[David Chan]

oh yeah,

That's strawberry shortcake the food, not what some of you were thinking.

remember, it's all about being appropriate

he's a pretty cool guy, and the electric guitar is coming right along.

Wow, what a ride it's been for all of us.

Mr. P's mom and dad

[David Chan]

Hi Kelly,

A couple of things to keep in mind, there are many sources of Tx't. Post in the local colleges, or even high school. what you are looking for is someone who is interested. Salary should not be a key issue.

If they are interested in the salary beware, it doesn't matter that they have student loans, it really is not your concern. Always separate, they need to be interested in working with your kid.

Most of the good ones don't really do it for the salary, they do it because they are interested.

Get your current tx't to think of friends that might be interested, that's another possible source.

Don't be rigid, they don't have to have a psych or child education background. Some of our best Therapist have been human kinetics students (read old school PE). These guys are really cool because they understand the concept of coaching and teaching a skill.

HR is just not easy, trust me, it's been almost 11 years, and it's still hard, because your needs change, I need people that can help teach biology 11, so it's lot's of fun.

All the best, keep looking, the good ones are out there.

Your guy will learn to like them too.

Been there, done that, making up the t-shirt.

Dave,
Mr. P's Dad

P.•••••'s Mr. P's birthday today, holy cow.

you're welcome for the strawberry short cake

[David Chan]

Hi Kong,

If it's the thing that I'm thinking about, you can try fitness warehouse on Marine, they're not cheap, they are about 100 bucks

fitness stores mostly

good luck

Mr.P's Dad

[David Chan]

Merry Christmas, everyone !
And a happy uneventful new year !

P.S. all of us understand what a blessing uneventful is.

Mr. P's Dad, and the whole Chan clan

[David Chan]

Hi all,

The insurance guy came by the house yesterday, we are now just waiting to hear back from them. Kind of crap shoot when it comes insurance companies paying, but that's another issue.

All told we are once again back a bit from the edge, at least for now.

Thanks again to Bev, John and Stella, we are not quite out the woods just yet, but walking in the right direction for now.

will keep everyone posted, this hopefully will be the last post about our architectural situation for a while.

Got to get the other one off to school.

Dave
Mr. P , and Miss V's Dad

[David Chan]

Hello to all,

Well, things have calmed down somewhat at the Chan household, although we still have a gaping hole about 3 feet in diameter in our living room ceiling, which we're jokingly calling a "skylight". We're hoping that house insurance will cover it, but we won't know for sure until next week.

Anyway, the point of this post is to send out a huge and heartfelt thanks to John and Bev, who, despite their own busy lives and struggles with their kids, somehow found the time to support us. You guys just earned yourself a spot in heaven, although we don't want you to go there anytime soon !!

As always,

the grateful Chan Clan.

[David Chan]

Hi everyone,

This has absolutely nothing to do with ABA or Autism, and all about the the adventures of the Chan clan.

About 2 years ago, there we discovered a leak on our roof, some raccoons had tore a hole in the shingles. it cause some water damage, but hey money is tight, so we got a patch and the ceiling just looked ugly, oh well, there are bigger fish to fry, therapy to pay for…….

In May of this year, we finally bit the bullet, and ordered a new roof. the installation date was suppose to be 2nd week in September, but because the of the bad weather, September came and went, and still no roof, got a call from the Sears, the installer, saying it will be sometime in November. Well It's now december, and still no roof. In the mean time the rains came last week, and so did our friends the raccoons.

Fast forward to tonite. We noticed that there was a crack in the ceiling, but hey, what else is new…. suck it up call the roofers tomorrow and raise cane. Have some dinner an move on. Just as we were sitting down for some dinner, two, yes TWO raccoons came crashing through the ceiling leaving a 2 foot hole in the ceiling, with rain water dripping in.

Good times at the Chan house.

Well, what it boils down to, The Chan Clan is in need. Yup, we are tapped out, and the ceiling needs repairing. If any of you FEAT folks out there can come to our aide we'd sure appreciate it.

About the only good thing that happened was I told my neighbor across the road, who happens to be a wine rep the story, I got some free sample from a show she just came back from. It was red, it was french, it was good, and it was FREE

That's about all for now folks.

Signing off as always.

Mr. P's intrepid and tapped out mom and dad

Dave and Julia

[David Chan]

So heres the skinny,

As you all know my guy goes to a religious independent school in Vancouver. One of the classes of course is religion.

This day in religion class there was an exercise where you have to write a comment on a sheet of paper with a classmates name written in the middle.

So just to be clear, the name of the kid is in the middle of the sheet of paper, and then the sheet is passed around the room and each kid makes a comment about the person who's name it is on the paper.

Enough logistics.

This us some sense of what his peers think about him. Of course there are no negative comments, because that's kind of frowned upon.

If you look at the sheets, there are a lot of, "you're a cool guy", "you are nice"………

We came upon this comment.

Now remember these are 15 year olds, not the most sensitive souls on the planet

This is the comment that was made about Mr. P

"All the times I've felt singled out in the hall ways thank you for always saying Hi"

Take that to your integration specialist……

Dave an Julia
Mr. P's proud mom and dad

[David Chan]

Dear Susanna,

Imagine what it was like in 1997

Dave
Mr. P's Dad

[David Chan]

Hi guys,

I am quite aware of the story that Jemma posted about the kid in Hong Kong. I had just started working with my kid in his grade 3 year,(yes working hands on, five days a week, 5 1/2 hours a day in his elementary school being his SEA) after spending a year doing ABA at home, six and half days a week, after pulling him from an untenable placement in public school.

I remember thinking to myself, OMG, that could be my kid, and that cold chill up my spine and in my stomach did two thing.

The feeling strengthened my resolve to continue with ABA therapy with my son, no not "INTERVENTION". "T H E R A P Y". thats right, what I did with him was not intervene, but treat.

Secondly I recognized what I was undertaking was a mission, one that I was destined (for lack of a better term) to continue.

I had the privilege of undertaking that journey with Mr. P for
two and a half school years. Not withstanding my professional losses, it was the best thing that I have ever done. It will be the most meaningful thing that I would have done during my time in this veil of tears, before I shed my mortal coils

To this day, we work tirelessly, monitoring Mr.P's behaviours, always setting the bar higher and higher, why? not because I need him to, but for the express reason that the world will not accommodate him, and he will have to make his way in it. The "B" in ABA stands for "BEHAVIOUR". This element alone will determine how he will negotiate his world.

In the taser thing, and the border thing, everyone was really hasty, and dire consequences resulted.

We do ABA to pre-empt the behaviours, so that when our guys and gals will have a modicum of better chance.

For what ever reason, Mr. D was BEHAVING in an erratic manner, Please don't think for a moment that I am blaming the victim. The point I am trying to make is that the people at YVR responded to what they could observe. It doesn't for a moment excuse what airport people,and the RCMP did, but if you think about Mr. D, his dilemma was quite similar to our children's. Unable to communicate, and exhibiting behaviour that was considered outside the norm.

The conclusion to this ramble is this. Behaviour management is paramount. We try our best to mediate our children's behaviour, so don't for a moment think that the academic piece trumps the behavioural component of your kid's program.

I do ramble on……..I guess that 's a Jedi's prerogative

Obi-wan indeed, I'm going to get a swelled head.

P.S.
On a much lighter note, had a meet the teacher on Thursday at Mr. P's school.

To put it in Sally Field's words…."They like him, they really, really like him". We don't know why but after seven years of what I would consider good school placements, it still surprise us.

Always remember, Many a self made man stopped too damn soon. In other words, always keep trying, and it ain't over till it's over….in the case of our kids it's not where they get to, but the journey….. So far, the journey has been pretty darn cool.

May the force be with you all

Still raising our kid Ivar's way

Dave
Mr. P's Dad

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