Parenting Severe Autism
Parenting Severe Autism
Our Son's Severe Autism Test Results, Cherished Progress and Family Hurdles
This episode recounts our personal experience navigating Jacob's autism evaluation at 16 years old, detailing the process, insights, and outcomes that emerged from it. We explore key findings, discuss challenges within family dynamics, and share humorous anecdotes that highlight the unique aspects of parenting in the context of severe autism.
• Discussion of the journey to find an appropriate evaluation center
• Personal reflections on Jacob's evaluations and challenges faced
• Overview of the Vineland and CARS assessment results
• Insight into therapy recommendations and family dynamics
• Touching stories about Jacob's understanding of family roles
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Hello and welcome to the Parenting Severe Autism Podcast. I am your host, Shannon Chamberlin. I'm so happy that you're here with me today. Please remember to visit psa. buzzsprout. com if you would like to send me any text messages or check out any of my links, and, of course, you can always support the podcast by clicking on any of the buttons on your media player for supporting this podcast.
Shannon Chamberlin:In this episode I'm going to detail our most recent experience with getting our son evaluated, and it was when he was 16. He's 24 now. It was much different from the original evaluation. I've also got a couple of cute little stories that I'd like to share another little family incident. So here we go. This is out of chronological order, as I've mentioned before, but I really wanted to get into the experience. In case anyone out there is searching for services for their child and if you don't know what to expect, this might help you a little bit. It also, I think, offers a lot of insight into our son's condition, since they are all different. This is going to be a lot of numbers and rating scales and other specifics that were involved in this evaluation. He actually didn't even get evaluated until he was back in school. Jacob never had access to services while he was being homeschooled and non-schooled not these types of services. I did find him other things to get involved in which I'll get into in other episodes. Find him other things to get involved in which I'll get into in other episodes, but I really wanted to focus on this just to get this out of the way and help you understand his level of autism.
Shannon Chamberlin:Once we finally did find this place it's in Wisconsin. It's called Caravel Autism Health. It's actually for autism and I was delighted to find this in the first place. They wanted to send us first to a psychologist near our home to get him evaluated and see if he even qualified to go to Caravelle. So we had this appointment with a very nice lady. She said this was going to take about 45 minutes to an hour to get him evaluated in her office. So the three of us went there. We were very nervous because Jacob understandably does not cope well with people talking about him in front of him and we have made it a rule that this is not allowed. But it went really well and she did not disrespect his needs in any way. It most certainly did not take 45 minutes.
Shannon Chamberlin:Apparently, our child is so autistic that we never fill the time slot that people schedule for us in order to evaluate him. We were in with her for probably 10 to 15 minutes and there was another time, before I came around, where my spouse had to bring Jacob in for an evaluation to try to get him on Social Security disability income and the man said that he needed to speak with Jacob alone and it was just going to take a few minutes. So my spouse said, okay, have fun with that. And then within less than 30 seconds the guy was like, okay, everything's fine, let's just stop this. Right now he definitely is disabled. So it was kind of like that, you know. She said she wanted to talk to him for five or 10 minutes and we said okay. And then as soon as we sat down she came back out and she's like okay, we're good, come on back in. So he got his evaluation from her and it definitely qualified him to have an appointment at Caravelle.
Shannon Chamberlin:I cannot say enough good about this autism therapy facility. We were so blessed to have been in Wisconsin and I am really sad that we had to leave because the services, once they kicked in Jacob, was just set up. It was so good. All kinds of good stuff was coming down the pipeline for him and we had to leave it all behind. Anyway, I want to tell you the results and how this whole thing went. So we went into kind of a big playroom, two or three clinicians were observing our child and we tried to get him to play with the stuff that was in there. He's mostly concerned with just making sure that we know he's there and they tried to talk to us. We did not talk about him in a way that he would know, because I had already told them we don't talk about him in front of him. You'll have to take us outside into a different room if you want us to talk about him, but they did their evaluations just sitting there. We were there for about three hours just because there were so many different areas in which they needed to test him for the services that they were able to provide, so that was the longest ever.
Shannon Chamberlin:I'd like to read some of this psychological evaluation to you. He was rated on two different scales and I'm going to explain what those are in case you are not familiar. It seems like everyone I've talked to has dealt with a different method of rating or a different rating scale. Everyone's got different ideas of how autism is evaluated, so this is what we went through. It first starts out Jacob was at the time a 16-year and 5-month-old young man.
Shannon Chamberlin:He has lived in this current house in Wisconsin for four years. He currently attends ninth grade at the high school on Monday, Tuesday, thursday and Friday from 8 am until 11 am. Quick note on that we had to create this schedule for him because, although he indicated at this time that he was ready to try to go back to school, we learned this time that he was ready to try to go back to school. We learned very quickly that he could not handle full days and he could not handle five days a week, even with short days. So this was a very customized schedule and it resulted in him not receiving services. So it goes on to say he currently does not receive any services while at school, but he does have an IEP. So already you know that sucks right.
Shannon Chamberlin:So they went on to detail his family health history and it says he does not engage in reciprocal conversations, which was observed during the appointment. It was reported that he typically requests, using words and phrases instead of pointing, I guess. So it's usually we have to say what do you want and then we have to say I want. And then he'll say I want whatever. But he's not really that good at that anymore.
Shannon Chamberlin:Anyway, after the family medical history they went into sensory and tolerance report and they said his hearing was fine. He's sensitive to loud noises and thunder. His vision is intact. He has really really great vision. It's overly perfect. He does stare at mirrors for extended periods of time. Olfactory senses appear to be normal. He's sensitive to certain tastes and textures and, it was reported, he is a good eater and sits for the duration of meals. In the past he has been sensitive to tags within his clothing and he will not wear clothes that are too snug. After that it goes into executive functioning. Jacob has a difficult time understanding cause and effect and his thought process is disorganized and confused. Jacob does get easily overwhelmed in social situations.
Shannon Chamberlin:And then they go into the results of the testing. In the first set of results they use the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, second edition. They say that Jacob had Communication, daily Living Skills and Socialization Standard scores of 47, 48, and 48, respectively. He had an Adaptive Behavior Composite of 47. Jacob's Communication, daily living skills, socialization and adaptive behavior composite are all in the low level. Now just to give you an idea, here in the Vineland rating scale could be Vineland I don't know it, just it's spelled Vineland In the Vineland rating scale. These are the categories From 0 to 17 is average, from 18 to 20 is elevated and any score 21 and over equals clinically significant indicating need for treatment intervention. Again, he scored 47, 48, and 48, and his adaptive behavior composite is 47. So he is definitely in the clinically significant indicating need for treatment intervention.
Shannon Chamberlin:To me that sounded like an emergency. It sounded so bad. I didn't even realize that he was like I said, this was all I ever knew and I didn't realize that he was so, so autistic. I didn't realize. Anyway, the next rating scale is the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, otherwise known as CARS C-A-R-S second edition. This was also administered on the same date. Jacob had a total score of 42.5, placing him in the severe symptoms of autism spectrum disorder range. So the CARS rating scale is from 15 to 60. Any score below 30 is non-autistic, any score from 30 to 36.5 is mild to moderate and any score from 37 to 60 indicates severe. So again on the CARS scale, he placed 42.5, so he is in the severe range for that. This report goes on to say that the pediatric developmental screener was administered and he had a total of 14 false responses. False responses over five for a child three years and older are usually suggestive of an autism spectrum disorder and that further testing is warranted. So his final diagnosis was autism spectrum disorder, needing very substantial support for social communication and restrictive, repetitive behaviors. Summary and recommendations.
Shannon Chamberlin:Jacob is a 16-year-old young man who was brought in by his parents on this date for a psychological evaluation. He did show obvious signs of autism throughout the session today. Jacob is very appropriate for inclusion in an intensive behavioral treatment program for autism and they recommended to start with 20 to 25 hours of intensive applied behavioral analysis treatment each week and within the first two weeks they asked us to go to 40 to 45 hours a week. Yeah, they did this. Therapy was in home, which was great because we lived about an hour from anything. Really, they ended up coming right after school, so he would get out of school school at 11 and they would get there around 11, 30 or noon while he was having his lunch and they would therapy him all the way up until seven o'clock at night Some days. I couldn't take it and I was just like, look, we can't do this. We never did put him in a 40 hour a week because I couldn't take it, because it was all in the same house.
Shannon Chamberlin:When they came to the house, the first two visits were a nightmare because they allowed him to just be as autistic as he wanted to be and I mean this is not shit that I allow in my house. You know, these are behaviors, not actual autism. So in our book here at home we believe that behaviors and it's not that we made this up on our own we did have help, we did have advice and intervention and professional opinions and all kinds of stuff like that, right but the bottom line is that autism is a disability and behaviors are controllable. Behaviors 90% of the time are a choice. Controllable Behaviors 90% of the time are a choice. And he was able to choose to behave the worst way possible while these women were in our house. He had two to three women at a time on him doing play therapy and it was really good for him. But those first couple of visits were terrible and I finally asked him like, hey, look, this is not allowed in my home. He cannot behave like this. Why are you, what are you doing? Why are you allowing him to scream and abuse you and abuse himself and abuse the house? This is not how he's allowed to behave in here. And they said, oh, we just assumed that this was normal and we were just letting him be him Like, no, no, this is not normal, this is not allowed.
Shannon Chamberlin:A couple other things I wanted to mention that I actually didn't have written down, but now that I'm thinking of it, they had us fill out a bunch of paperwork beforehand and I had to tell them everything that we do and do not do for him, and I told them about having to put him outside. I told them about some of my other types of just resets for him. You know they're just sensory resets and I didn't even know that I just I just didn't know what else to do and I did what made sense to me and I told them about all these things, which I will detail in many later episodes, I'm sure. But what was really nice for me to learn from this was that I was doing everything right. They had no suggestions for me as a parent to help make my life easier with my son, because everything that they were going to suggest that's on their normal list. I was already doing. Remember that, because you might get there too.
Shannon Chamberlin:Once I learned that everything I'm doing is actually on the list of recommended behaviors for parents to do for their children, I felt so much more confident and so much less like an asshole myself. I thought, you know, sometimes like geez, I suck at this mom stuff. I don't know what to do. Yay, so it was a bit of a grueling process. Again, nobody likes having their life picked apart or their son picked apart or anything like that, but it was so worth it. He got what he needed. They were able to coordinate care with the medical center that we took him to and I mentioned he never did get to see an actual doctor. So they coordinated care with the medical clinic where the nurse practitioner was that he always saw that pretended that the doctor was out. But yeah, they were really great, really easy to work with. Between that and then the CP Center and then the autism program that was the non-profit and school. We had a very busy autism life. So now that that's out of the way.
Shannon Chamberlin:If you have any questions, comments or anything else, do you know you're able to actually send me a text message. Now, if you're on my Buzzsprout hosting site, which is psabuzzsproutcom, there's a little section called fan mail. I don't know if you can get it right from your player on your device or not, I'm really not familiar, but I know that I have it. I turned it on. There's been a recent development with family.
Shannon Chamberlin:If you heard the episodes with my spouse just a little while ago when I interviewed him, one thing that he mentioned, that really hit home for me, even though I live it, you know, to hear him say it, it really affected me. He said that people treat him like he's brain dead. You remember that. Well, I want to speak to that for just a moment, because things keep happening. You know, people just keep doing things. We have had to put padlocks on everything and I haven't told you all this stuff because I'm, like I said, I'm trying to go in chronological order but we kind of live like we're in prison here. I did mention a little about that when I was talking about him eloping because I wasn't able to chase him because everything was locked down. Everything is padlocked and there's a reason we either don't want him going in here or we don't want him going out of here. The family doesn't see the urgency or importance of locking them, and what irritates me is that they think my boy is so stupid that he can't tell the difference.
Shannon Chamberlin:Here are two examples that really irritate me. The garage has lock on it, obviously. I mean, why wouldn't you have your garage door locked right? So the grandfather gets up early in the morning Usually he used to be the first one up. He'll go out there and he'll stick the key in the door, open it up, turn the floodlight off and then close the door and leave the key in it and lock it supposedly. And there are certain times when I don't want Jacob going in the garage because he's just going to go watch something on TV that upsets him. He knows exactly how to get his own heart rate up and get his own emotions going and make himself crazy. And there are just certain times where I know the garage should be locked and I should be safe, knowing that he's not going to go in there. And then I find him in there, or I find him after he's been in there and he comes to me all psycho, right.
Shannon Chamberlin:I have asked this grandfather many times. I have to keep doing this every couple of months. Why is the garage door unlocked right now? You know that he's not supposed to be in there and the newest answer is well, he must have figured out how to turn the key. The fucking key is in the door lock. It's in there.
Shannon Chamberlin:What do you think? He doesn't know how to turn a key. Are you serious? He's autistic, not stupid. Hello, if it were a combination lock, no, he couldn't do that. He doesn't understand him. But you really think that he's just stupid?
Shannon Chamberlin:No-transcript, there is a padlock on it and I know that's not safe, but we have to do what we have to do. So there are certain times of the day when that padlock has to be locked. I will walk through the house during those times of day and I will see that it's unlocked. However, the grandfather will piece the lock together and make it look like it's locked. But if I can see it from two rooms away that the loop is elongated and it definitely is open, then why do you think my son can't see that that lock is compromised?
Shannon Chamberlin:And I get on him constantly about this. He always leaves that lock unlocked. And I'm telling him when my boy ends up naked in the street, hit by a fucking car because you're too lazy to push that fucking lock together, you're going to really feel bad, aren't you locked? And I'm telling him when my boy ends up naked in the street, hit by a fucking car because you're too lazy to push that fucking lock together, you're gonna really feel bad, aren't you? Stop leaving it unlocked. Do you think that he is that stupid that he can't tell If he really wants to get out, he's gonna get out because that lock is open. That's the only thing that keeps him in the house. So anyway, apparently Jacob has not proven his intelligence enough around here to have his safety considered Huge, huge source of irritation for me. I hate when people act like he is stupid. Now, if that's not enough, let me tell you about the newest development. I'm just going to start putting the stuff out there. I really don't care. Do you remember when I told you about the half-sister attacking our family and all of that? Well, there's more.
Shannon Chamberlin:So recently that one has decided that she would like to try to strong-arm us a little bit. And this is the funniest letter. It's funny to me because it's so, so dumb, and every time I think about this letter, my first thought is how embarrassing for her. How embarrassing for her. So before I read this to you, let me just say that this girl has never completed any schooling since high school and she actually had to take a special route to complete that. Now she's living life like a grown woman and we all know that she has never put enough time into a school to get a degree, much less the two degrees that she is falsifying in the letter, believe it or not. Yes, she is falsifying accolades in this letter.
Shannon Chamberlin:Another thing I want to mention is that she always calls my spouse Uncle Jason. Now, look, I'm in my 40s and I still call my uncle Uncle Eddie. Okay, and I just think this is so funny, the way that she just omitted uncle, and now she's, all you know, on the level with her uncle. I want to mention that her uncle my spouse was basically her surrogate father for more than half her life, when her father was tangled up in a bunch of stuff that did not allow him to be here and be a father for her. Her mother had also already abandoned all three kids. My spouse was the one who stepped up all the time. My spouse was there for her and I was there for her. When her mom didn't show up to do her hair for dance recital, I was the one that was there, and every single time this girl needed anything, it was Uncle Jason who saved her ass, it was Uncle Jason who counseled her and Uncle Jason who made her life better.
Shannon Chamberlin:Now everything is a mess and it's completely because of the decisions that all of these people make. When people are constantly trying to get their own good feelings and jollies at my son's expense, we just shut them out. We don't have the time or the energy with taking care of our son to also babysit all the neurotypical people out there who think that they can take advantage of him one way or the other. She's been shut out ever since that other thing. So let me just get to this letter. There is no date, no proper heading, no anything. There's no phone number, no address for her or us. I mean this is if you know how to write a letter, you know what I'm talking about. It starts out Dear Jason, in bold type. The rest of it is not bold, I don't know. Anyway, it says Dear Jason, I hope you're doing well.
Shannon Chamberlin:I've been reflecting a lot lately and I wanted to share something with you that's been on my heart Over time. I've realized the power of forgiveness, not just for the sake of others, but also for my peace of mind and healing. After much thought, I've decided to forgive you for everything that's happened between us. I know that forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting, but it does mean that I'm choosing to let go of any hurt or resentment that I've carried. I want to move forward with a lighter heart and I truly believe this is the first step toward healing. With that said, I would like to ask your permission to begin talking to Jacob again. I believe it's time for me to reconnect with him and I wanted to be open with you about this decision. I understand that there may still be lingering feelings and I want to respect your perspective. Please know that I'm approaching this with care and consideration and I hope we can continue to move forward with understanding and respect for each other. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and hope we can continue to rebuild our relationship With love.
Shannon Chamberlin:Comma, big space, no handwritten signature. Mrs, her first name and husband's last name, followed by the degrees M-B-A, slash L-A-W, followed by Green County, missouri. That's the letter. At first I was giggling because she's the one that hurt our son. We didn't do anything to her. So I thought it was funny at first. And then, when I got all the way to the bottom with the M-B-A slash law and Green County, missouri, I said what kind of crazy shit is this? So if you don't understand why this is funny, first of all she is saying that she has made her decision that it's time to reconnect with our son.
Shannon Chamberlin:Which what does that actually say? That says that she thinks she made the decision to fall out of contact with our son in the first place. She still doesn't know that she insulted our son so badly when she was here that he has ripped up every picture that he ever finds of her and he pretty much wants nothing to do with her because she has hurt him and never made him a priority. She'd come in the driveway and never even try to say hi. She'll be on FaceTime with her grandpa and never even try to see Jacob or say hello. And he's there. He can see her, he can hear her and she never even tries to talk to him. She never tried to FaceTime him when we were on good terms in Wisconsin, you know, and he is not brain dead. He is fully aware that she ignores him and hurts him. That's why this is funny. She actually thinks it's all her decision.
Shannon Chamberlin:Anyway, the other thing is just how embarrassing. I keep saying like I wonder if her husband knows. Does her husband know that she just falsified some accolades? I can't believe that someone let her do this without trying to stop her. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts. But doesn't leave a phone number or an address. Anyway, what a dumbass. It's just constantly us having to put up blocks. You know, deflect, deflect, deflect. I'm just so sick of it. Nowhere, nowhere, did she ask. How is Jacob? I miss Jacob. I often think about Jacob and wonder how he's doing. Nowhere in the letter did she have any concern for Jacob.
Shannon Chamberlin:So if you ever deal with this, please don't let your solitude and sorrow and desperation get the best of you cloud your judgment. If you have cut someone out of your child's life or out of your life because of what they do to your child, you have made the right decision. And if they come at you like this, I think that with the MBA slash law, I think she thinks for some reason that that means something to us and maybe she's trying to strong arm her way into our son's life, but I do have a master's in business administration and she doesn't scare me at all. Why would you put that on there? Anyway, just don't let people disturb your peace. If you're cutting people out of your life because of the effect they have on you and your child, you're doing the right thing, because, yeah, that's exactly what I want. I want my son to get back into communication with someone who blatantly lies and falsifies accolades. That's who I feel comfortable leaving my son in a room with. Absolutely Give me a break. Back to the therapy and stuff like that.
Shannon Chamberlin:Before we were able to get any services or any materials for sensory and everything for jacob at all in wisconsin, we were trying to get what we could. One thing that worked really well for him in school was something they called a peapod. It's just a sensory canoe almost and you get in there and it hugs you. But he was 5'10 when we were shopping for him and that was like three or $400 to get that. So we did not get that. Instead I got him like a little hug suit. It's a kind of stretchy material, the same thing. They make those crawl through socks out of that, go on the floor. They're like slinkies and you crawl through them for sensory. So I got him a hug suit. He doesn't care about it at all, but that was my first attempt at kind of creating that sensory hug that he was always seeking in school and he never used it. I put him in it once and he didn't care.
Shannon Chamberlin:The other thing I got was a small weighted blanket. I really like that thing, but it's really tiny. It's not the size of a regular blanket at all and I wish it were. Because he's a big man I thought that it would be nice to have that sensory all over his body. But we did what we could and that was what we could afford, and I would give it to him to put on anywhere on his body that he wanted. It would probably go from shoulders to hips. Anyway, you know, I would give it to him when he was throwing a fit and I would say you know you want to sit on the couch, would you like this blanket? And he would say yes or he would say no, and if he said no, I would just leave it next to him, or if he said yes, I would put it on him and ask him if it was okay. And he said yeah. And they go by the person's weight and height and stuff to make the blanket weigh a certain amount of pounds. Offhand I don't remember what it weighs, but I still have it.
Shannon Chamberlin:The weirdest thing about this blanket and my kid is that he never used it as a blanket. As soon as I would leave the room he would start making adjustments to it and we've always tried to get him to make himself comfortable. You know, if you're hot, take something off. If you're cold, put something on. If your head is uncomfortable the way you're sitting, adjust the pillow. And he'll never do any of that. He just won't figure it out. But he did with this blanket. So he would take the blanket off of his body and every single time I give this boy this blanket, I walk back into the room and he's got the entire blanket folded up in a ball on his head and he'll just sit there with this I don't know 20 pound blanket on his head. Never did use it on his body. He can't stand it on his body. He wants it on his head. So I don't know, I don't like that. I don't think that's good for the spine. Sometimes I would let it go on for a couple minutes, but if left to him he would do that all day long. I just don't get it.
Shannon Chamberlin:Now, speaking of him being a big man, that was one thing that he learned in school. He's always trying to learn or understand, it seems, the family unit, the family dynamic, all of the roles that people play and the titles and stuff like that. He had trouble with mom and dad and son and he didn't quite understand because he used to know someone else was mom. So that was hard for him. He calls me mommy now, but back when he was learning that he was a big boy, we used to all tell him you're a big boy now. And I think the school actually was telling him that because he'll come home from school and say weird stuff, you know. So he came home from school one day and he told me Jacob, big boy, I big, I'm big boy. And I would say, yes, you are, you are a big boy, look at you. And he one day he said Shenandoah, tiny woman. I thought that was the cutest thing. Nobody taught him that. He did that. He made that up, he gave me that role or that title and he perfectly understood big to tiny boy to woman. I thought that was awesome. That was so brilliant of him. I just thought that was really cool.
Shannon Chamberlin:The other thing I wanted to say, as far as developmental milestones and stuff like that, when we were talking about the scoring scales and stuff for Jacob's evaluation, they didn't have it in the evaluation, but it's something that I mentioned before, how I was very proud of him having 150 words in his vocabulary around 13 years old or so, I don't know. I never judged him about anything, I've always just accepted him as a whole. Well, once I started seeing other kids younger than him eating with forks and stuff, yes, I did wish that he could do a little bit better. But when I learned that he had 150 words, I was very pleased with that at 13 years old and I just thought it was really cool and I thought we were making progress, you know. But then I looked it up and a four or five year old's vocabulary has between 1000 and 2000 words and it's completely understandable at that age. So when you take it in that context, you take a four or five-year-old has a thousand or two thousand words and my 13-year-old has 150. Yes, I understand that that's not great, but for my family and my household, for my son, it was awesome, and I don't think that we should be comparing our kids to others. You shouldn't compare yourself to anyone. You shouldn't compare the kid to anybody. We're all on a journey and no one's going to be the same, so just do what you can with it.
Shannon Chamberlin:One of my favorite stories. I may have told this before, but it warrants repeating. It's so cute. I used to put him in bed and he was getting, you know, 13, 14 years old, he was starting to grow hair in weird places and there was one day when I tucked him into bed and I was leaving his room. He was in good spirits at the time, so I gave him a kiss and tucked him in and said Daddy will be home soon. He said Shindle, look. And he jumped out of bed, pulled his pants down and said Chewbacca, he is a prankster at heart. He loves to mess with you and play jokes on you and stuff like that. And you know, I just can't imagine the type of person he might be if he didn't have to be so shrouded by autism, because as smartass and pranksterish as he is, I think he would be really a force to be reckoned with. In my next episode we're going to start getting back into all of the things that were going on before we got him into therapy and before we got him services. I have so many things and so many experiences and lots of insights and just things that really slapped me in the face, even from people who are supposed to be professionals the way that they judge him and prejudge him as a matter of fact, and all the things I learned from other kids in an autism group. I got so much to share, so we'll start getting back into that in my next episode.
Shannon Chamberlin:Oh, by the way, I guess this most recent full moon, which was the wolf moon, is supposedly very emotional. It's having an emotional effect on people and, as you know, our sun is very affected by the moon I think a lot of our kids are but its effects are expected to be felt for up to two weeks afterward, as opposed to like a two or three day period with normal moons. I am definitely seeing this in our son's behavior this week. He's just really off the charts and kind of all over the place emotionally. I don't know if it's the moon or the medicine. I mean, do we ever? But if you've noticed any heightened emotion or sadness and stuff like that with your kid, you've probably got about a week left of the moon's effects, so maybe that'll help Hang in there. You're a superhero.