Today we’d like to introduce you to Gretchen Grundon.
Hi Gretchen, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I started out in my field, Special Education, in college when I interned with a school psychologist during my senior year at UCSB. Following my graduation, I was offered a job as a special education aide and worked in Santa Barbara at several schools. I knew I wanted to continue and make a career out of special education so I moved to San Diego to attend SDSU to get my teaching credential. During the program, I got married and was settling in nicely to life in San Diego, though truthfully the city really overwhelmed me when I moved here! I transitioned directly into the master’s program, studying autism specifically. I had been working as a teacher up until my second daughter was born. From the day she arrived in this world, we knew she would need extra support, due to some birth trauma and red flags for delays. I cut back to working part-time, and began devoting my extra time to therapies and infant programming. During these early months of her life, as we went through the motions of assessments and specialist doctor visits, I started to see special education in a new light. I was learning what it was like to be on the other side of the table – to be a parent of a child with significant needs who was also trying to raise another child (my girls are 15 short months apart!), as well as work in a fairly challenging and exhausting position. During this time, I left the classroom and pursued my BCBA (Board Certified Behavior Analyst) certification, working for a nonpublic agency, and continued to serve families of children with autism in their homes and in the schools. Over the years I continued to adjust my professional commitments in order to best meet the needs of my family. I currently have a professional home at San Diego State as a lecturer and researcher. My family and I live in Rancho Bernardo. My husband, Bryan, who is an attorney owns his own business and coaches high school football. We love spending time together with our girls at our home, swimming or gardening, listening to music or going to concerts, cooking, and playing with our dogs. When the pandemic hit and we faced major life changes, I decided I wanted to do something to support families from a distance. I began creating content for a website that I hope can support families of kids with special needs. The Analyzing Mommy was born out of my love for connecting with families as well as from my own need for an outlet to share my story of the ups and downs of parenting in a special needs family. I’m continuing to slowly develop content while I take care of the kids, do my work for SDSU, and take classes in Educational Leadership. I’m by no means techno-savvy (I get made fun of frequently for being a technology dinosaur) but I’m hoping to expand the site as well as to branch into social media more deeply, in a way where I can offer more support to families who are adjusting to life raising a young child with special needs. I want to help people feel connected to something supportive during a time in their lives that I know is so isolating and challenging.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I don’t know that I would say my road was a SMOOTH road, but it was the RIGHT road. I have made multiple transitions in my career and honestly, I’m thankful for every single one of them. I had to make some pretty major decisions about my own professional career in order to be able to find a true work/life balance. Truthfully, I haven’t quite found that yet, but I feel relatively close (or maybe as close as possible, does anyone really have a true work/life balance??). But each experience I have had has helped me learn and grow and for that, I am forever grateful.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I work at San Diego State University in the College of Education, in the Special Education Department. I teach a fieldwork experience class, as well as a class about supervision and management for BCBA candidates. I also am a mentor for newer special education teachers, which is one of my favorite parts of my job. I get to meet with teachers weekly and support them in whatever way they need support in their early years of teaching. I’m also currently working on two research projects; one is a partnership with another university and we are evaluating the effects of social skills curriculums for students with autism in middle schools and the second is taking a deeper dive into the literature to learn more about approaches to teaching literacy skills to learners with autism who are minimally verbal or nonverbal. I love love love my job and working with new teachers is something that brings me so much joy.
Recently, I got the chance to sit next to my graduating class as they walked at their master’s ceremony and that’s probably when I was my most proud professionally. I watched a group of students who learned how to become teachers and BCBAs during a global pandemic graduate. Folks, it is not easy to deliver behavior programming or teach a preschool special education class over Zoom, but my students did it. For a Year. I was so proud to see them and to have had the honor to be a part of their learning.
Personally, I am also pretty proud of this amazing event my family put on with the help of my girl scout troop last Christmas and plan to do annually. We created an event at our home called “A Night at the North Pole” and we transformed our front yard into a Christmas wonderland for four nights in December. We invited community kids to come and see Santa and Mrs. Claus (My husband and me) and had music and crafts. One night was dedicated fully to Girl Scout troops. The best part about the event was that we made it accessible for families of kids with disabilities and other health restrictions. We had special schedules set up to limit traffic for individuals who needs a quieter Santa experience and build in extra time for families of kids who were nervous or just needed a calm space to be themselves. We had one family come and the mom told us that it was the first time their family had ever been able to successfully see Santa. Their son’s complex needs made it difficult for them to enjoy the experience as a family, but we were able to provide that. At the event, we collected food donations for the San Diego Food Pantry and we donated an entire truckload of food and baby supplies before Christmas. We saw over 150 kids in 4 days and my face seriously hurt from smiling so much. It was one of the best things I have ever done in my life and I can’t wait to do it again! Being able to connect with so many families, provide something special for families of kids with special needs and be able to teach a group of middle school girls about caring for and giving back to their community – it was truly amazing!
What’s next?
I’m planning to continue developing my website and hopefully making it more interactive by offering video trainings for parents, as well as expanding my social media pages. Eventually, I hope to offer CEUs for BCBAs as well. The biggest current change in my life is starting a Doctoral Program. I’ll be back in school for 3 more years, studying Educational Leadership. Also, my older daughter just turned 13, so parenting a teen is probably going to bring some changes. I’m kind of curious and a little worried to see what happens there! I’ll have two in middle school now so that’s pretty big! And of course, next Christmas, Santa and Mrs. Claus will be ready and waiting to greet little ones and spread some holiday cheer!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theanalyzingmommy.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theanalyzingmommy
