I'm a mother of 8 children. 6 of them are still living.
We live in The Netherlands, a tiny country in Europe below sealevel.
I speak Dutch. English has become a kind of second language. I can understand German well, and French and Swedish a bit, and Japanese less.
I think I make terrible mistakes at times, but at least I try!!!

I like to do many things, but usually there isn't enough time for: singing, making music, knitting, crochet, gardening,etc etc.
I've been a dedicated balletdancer and -teacher, and if someone would ask me I would start teaching immediately. I love making choreographies.
I also like to draw, but there's not enough rest to do so.
Partly because I'm a bagpiper, and I need time and practice.
I design my own pages and I value the work of others dearly. Occasionally I make an adoptable.

I don't have the easiest family and I feel that my studies in psychology and education are of great help.

Nyo (15) is diagnosed as being autistic (or PDD-NOS with strong autistic features).

I have taught him everything he can with lots of repetition and lots of patience.
He visited basic school. In the last year, when he was 11, he couldn't cope anymore, mainly because his teacher was unexperienced and was not able to interpret his behaviour. and a principal, who tried to hide every problem untill they were too big to handle, and who wasn't able to feel into the world of a child that struggles with himself.
It resulted in me homeschooling him, which is not very common in our country.

He's visiting a school for special education and is in his final year. He's got grave problems with social interaction. The school is very well equiped to solve learning problems, but the people dealing with him are not very equipped to handle problems of autistic children.
they're very willing though, which has resulted in teambuilding around Nyo.

Still I have to fight through each day to get him go to school, make his homework, bekind and go to bed at a reasonable time.
Nyo has had therapy, but it didn't have much result. He needs constant careful guidance and repeated learning of social skills.
There is no facility near our home, so he needs to stay at home fulltime untill he is at least 18 years.

Thami (16) is suffering from an information processing disability, with symptoms like dyslexia and ADHD.
With him we went through the wellknown story of mom complaining about dyslexia and the school ignoring the problems.
I won't tell you how often the school looked at me in such a way so I knew they thought I was lying when I told them we'd been bussy with Thami's homework for hours and hours on end.
Two years ago he started to go to a school for special education, and things are going far better.
In fact, since he's on Ritalin (not very willingly started by us) his behaviour has improved a lot.

He wants to become an ambulance paramedic and after this year at school, his final year, he wants to go to another schooltype to reach his goal.

He started this year working at a supermarket and he's a very hard worker there.
Two evenings a week he goes to aikido, a japanese martial art.

He's now deep into puberty, experimenting to cross the boundaries.

We expect one of the twingirls: Djenne,(11) to battle with the same problem as Thami, but she doesn't show hyperactivity.
She's behind in reading more than 12 months!!! Can't believe that after all the effort I've put into it.
This schoolyear is a difficult one as the school doesn't have a remedial teacher and a pedagogue (an person diagnosing and treating learning disorders) anymore. Luckily she's very intelligent and has a great memory, so she compensates a lot.
This schoolyear she's got one of her favorite teachers, who keeps a closer watch than her former teachers on her progression.
She will be tested this fall, so we can choose the next school wellinformed.

Djenne loves to observe people, she already did as a baby.

She loves drawing, ballet, learning the bagpipe, barbies (the fake ones. LOL!), glueing things together and a lot more.
She's got brown eyes, brown hair, and a skin that tans easily.

Yinti, her twinsister, has had a tumultuous time at school.
She's a real character, and she likes the world to be the way she has designed it in her mind.
She's very creative and is able to hide her feelings very well.

because she isn't as tall as her sister people think she's a bit "behind" and helpless, but she has a sharp tongue, when necessary and her own opinion.

At school she's a bit slower with learning, and we expect her to have part of the problems Thami has.
The school has denied it many years, but now the girls will be tested they finally acknowledge it.

Yinti is a very slim girl that can eat tons! LOL!
Who would have thought that during the exchange transfussions after birth? (Both girls were rhesusbabies).

Yinti is one of the best sleepers I know, and she does need a lot of sleep. When she's awake she's always bussy with the same hobbies Djenne has.
She loves to created dances and likes to crochet at the beginners level.
She's got grey eyes, blonde hair and her skin is milkwhite (or red. LOL!).

The oldest of 21 has got severe forms of Asperger syndrome and ADD.
There's nothing wrong with his intelligence, but his short term memory is very bad. (It's worse than Thami's.)
He went rather well through his first years of life, but the last years he seemed to deteriorate.

He functions far behind his age and he was not willing to accept the rules here at the house.

He recently moved out to a trainingshouse, where they help him to learn what he needs to know to function properly.
There they'll observe where he can live after 1 to 2 years of trainingshouse: in a protected environment, a home or somewhere else.

Now he lives elsewhere he wants to adjust to normal houserules more.
We'll see where it goes from there.

And there's Lars (17), the second boy of the four.
He already crawled in his crib, much to the amusement of the nurses.

And when they turned him on his back he had such a look on his face that they called him "the mayor."LOL!
Well, we'll see if he'll even be one. LOL!

He went to the ballet-academy in another town (travelling long hours each day) untill he got a permanent injury.
He then started skateboarding and photography.

His school carreer was broken off when he was attacked and injured by a group on the street before school when he tried to protect a friend from being bullied.
School isn't a safe place for him anymore.

He has learning problems too, possibly due to an underlying autism spectrum disorder.
His ambition is to become a photographer and a filmmaker.
He's already made quite some good skateboardingshots. With his friends he makes little videomovies. Preferrably from skateboarding.

Last year he worked for school for some time at a printing bussiness and enjoyed it very much.
He now wants a job in photography.

Their father shows autistiform behaviour too, which became very apparent the last few years.

The first years of our marriage he seems to be pleasantly calm. LOL!

Some years ago we were in the middle of a divorce, because we have no partner life at all, but we stopped the procedure after the government changed some very important financial things, and it became clear that after a divorce we wouldn't be able to provide enough support for the children to go through their schooltime.
So we stopped the legal divorce.
He lives here and with that all is said.

We agreed that if ever I'll meet someone I'm free.

He's not able, or not wanting, to deal well with the handicaps of the children. So very often I have to step in.

He works in another town and leaves early and is at home late.
So almost all decisions and actions for the family are mine.

So I'm the leader of the nuthouse, the therapist of my husband and children, trying to change the world on my own. LOL!

Made by Debi
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