Life in Alignment

Life in Alignment: The Healing Power of Yoga

Scott Anderson's Spectrum Yoga Therapy is a miracle for those diagnosed with autism

Madison Magazine, August 2011

Excerpt from original source:

The boy in red slides sock-footed down the length of the Mound Street Yoga studio, yipping rhythmically in a high-pitched keen. At his feet a girl takes no notice, focused on the invisible orchestra she conducts with twirling wrists, third finger and thumb pressed tightly together. There are about a dozen students here spanning the autism spectrum, each engaging in his or her own “self-stim” behavior. One rocks, another spins in circles, yet another smacks his head against the floor repeatedly. Noisy chaos ricochets off the walls in stark contrast to your average yoga class, but it’s the unfailing norm for these families.

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Finding Safety

Finding Safety

How Safe Harbor helped Alex confront her history of sexual abuse

Isthmus, 31 March 2011

Excerpt from original source:

At first glance Alex looks like any other young adult. But if you sit with her for a while you can see the little girl she was. There is a slight tremor to her fingers as she swipes back her bangs, a self-protective hunch to her shoulders. Her dress is a fabric garden planted with hundreds of tiny, perfect daisies. What she has to say is shocking.

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Pay Dirt

Pay Dirt

A resilient plot of land on the city's south side will soon grow jobs and a whole lot more

Madison Magazine, August 2010

Excerpt from original source:

It is a cool, sunny morning on the south side of Madison, the kind of morning with the promise of later-day heat. Just off the Beltline at Rimrock Road, in a vacant weedy lot next to an abandoned building, thirty or forty people are hanging out near a pile of dirt. At the head of the crowd stands a man, ordinary save for his exceptional height, a good foot taller than everybody else. Cars whiz past bullet-like on the Beltline, their drivers oblivious to the scene below.

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Beware of Cyberbullies

Beware of Cyberbullies

Advancing technology makes it harder than ever to protect our kids — especially from each other

Isthmus, 20 May 2010

Excerpt from original source:

Even looking back on it now, Deb Archer did everything right. Like most parents today, the Dane County working mother carefully tiptoed the line between Internet safety and privacy.

Archer put the family computer in her home office, where she could keep a casual but deliberate eye on her 16-year-old daughter's Internet activities. And while her daughter's Facebook account was set to private, Archer had the password. She didn't check, though, in an act of trust.

"My daughter is a good kid," says Archer. "A nice kid, a cautious kid." They had a solid relationship, as far as teen girls and their mothers go.

There was a boy at school. He had some "obvious emotional and mental problems," and other kids picked on him. Archer's daughter did not. The boy developed a crush.

In person, the boy mostly kept his distance. On the Internet, however, he was much braver.

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