I am sitting in an airplane going with my husband to a class in Kansas. This class is special, since no children are allowed. It is the first time in 12.5 years that we are alone for six days—date nights not counting. When my husband told me about the opportunity to go to this class without our children, my first thoughts were:
“Who is going to watch our children?”
“Is this class really so important for me to be there as well?”
“What if something happens to the kids while I am gone?”
“What if…”
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