Meet the Rodgers Family: Meagan, Logan, Emery, Hadley, Crew and Nash

from Special Needs Living July 2022 Digital Issue

by Uniquely You

Pioneer Parents of Indiana: Meet Edith Glover

featured family

By Aaron Olson

Photos by 21 Vines Photography

Meagan and Logan Rodgers live with their four children, Emery (9), Hadley (8), Crew (2), and Nash (1), in Whitestown, Indiana. When Crew was about 9 months old, Meagan began to notice something was off about his behavior. Crew had a lot of issues with his gut, and he would engage extensively in repetitive behavior such as opening and shutting a door for hours on end. By the time Crew turned one, Meagan began to push harder for answers. The advice given to her by her family, friends, and even doctors was to wait until Crew was a little older before making any conclusions.

Despite this, Meagan chose to follow her instincts and finally got a referral to First Steps, where Crew was eventually diagnosed with autism. Even though the family strongly suspected autism all along, they still suffered an emotional blow with the official diagnosis. The grief for the loss of the life they had envisioned for their child cast a shadow over the family, and they felt lonely and isolated. Week by week, their son would stop eating and would continually turn to anger and aggression in response to his inability to communicate his needs.

After receiving the diagnosis, Meagan was unable to return to work, and the family had to downsize and change their entire life. Initially, Meagan knew very little about autism, so she decided to educate herself by reading anything she could find to better understand and empathize with Crew’s life experience. Meagan can remember the day she looked into Crew’s little blue eyes and told him, “I won’t try to fit you into my world, [but I’ll try to join you in yours]. Let me see what you see; let me feel what you feel. You are safe with me.” Upon hearing this, Crew’s face lit up for the first time as if he understood the importance of that promise.

Knowing that many of his behavioral problems stem from his inability to tell others what he wanted, began to focus their days on figuring out a way for him to communicate. She tried everything from PEC cards to sign language with no results. At some point, she learned about a communication device, and Crew’s speech therapist agreed to try to use the device with his therapy. Within two sessions, Crew communicated with his mother for the first time by hitting the “yummy, more food” button. The smile on his face brought Meagan to tears. To Meagan, that moment changed everything. She was renewed with hope.

Unfortunately, Crew’s eating habits were starting to affect him, and the family was told he would most likely need a feeding tube. Fortunately, Meagan had an idea to use Crew’s sensory table and mix in some feeding therapy strategies with it. “I let him lead me with what interests him and [I] run with it,” she explained. “Every week, we make a new set up, and I’ll add different texture food, snacks, etc., into his sensory table. Little by little, he started trying it and adding new foods into his diet, which was so huge for us!” The family is still figuring out what “does and does not work” when it comes to managing Crew’s behavior and eating habits, but they are thankful to be in a community who helped their child.

“I want people to know they aren’t alone,” says Meagan about other families going through similar struggles. “You can love your child and grieve at the same time. In my personal journal, I had written that I felt that I was completely losing myself; I was spiraling into a hole of feeling so isolated and alone. But we are not. I have a voice that my son taught me was a privilege to have, and I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. I started reaching out [and sharing our story], and through that met others who just needed to feel heard and understood. I stopped trying to control things that were out of my control and put that energy into controlling what I did have control over. I focused on myself.”

Meagan also encourages people to embrace new traditions that can coincide with having a special needs child rather than forcing older dogmatic traditions that only cause problems. For example, one of Crew’s favorite things is to pretend-drive in the car with his dad. So, for his birthday, rather than have a traditional birthday party, Meagan and Logan set up a birthday parade where they sat in the car and waved and honked at people as they drove by. “He had the best day; I have never seen him so happy and content for so long. Something I once thought he would never experience, he did. We just changed the way we did it into something that fit Crew better!”

Meagan and Logan are still working things out as their son is still very young, and they look forward to continuing to connect with the community. As a final note, they wanted to share their belief that this community is filled with so much love and goodness, and they appreciate all the help they have received thus far.