Wear Blue Day

Today is wear blue day in support of Autism Awareness during the entire month of April.
Autism (as well as other "spectrum" disorders) has a special place in my heart.
No, I'm not Autistic. No one in my family has autism.

1 in 88 kids are Autistic today, and with Autism comes other related disorders such as ADHD, ADD, etc...

My brother has ADHD. He is the funniest person I know, is the most accepting non-judgemental person I have ever met, yet has a heart of gold. But he has struggled. Struggled since second grade when he was labeled as ADHD. That label followed him all the way through school. The power of the label of ADHD consumed him through school. Very few of his teachers expected him to succeed in the  classroom because he was "ADHD." Therefore he thought he was dumb, inferior, stupid. In reality he's so smart, but never realized it because of his label.

You may ask.."What does ADHD and Autism have to do with each other?"
The point of the story is the fact that spectrum disorder kids are labelled from the time that they are diagnosed to the rest of their lives. They are looked at differently, treated differently, and talked to differently. When in reality, they are just ordinary kids with special talents.

Randi at Our Modern Day Fairytale has a son named Shaun who is Autistic. She blogs about day to day life, as well as the struggles and milestones that Shaun has. She wrote such a beautiful post about being a mom with an Autistic son- so go check it out~

Also...she is doing a Stella & Dot giveaway (sponsored by me!) for the Support Autism Awareness month. The giveaway is for the Shine Bracelet--it's a really awesome bracelet! Head on over to Stella & Dot to check out the entire Support Autism Awareness collection!

20% of the proceeds from each of these items bought will go to the HollyRod Foundation