About Judah Kosterman

Judah Kosterman grew up where farms met factories in the Midwest. She earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and then did two things she’d always talked about – moved to the big city and started travelling. On something between a whim and a dare, she took a job in management and moved to the East Coast. She met a great guy. She did two more things on her list – got married and went to grad school. She also did a couple of things which hadn’t occurred to her earlier, namely, moving to the South and applying her skills to the non-profit sector. Which is how she found herself working at the American Red Cross on 9/11. She’s been working for non-profits, small businesses, and community organizations ever since. By far the most challenging, exciting, and disruptive thing she ever did was to have a kid in the post-9/11 world. Becoming a parent has made her far more aware of the problems that sit at the intersection of mental, emotional, physical, and environmental health. Judah blogged about these issues for a couple of years for 4700 Chiropractic / Rosetree Wellness Center, and is thrilled to return to this form. Judah can often be found tending her garden in the Philly ‘burbs. She reviews books which give her food for thought at www.Goodreads.com. She also has an ever-evolving profile on LinkedIn. Visit her website to read more!
https://www.judahkosterman.com/

Posts by this author

image of boy sleeping

Special Needs Means Special Sleep Needs, Too

Other moms would talk about the hours-long, sleep-of-the-dead naps their children took, or how by three months of age they were putting their kids down to sleep at 8 p.m. and not hearing a peep from them till dawn. I wanted to scream. Or throw something. Or both, except I was too tired. Instead I’d chew my lip and turn away, crying, wondering how I was screwing up so badly at mothering that none of us had gotten a decent night’s sleep in years.

failing report card

When Failing is Progress: Why Retaking Algebra Is a Good Thing

Last month we got a letter from our school district. Standardized test scores were in, and kiddo hadn’t achieved proficiency in math. Again. This time there are consequences. Come September, kiddo will be repeating algebra.
A year ago, in the office of kiddo’s newly assigned high school counselor, I had the unhappy task of trying to explain why I thought my child should repeat pre-algebra, despite having passed it.

image of sad person

The Book Report That Landed My Kid on the School’s Suicide Watch

Imagine that phone call, in which you as parent have to tell your child’s brand-new counselor they’re three years behind the curve.

Now imagine guiding that same kiddo through Of Mice and Men, wherein the intellectually disabled character, prone to violent outbursts, is put out of his misery with a bullet in the back of his head, fired by his guardian. Or To Kill a Mockingbird, featuring the “not right” Boo Radley spending his adult years under family-imposed house arrest. Next up, Romeo and Juliet, the story of obsessive teenage lovers kept apart, wherein one character decides faking suicide and running away from home are her best options, and the other character kills himself in despair.

Is this canon really the best we can do? If the literary characters with mental health issues students read about are always marked for confinement or death, then we’re not moving the ball on diversity, acceptance, or even opening pathways to conversation.

Wall of lockers

Finding the Right School Combination for Special Needs

Back in his preschool days, my son was diagnosed with a vision issue that got him a disability label, plus some behavioral issues adding to it. But there is a vast difference between qualifying for services, and receiving services. In Pennsylvania, where special needs care for the under-18 set is administered on a county-by-county basis, there is also a vast difference in care by ZIP code grouping.