Emmaline

Hey, everyone. I need some thoughts/ideas and am wondering if any of you have something similar in your ward. I'm currently in the Primary presidency, and during our last meeting, we discussed opening up some sort of support group/organization for parents who have children with special needs. There are a lot of children in our ward who fall under this category (developmental disorders including Autism, Asperger's, etc). Because of our city location and the many services provided to care for these children, we have a higher population of children with special needs. I am currently in this field as well as a behavioral interventionist. I believe this is why it was brought up, but I need some ideas. Obviously many parents in the ward may be sensitive, so it would be likely we make it an open invitation in the announcements or something. I'm trying to grasp at ideas here, so I'm just curious if you have anything similar going in within your ward, or may have some ideas? I think this opportunity can help parents in the church not feel so ... left out? If you have an opinions, please share!

I like this and have been doing this now. It helps because I'm not getting responses 3 days later like before (or last minute). Late response, but thank you all for your advice. He does have ADHD- he said so during a meeting while we were discussing different behavioral issues. He said it in a joking manner, but he was indeed telling the truth.

I know this is random advice, but I would like some answers if possible! I currently work for a behavior therapy program and provide in-home care to special needs children. I have a direct supervisor, who is responsible for assigning my cases and setting me up with the families. Here's the dilemma. My supervisor is probably one of the busiest people I know and seems to always be forgetting things; when he tells me he's going to send me case information, he doesn't- and I usually have to remind him. It's not that I remind him every hour, I'll even give him a day or two, but when the case is that day or the day before and I still haven't received anything, I have no choice but to remind him. He seems very cluttered and a couple employees and I have agreed he could use himself an assistant. When he's not deep into paperwork, he's on his phone with families and other employees, running meetings, training, etc. My question: how much is too much? I don't want to seem like a pest. When I don't remind him, things don't get done and I don't receive the information I need. At one point, I had been approved 3 days off for vacation, and the day before I left, he called me and asked me if I'd be available for a case the next day. When I reminded him of my vacation, he said, "Oh, I'm sorry! I forgot". And I kid you not, he called me back that evening, asking me the same things about working a case. Before I even answered, he said, "Oh, yeah! I totally forgot. Sorry. I even have the information sitting on my calendar in front of me". This is just an example. Sometimes I feel I may even be annoying him (he muttered a few swear words today trying to sort out an issue he said he'd take care of a week ago). I do my best to take as much as I can possible to make his job a little easier, but there are things he has to do himself, being the supervisor and all (like arranging the schedules, setting me up and contacting the families, sending me case information, etc). There have been times I've called the families myself and reported back to him and he was relieved and thanked me. Anyway, how do I continue to do this without, well, annoying him? Also, is it appropriate to thank him? After he's stressed himself out getting all the information last minute because he forgot again, I tell him thank you for taking the time to get it all ready. I feel like it's that kind of relationship- I remind him, he stresses out, gets everything together last minute, and I thank him. Apologies for the length. But any advice would be great. Thanks!

Thank you everyone!

Thank you so much for your responses. I will share them with him. Figuring out how to do both jobs within the 8 hour shift is hard on him. Getting the IT director to see how this new program can improve things is hard. And, there are a lot of old dogs at the company- so getting them to adjust to change, which is for the better, is hard on him. He's amazing when it comes to leaving his work at work. He comes home, tunes out, and tries to focus on other things. I can see the stress of his day on all parts of him, but I do my best to let home be a refuge (thank you for that reminder, Vort). Since I don't work in the evenings (I have some school during the day), I always want him to look forward to coming home to a wife (and dinner, of course). I'll make sure it's my primary focus and not to worry about his work. Anatess- I laughed at that last part. Oh, men. Also, he always gets the hardware fixing requests. They think because he's a programmer he can fix any computer problem. He usually just uses Google, or sends them a link to Google if they don't get the message (after he's helped them so many times and has spent time explaining he's not a hardware guy).

I'll make this explanation as simple as possible. My sweet husband graduated college in 2008 and had a job waiting for him in a new city. So, we're here. His original job title is Programmer/Analyst (computer science major). I don't know if anyone is familiar with MIS (Management Information System), but he develops software for the company. Being the intelligent and ambitious man he is, he became valuable to his company because of his creativeness and ideas for growth. The CEO of the company gave him a 10% raise in 2010. His name is known throughout the company and he is highly favored. The company for quite some time had a consultant who specialized in a business intelligence program. They were paying this consultant, well, a lot of money. At this point, a little over a year ago, the CFO hand-picked my husband to train in this BI program. Over the course of the year (last year), he was sent to a few different cities to train. This was also to save the company money. They figured if my husband learned the program, he could train others and the company could grow with this valuable tool. My husband's direct boss (the IT director), was on board with this idea as well. My husband is now the person to go to regarding the BI program he learned. Here's where the dilemma comes in. He feels suddenly his direct boss (who was actually promoted to the IT director position shortly before my husband's training), who never learned the BI program, doesn't understand its value to the company. Because of this, my husband fears he doesn't much care for it. Instead, he wants my husband to primarily focus on his original job title as a programmer/analyst. On the other hand, the CFO wants my husband to primarily focus on developing for the BI program. The problem is, the BI program is a full-time job in itself, and my husband is the one who knows it best. As you can see, he's stressed out and fears his good relationship with his direct boss is going south. He's attempted to sit down and chat with his direct boss about it but has had no luck. So right now he's managing to find an equal balance between both jobs. I hope I'm making sense here. Because the company is business and sales-based, he doesn't want to work for this company forever. The only way he'd move up would be in management- which isn't what he wants. Instead he'd rather work for a technology-based company like IBM or Google because there's more potential for growth in his field of knowledge. I told him to stick it out for 2 more years and then make his move (that would make it 5 years with the company). What do you think? Is there any way around this? The poor man is so stressed. His boss wants one thing, his boss' boss wants another, and the head of the business department wants him as well. He really has an interest in developing for the BI program over anything else, so he has an idea of what he wants to eventually move up in; but until then, you can see why he's overworked and stressed- and his good relationship with his direct boss is hitting rocky mountains. Considering he's only 3 years of out college, taking a bold jump or move might be too much of a risk. I'm sorry for the length.

My husband and I just recently purchased the Galaxy tab (10.1). We love it. Not only was it more affordable than the Ipad 2 (we compared them side by side and there really isn't much of a difference), the options and features are limitless. My husband, who needs to keep up technology-wise due to his job, finds it very useful and helpful. And I have fun with all the apps, games, news stories, etc. We always shop around and do research before we make any big purchase and chose the Galaxy because we found it to have the best features. At Gamestop (not sure if the deal is still on), you get 6 free games when you buy it. Pretty neat deal.

I definitely agree with above. Growing up, I was grounded, sent to my room, and sometimes mildly spanked (just a smack on the butt if I back-talked my mother). I was probably in 5th or 6th grade when a friend of mine had been visiting at my house. I had been mouthing off to my mom over something (I had quite the attitude at that age), and my dad had sent me to my room. Walking down the hall to my room, I stopped again to make another comment to my mom, and my dad "booted" me to keep me going. He did this by lightly tapping my bottom with the tip of his shoe and telling me to keep moving forward. This friend of mine, who has never been disciplined in her life, was appalled, and the next day at school, I had teachers, counselors and classmates coming to me to talk to me about the "daily abuse and beating" my dad had given me and how they could help get me out of there. They even wanted to see if I had the bruising I apparently had because my friend had been a "witness". At this point, CPS had been called and my parents had to be investigated. It was a nightmare. Of course at that point, I learned to keep my mouth shut when guests were over and not get myself grounded. The situation could have been a lot worse- thank goodness it wasn't. However, abuse doesn't necessarily need to be defined based on the worst possible scenario. To abuse is to misuse/mistreat for personal gain. This can be verbal, mental, emotional (which usually go hand in hand) and physical. Abuse can be small or major- which is why it's important to know the difference. But, I guess that's where it gets difficult for many. Just because your husband hasn't physically hit you, doesn't mean that his demeaning comments and compulsive lying is off the hook. It's a difficult situation because many IN the situation may be blinded about what's really going on. I truly hope that made sense. Bini said it better than me.

UPDATE: I forgot I posted this so long ago and this was on here (thus the lack of response). Crazy! We did end up turning to our bishop and seeking help. We were actually in a tithing settlement meeting December 2010 when it just...came out. Well, actually, the bishop was completely tuned into the spirit as usual and asked how we were doing. We couldn't just smile and say fine- we were honest because the spirit was kicking us both from behind. My husband spoke out first and took me by surprise. Oh, it was wonderful! Getting it out, especially the infertility, made it worlds better. We continued seeking his counsel and over the course of the next 6 months-year or so, our marriage improved dramatically. What may have seemed like small, immature things that bothered the both of us was actually hurting us in the long run, and being able to be open and honest without arguing was fantastic. We're not perfect, of course, but much better. We've learned to respect one another and be more open about things that bother us. Thank goodness for bishops and the spirit with them. In fact, the first thing our bishop said when he saw us during the last tithing settlement (last month), was, "You two are both smiling." My husband and I have been married for 3 1/2 years, and we fight more than we should. We don't scream, yell, raise our voices (sometimes I do when I'm very stressed during an argument), and there's no physical abuse. But we argue like crazy! We started getting in arguments when we were engaged, and have carried it through. Granted, it has gotten better over time, but it still happens. We're both very stubborn. We don't have any children. In fact, we've been dealing with infertility for about 3 years now (doctors appointments, tests, shots, treatments, etc), yet I'm starting to wonder if our arguing may be the reason why we haven't been blessed with children yet. Now I've seen couples fight, yell, scream, cry, and flat out say nasty things to each other. We've hardly done that. We just stubbornly argue until usually I get near tears, and we distance ourselves until we're ready to talk it out. Sometimes we don't talk it out, and just tell each other to move on and forget it. Rare times it does get worse, though. Sometimes we're so exhausted, I just start crying, and he mentions the D (divorce) word. A couple of times I've packed a suitcase and threatened to leave. It's draining me. My argument is often times I feel like I'm dealing with a kid instead of a husband. His argument is I corner him and push his buttons. He pouts, argues like a 10 year old, and tries to punish me when he doesn't get what he wants. I chew him out over things and have admittedly embarrassed him in front of people. How do we fix this? He's the youngest of 8 children, but because of the huge gap of age between the next oldest to him, he grew up by himself with just his parents. He developed a strong bond between them. His dad was sick with cancer for about 15 years, and just recently passed away last week. His mother is the idea of a perfect mom. She washed his sheets everyday, took him to the doctor (up until he married me at age 22), cleaned up after him, did his laundry, washed his dishes, you name it. Don't get me wrong, she's the kindest, most loving woman I've ever met. She did everything for him. He was however, a full time student and graduated college. Now that's me. I do all the laundry, I do the dishes, I vacuum, I clean up after the animals (I wanted them, so that's my responsibility anyway), I pick up after him, etc. He works full time as a software developer for an aircraft company, and I work part time as a pet specialist in a pet store. Because I work less hours, I'm willing to do more chores, and occasionally he'll help around the house. Here's the thing. I don't feel sexy. I don't feel valuable, beautiful, or even special to him. I feel like I took over the role of his mom when we married. He has a habit of acting like a child. I feel like when I want an adult conversation, I don't get it. He'll fold his arms, ignore me, ditch me and walk away when we're in public, argue like he's 6, throws me extreme guilt trips, and finds ways to "punish" me when he's upset (also tries to get even). Is this my fault? Is this because of me? Do I drive him to act like a child? Do I ACT more like a mother, therefore he acts like a child? I do have the tendency to chew him out, and talk his ear off with information on how angry I am with him. I do have the tendency to embarrass him and pick at him. Is this what's driving him away? How do I step back and become less of a nag? How do I get my husband to see me as his beautiful bride he admired me for in the beginning? I feel like I'm in this endless routine, and don't know how to step out of it. You know, the nagging wife and the pouting husband who acts like he's 6. We've even managed to embarrass ourselves around my little sister who's been staying with us for a few days. At one point she turned her Ipod on to drown us out.