About Stuart Duncan

My name is Stuart Duncan, creator of http://www.stuartduncan.name. My oldest son (Cameron) has Autism while my younger son (Tyler) does not. I am a work from home web developer with a background in radio. I do my very best to stay educated and do what ever is necessary to ensure my children have the tools they need to thrive. I share my stories and experiences in an effort to further grow and strengthen the online Autism community and to promote Autism Understanding and Acceptance.
Author Archive | Stuart Duncan

Parents – Explanations vs Apologies

By on September 22, 2010 in Autism

All to often, we’ve been in the situation where our child is in public and totally at random we find ourselves in the middle of a meltdown, an non responsive zombie or just a very bizarre act that people just see as weird.

Our first response is to look around, see who’s looking at us… are they saying anything to the person next to them? Are they obviously thinking something we’ve heard before?

First thing we can think to say is… now say it with me “I’m sorry, my child has Autism”.

Are you really sorry? I’m not. I have nothing to be sorry for. In fact, my child has done nothing wrong. All children do these things, mine just happens to do it more often than most but you know what? They don’t know that. They’re witnessing it for the first time. And they’re making judgments. No, my child has done nothing wrong. They have. Shame on them for passing judgments without all the information.

That being said, there’s nothing wrong with explaining yourself… “my child has Autism, he’s just really overloaded by all the sights and sounds in here. He doesn’t mean to bother you.”

See the difference there?

I can assure you, with almost 100% certainty, that the person you’re talking to will get far more from that than an empty apology. They don’t know what Autism really is, they don’t know you or your child. But your tone does come across, whether you know it or not. You’ve apologized a million times and you’ve never really meant it, not really. You’ve done nothing wrong, neither did your child. And that person will walk away, still judging you and and still judging your child and you’ll finish what you’re doing and go home feeling angry, defeated… depressed.

Do not apologize for what you do not have to apologize for. Instead, explain what is happening and why. It doesn’t take long. And in so doing, you’re raising awareness, you’re not faking a smile behind anger and tears.

We’ve all been there, we’ll all be there again. There’s no need to feel bad, there’s no need to feel mad. Either they get an explanation or they don’t deserve one but never ever do they deserve an apology when you’ve done nothing wrong.

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Raise Money for Charity and Get a Great Gift – Bill Goldberg!

By on September 20, 2010 in Charity

AUCTION IS OVER

Congrats to Bill Goldberg (@therealgoldberg) and to all who participated in raising US $3,901.99 for charity, the money will go towards raising a school for orphaned children in Haiti. Also, a hearty congrats to all of the celebs who took part in this auction for such a good cause, many of whom also put some extras into the prize list to entice as much generosity as possible.

These tweets are from Bill Goldberg:

In this economy,asking someone to give $4 to charity comes with a sense of guilt..but to get $3,900 for my #TwitChange auction.. #SPEECHLESS

**********THANK YOU ALL*********

Please read all of this, even if you don’t know who Bill Goldberg is. It’s for charity and it’s important. Thank you.

If you are in the slighest bit involved in Twitter, you’ve probably heard about the TwitChange charity going on right now. If not, it is a twitter based charity from a LOT of celebrities, where you bid on eBay to have your favourite celebrity follow you on Twitter, mention you, retweet you, etc.

Some celebrities are matching the winning bids to double the money sent to those in Haiti, some are offering a few extras… and then, there’s Bill Goldberg.

The reason for this post is that even though I am aware that you may not know who he is (most of my readers are hard working moms), I am most certain that someone in your family does…. husband, father, son…. women who love good action??

Bill Goldberg was the first and only man to go undefeated for 173 matches in WCW wrestling, even beating Hulk Hogan during his run. He went on to star in television shows and movies, like Universal Soldier: The Return and The Longest Yard.

The reason I’m writing this today, instead of my usual advice or experiences on Autism is that I believe that this is a great charity, goes to a great cause and I’m inspired by all that Bill Goldberg is willing to do above and beyond what is asked of him to raise money.

In addition to following the winner, or other twitter stuff… he’s willing to phone the winner for a personal call, do a webcam chat, give the winner his name plaque from Pros vs Joes, some memorabilia from his movie The Longest Yard and even have the winner visit him in San Diego. In fact, he’ll pick up the winner at the airport personally in the muscle car of your choice (well, from what he has in his garage).

On top of this, he’ll continue to add on to the pile of winnings for each day that the charity runs, which still has 5 days remaining as of the time of this writing.

Even if you do not know who he is, even if the things he’s done does not interest you, someone in your family likely does. Ask around, find out, get this as a gift if you can. If you can’t afford these bids, ask those people anyway because maybe they can, or can find a way and would like to win this great package.

Bill Goldberg is doing a wonderful thing far beyond what is asked of him and I’m saddened to see that the support just isn’t there. The bids aren’t that high. However, that is good news for you as you could get all these winnings for someone in your family at a relatively low bid.

I have vowed to support him as best I can because I, like many who read my blog, do not have much to offer but we still support each other, especially when what we support is a wonderful cause. And this is one.

Other celebrities are getting tons of bids simply based on who they are. That’s great, they do not require my support nor warrant it quite as much because they are simply coasting on their fame and not offering any more than what is asked of them. I still wish them the best, of course.

But if I can help Bill Goldberg get even one more bid than what he had previously, then I have to try. It’s worth it.

You can bid for Bill Goldberg here: http://cgi.ebay.com/TWITCHANGE-Bill-Goldberg-Twitter-Pkg-therealgoldberg-/300468032373?pt=Tickets_Experiences&hash=item45f54a5375

Updated Listing, You get:

Bill Goldberg (@therealgoldberg):

  • follow you on twitter
  • retweet you
  • mention you
  • he’ll phone you
  • do a uStream webcam chat with you
  • you get his autobiography – signed
  • his name plaque from Pro’s vs Joe’s
  • swag from his movie The Longest Yard
  • he’ll pick you up in San Diego personally in the muscle car of your choice
  • dinner
  • VIP concert at @BellyUpMusic
  • Alice Cooper signed guitar
  • @TheFatBoys CD set
  • @TheFatBoys will follow you on twitter as well
  • $100 gift card from AutoZone
  • gift card for Dominos
  • @HeadBlade shaving kit
  • more!

And he’s not done adding more!

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Staying positive in the face of Autism

By on September 15, 2010 in Autism

Autism is usually synonymous with depression… whether it be the person with Autism feeling depression due to their inability to be a ‘normal’ part of society and have friends or if it’s a parent (family member) that has to deal with the financial burden, lack of sleep, stresses of parenting and so on and so forth, not to mention feeling terrible should their child also be depressed.

Not to throw more fuel onto the fire, you also have those who feel violated due to losing their child at some point due to regressive Autism, where their child was developing perfectly well and then, for what ever reason, their child regressed back to a non-speaking, diaper wearing toddler the size of a 3 year old.

The question is, how do you stay positive with all of this going against you? How do you keep a cheerful disposition and go on laughing with friends and encouraging others to be happy as well?

Sadly, I have no miracle cure answer for you. If I did, I’d be rich and this blog would be full of ads selling it to you.

No, there is no miracle answer that will just make you happy because even if there was, all those things would still exist and you’d just fall back into being miserable the moment you stopped using it.

Instead, what I can offer to you is a change of perspective. A way of looking at the positive instead of the negative.

Your child was not ripped away, your child is still there. And your child is still beautiful and amazing and fighting just as hard as you, maybe even harder.. it’s just not evident. Your child is an inspiration whether they can draw Rome from memory, play piano without lessons, recite Pi to 20,000+ places or if they’re just starting to say their first words at 10 years of age.

Dealing with the world is hard enough, doing it with Autism is near impossible but they’re doing their best and in a way, the ones that aren’t savants are far more inspirational than those that are.

They are doing their best and they are doing well and it’s all because of you!

Financial burdens are everywhere, not just with parents of children with Autism. Imagine if your child was actually dying and you had to get a 2nd or 3rd mortgage only to lose the battle anyway… it happens… every single day. And those people, while sad, are happy that they did all they could and gave their child a good life while they had it.

Self pity is a very derogatory term these days, it is something that people tell you is never any good. It has it’s purpose, it’s not a bad thing… unless you let it consume you. You need to feel it but you need to move forward.

Your child was never lost to you, your child is right there with you, verbal or not, toilet trained or not, savant or not… they love you, they need you, they want you.

If all you can do is focus on the misery, the depression, the anger… then perhaps you didn’t lose your child, perhaps your child lost you.

Your child, no matter how many meltdowns or tantrums or hateful things they may say… they would never want you to be consumed by depression or hate. They would never want you to stop being happy, even if they think they can never feel that for themselves.

The biggest disservice you could ever do your child is to lose the love. Not just the love for them, but for your fellow man, for your fellow parent who is going through the same thing, maybe even far worse off than yourself.

Stand up, wear that smile as you count your blessings and share it with those that need it just as much or more than you do.

Happiness is contagious, but so is sadness… so is hate. Which does your child wish to share with the world? Which does your child want you to share with the world?

I hope one day my son will be proud of me for always doing my best to be happy, to make others happy and doing my best to make sure he is happy as well.

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Would you continue to let your doctor see your children if he lost his medical license?

By on September 14, 2010 in Autism

Let say your family doctor did some very painful tests on other children that resulted in him losing his medical license… would you continue to bring your child to that doctor for medical treatment?

What if the doctor did those tests while patenting his own ‘medicine’ as an alternative to what he was hoping to discredit? What if you found out that lawyers were paying him to discredit it so that it would strengthen some court case they had going?

Ok, I think it’s fairly evident that I’m talking about Dr Wakefield but forget about who it is or what conspiracy theories you know surrounding his whole situation and imagine it was just your family doctor right there in your town.

You see, we are all too far removed from Dr. Wakefield to put it into proper perspective, in my opinion. He’s a celebrity doctor now, a martyr. Many people praise him for saying what they want to hear and so they dismiss the stories, theories and even facts.

This is not an article about whether or not he was right, it’s about what we know of a doctor… a doctor that could have been checking out your children, just as easily as anyone else’s child.

Remove yourself from stories… true or false.. and go by what has happened and imagine he was your doctor and ask: Would you continue to bring your child to a doctor that did unethical tests and hurt other children resulting in the loss of his medical license?

Yes? or No?

I’m sure, if your judgment is clouded enough by the hoopla of it all and unable to separate yourself from the situation, that you may just praise him as a God enough to say yes. But for those who have any real common sense and can put that all aside and imagine it was actually just your family doctor right there in your town, the answer must be a very absolute no. Even if we were 99.9% certain that the good doctor was just a victim of global conspiracy, we’d still say no as a responsible parent looking out for the safety of our children.

So let me ask you this, if you would not take your child to such a doctor for the safety of your child, why in the world would you listen to him and take his words as if they were a prescription from God when he didn’t even see your children in the first place?!?

If you know, as I do, that no doctor knows my child without seeing them, why would you think that this doctor holds dominion over all children without seeing them? I mean, imagine your family doctor up and left the country because of it all… would you still continue to see that doctor? Would you still listen to what he tells you to do?

Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m the one confused by all of this. Even if I had the undisputed greatest doctor in the world caring for my child, and these allegations came out and events happened such as losing his license, leaving the country, being discredited and findings retracted… I’d stop listening to what he tells me.

I know I’m strange like that, but it just kind of makes sense to me. My own health, and certainly my children’s health, are far too important to me to be dismissing these things and hoping that maybe his conspiracy theory stories are true… cause let’s face it, if he did do all those things, he wouldn’t lie about conspiracy theories… right?? Right??

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Sleeping in shifts

By on September 13, 2010 in Autism

Sleep is always an elusive beast for parents as it is, but when you throw in details such as Autism, the fact that there’s more than one child sharing the bedroom, a really crazy big work load and a wife with Fibromyalgia… sleep can be near impossible to come by.

My boys are 5 and 2, my 5 year old (Cameron) being the one with Autism. For the most part, neither of them really have much difficulty sleeping, it’s just the getting to sleep part that can be a little rough. If either of them isn’t sleepy, or has something on their mind (which is a very definite possibility with Autism), they’ll just stay awake and keep the other one awake with them. And if one of them should have bad dreams or just wake up randomly in the middle of the night, they both wake up… and I have to get up.

Then there’s Natalie (my wife) who has Fibromyalgia and is very much unable to sleep most nights… either due to pain or simple discomfort that keeps her limbs moving all night long. I am usually able to sleep through it myself but I don’t get as restful of a sleep as I would otherwise.

I work way to much as it is, but for the last month, I had worked 17 hours per day for 3 weeks straight, including week-ends. This meant that I was usually going to bed around 3am and then getting up at 6 or 7 with my boys.

The only way that myself and even my wife can handle this sort of thing is to sleep in shifts. I tend to be up with my boys early in the morning but she has to get up as well to help get everything ready for school.  Most of the time though, she’ll go to bed at 8am and sleep until 9:30, when I go to work. Then I work until 3am.

Come the week-end however, I get up with the boys still while Natalie can sleep in until what ever time she chooses. But when she gets up, I go back to bed to catch up on what I missed through the week.

It’s certainly not ideal, and I would love a full 8 hours sleep but after a few years, I’m not entirely sure I could keep myself knocked out for that long anyhow. So it is what it is… we sleep in shifts.

With Autism, Fibromyalgia, a crazy work load and 2 boys waking or keeping each other awake… it’s the system we’ve had to become accustomed to.

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