Oh, Poor Choice! You Now Have to Cuddle!

Forced Cuddling, Part 2

Today John wasn’t happy with my forcing him to watch a new movie.

How horrible could watching Ice Age for the first time be?

(Maybe your child is afraid of new movies?)

Anyway, he wanted to swim and I made him watch for 30 minutes to earn swimming.Forced Cuddling 2

He wasn’t happy about this, and made a really poor choice, in rebellion.

So I created a new intervention, rather than using an existing one,

(like peeling off a Taekwondo stripe).

Very precious thing, that stripe.

Rather, I made him sit in my lap watching the movie for another 30 minutes.

Yes, it did make me sit down (not so bad, right?)

And we watched a new movie, and I made him cuddle with me.

I even set the timer.

Mean old mom.

Maybe this might work at your home, for all kinds of reasons.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

“You Have to Cuddle”

("and if you wiggle, I am adding more time"

One of the lost kinds of parent pleasure with kids of learning differences are too few moments of cuddling.cuddle

So we now have a new intervention, “Forced Cuddling”, to build those neural pathways.

We started with 4 minutes.

I said, “Wiggle, and I am adding a minute”.

John stopped wiggling.

Then it became a fun exercise in silliness and negotiating minutes.

John got to laughing and having some moments of happiness and joy.

The way it was supposed to have been.

And so did mom.

cuddle 1

And we are building neural pathways for his future.

Try this at home?

Peace be with us,

Gayle

Rainy Day Dodge Ball

For all our unexpected predators

The house of John is often a field of battle.

Especially on rainy days.

Especially when other kids are playing with him.

John has become an unlikely predator on the dodge ball courts at Sky Zone.

Rainy Day Dodgeball

And at home, it’s fair game also.

Any kind of moving play is OK—-more than OK.

Encouraged.

So, put your fancy stuff somewhere safe.

Bring out the Nerf guns, small balls, jumpy toys, bouncy anythings.

Game on!

Because mid-line crossover is anywhere you can find it.

Occupational therapy done right is so fun the kids don’t know it.

And joy in movement means learning and progressing.

Try this at your home?

Fancy vases are for someone else.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

“I Did a Good Job . . . . !”

Shiny, Dancing Eyes

The task sounds so simple to most kids:  Wash your hands. shiny dancing eyes2

Except when it isn’t simple.

For some kids, it’s a complicated process.

And too-many re-directs from a hovering adult kills the joy.

So this morning, as I was watching, I tried NOT to think about the clock.

I just watched him as he kept glancing at me in the mirror, each step of the process.

You could tell he knew he was doing every part right, and the joy was building in his face.

Then, he turned toward me and said in a #3 voice, “I did a good job washing my hands!”

I also got a huge happy hug with that smile.

Last thing he said scootering off to school 20 minutes later was “I did a good job washing my hands!”

Just in case I had forgotten.

It was a face of joy.  Joy as from the angels.

Watch for your kid doing such stuff?

Peace be with us.

Gayle

 

He Wants It That Badly

2+ Hours in a Large Sensory Overload Box

Recently, John spent hours in a small portable Mario Brothers heaven/hell,  for the joy of being with his neuro-typical peers.

Then on to all the other stuff that goes with a little boys’ birthday party.

Including catching pollywogs from the creek with a paper cup.

He even ate a whole piece of pizza.  (A big deal!)Mario Bros

Doesn’t sound like much for many kids, but it was a super sensory stretch of time.

And he wanted to because there were other kids there.

And out of his mouth came some of his very best sentences ever.

So, continue to encourage your kid community for invites to parties.

New sensory neural pathways can grow every day, if we give them a reason to stretch.

Peace to us,

Gayle

Car Nerf Gun War – For Boys to Fit In

Whatever It Takes For Social Modeling, I Guess

Boys like to shoot guns.  It’s a fact, I guess.

So here is an idea that may work in your world.

In the car, with the windows up.nerf gun1

Little boys who know how to do it are the teacher.

John is the learner.nerf gun2

The driver minds her own mommy business of chauffeuring safely.

Not sure if it is best practices, or just social “whatever it takes” for neuro-typical peer modeling.

But it is also sharing teachable moments with anyone who will listen.

For we are teaching the next generation of teachers, therapists, doctors, nurses, and other experts about our kids with learning differences.

In John’s life, his neuro-typical friends teach John how to climb ropes, shoot nerf guns, and so much more.

Active learning, kinestetic learning at its very best practices.

For both sides of the learning:  the seekers who both give and receive.  And sometimes vice-versa.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

 

More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

Creative Problem Solving: Sleeping in the Bathroom

2016-04-15 21.28.12Last night, John wanted to sleep anywhere but in his room.

I had to get up early the next morning, so not with me.

Not in the playroom, out in the open.   Too noisy.

He was in his room, lights out, and told me to go.

Good—we train for independence constantly.

Later on, I heard a very large squirrel making rearranging noises in the bathroom, but I didn’t investigate until I went to bed.

This is what I found.

Now, we sometimes play here, but very very very seldom is this where we start the night.

John won.  Mom lost.  If you want to call it losing.  (I didn’t really, because it was creative and solved his problem of loneliness.)

I wish I could tell you I elegantly relocated him, but the truth is way closer to dragging him by the arms through the door, into his room.

So, if you notice opposition in your home, if it borders on creative problem solving, kid-style, think about it as a step forward in critical thinking.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

“Another One Bites The Dust”

(And the Joke is on Mom)

Another One Bites The DustYesterday at bedtime my son was doing what he wanted to do.

Not what I wanted him to do.

So, I got out my secret weapon.

I laid the blow dryer on the floor beside John.

Thought I was so sneaky and clever.

John picked it up, started to play with it, plugged it in, and blew air all over his face and body.

Grinning so broadly.  So proudly.

We both started laughing and celebrating.

A former instrument of terror had just bitten the dust.

Of course, I had lost my best secret weapon.

But today, I wrote on his list that he could earn “playing with the blow dryer tonight” as a motivator.

It worked.   Two nights in a row.

I was afraid to say anything last night, but here on Evening #2 is proof.

How could this help you?

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

Will He Cheat?

Or Will Intrinsic Motivation Kick In? And What About the Joy of the List?

Usually when John reads his (required) 30 minutes a day, Cop Mom hovers.

This morning, I told John he was in charge of the book, his reading, the timer, his breakfast.2016-02-21 21.52.12-1

I went upstairs, “to get clean”.   So we could go to Sunday school.

I admit I did peek from time-to-time, and I saw no cheating.

Instead, he read more loudly so that I could hear it upstairs.

Usually, he sandbags the reading by keeping it all in his head.  I can only assume he is actually reading.

Today, I heard it loud and clear.

He did rebel against 30 minutes on the timer.

Instead, he did 25 + 5.

OK with me.

And he joyfully got in my face to declare his victory.2016-03-18 19.03.52-1

I wonder how it will work for all the tomorrows?

Try this with your kids?

Another bonus has been the sheer joy John has learned—crossing off his things to do from his list.

This photo doesn’t do it justice.  He is excited, so purposefully editing his daily list.

He is becoming goal (checking-it-off-the-list) oriented.

I think that kinda counts, don’t you?

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

“I Watched the Movie by Reading the Book”

More Than One Kind of Super Heroes Comic Book

Graphic NovelJohn usually fights required reading.

Today was different.   He picked out the graphic novel (comic book) of “Inside Out”.

Usually he doesn’t share his quality reading with me.  I just get the bad stuff.

Today was different.  He lingered over the pages, talking, inventing, recalling, sharing with me, looking at me.

Not at all in a bad way.

He was in the flow.  Reading a comic book.   About some heroes he loves.

Remember the old Carl the dog storybook series?   Just pictures, you made your own words and story.

Well, if John needs to increase his imagination (AND HE DOES), then what he did today would count toward imaginary play.

Don’t you think?

So, maybe for our kids lagging in expressive language, try a high-quality “comic book” of someone or something they love.

Maybe they will make a movie in their heads.

That’s what John said to me, “I watched the movie by reading the book”.

Bet you find some joy also.

Peace be with us.

Gayle

 

A New Place To Try Brave

Frog & Toad & Dirty Dishes

PeaceJohn thinks it is a reward, an adventure, to “try brave” in new bathrooms, new places.2016-01-20 08.57.15

So, he is willing to do his daily reading (merely) so that he can earn using the bathroom afterward.

To try brave once again.

The dreaded dryer will probably be in there.

There is joy on his face when he comes out of all that noise, victorious because “I did it!”

I hope your child has something to conquer that brings joy with victory.

It is what life is about.

Our kids conquer things that we have no understanding of.

Peace be with us.

 

Valentines and Talking to Myself

What I Do Because It is For My Friends

Do your kids have something/anything they love to do?

For John, it is anything about his friends.   Valentines

So, here is the Valentines project.

He had picked Super Heroes, because of the strong.

Two classrooms, lots of kids’ names on that sheet of paper.

He told me a lot, with his out-loud thinking:  which kids he liked the best, little things he would chatter about that don’t come out as expressive speech when I ask him questions.

He was “in the flow”, laughing, dropping his pencil, asking himself (out loud!) where his pencil went? and then saying, “good question!”

His writing was pretty good at the beginning.

Mom goofed by putting teachers on the bottom of the list.

So they got the worst of the penmanship.

If you can call it that.

And I “let” him put the little nuggets in the correct bag, which was a motor-planning thing.

So, when you find things that turns your kids’ joy on, hang around and listen.

I learned a lot.   Love it when they are happy.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

Roll Over

Rethinking how I communicate with son, via Anat Baniel

Tonight, I was trying to gIMG_7471et John through the bedtime prep rituals, including trans-dermal vitamins.

I said, “Roll over”.  (Surely I said “please”.  Can’t remember.)

I was thinking like the past, “like a log”.

I needed to to squirt the vitamins on his stomach, not his back.  It is his job to rub them in.

John did roll, in a completely new way: a forward roll like in gymnastics.

I have been reading Anat Baniel’s book, “Kids Beyond Limits” and trying to re-train myself on new ways.   Anat Baniel Kids Without Limits

By minimizing praise and not bossing him around, not distracting him from any and all variations his brain and body are trying, moving in new ways is supposed to “just happen”.

It worked.

And all I was supposed to say was, “you rolled over in a new way”, celebrating inside but not on the outside.

Great book.  A must-read, and I hope it helps your world.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

Closer, Closer to the Flame

You Can Improve Auditory Processing and Sensory Hearing

There was a time this would NEVER have happened.

But we have practiced and have earned the neural pathways to allow for this exploration in the dentist office.closer to the flame

You know this noise: the loud, whining, grinding, hair-raising screech.

So, curious, nervous, drawing closer to his brother and closer to the enemy.

Noise is the enemy.

The weapon of (slow) victory is practice of interventions building new neural pathways to carry the processing load.

Believe in interventions, believe in practice with your kids, believe in pushing sensory boundaries.

Peace to with us,

Gayle

Power of Peers

(Assuming that is what motivates your child)

Peer modeling is HUGE for and to my son.   IMG_6620

Like this, at basketball. Those are mouth protectors going in.  (John is on the left).   Putting that cold hard chunk of plastic in his mouth is not anything John would be interested in, if it were just he and Mom hanging out.

Like cleaning the car windows with the squeegee at the gas station (it was more like making a big mess, but never mind that) because his friend Zeb did it first.   And John just had to man up.

Try this with your children—give them time to watch their peers, and then ask if “they want to try that”.   Whatever “that” is.

And respect the answer.   Take heart:  if not now, maybe soon.

Peace to us,

Gayle

“I Am NOT Sad”

(so why are you laying that way on the sofa?)

He said he wasn’t sad.

I didn’t believe it.

I laid down next to him, nearly on top of him, and said (what I hoped were) comforting, validating words.Sadness

“It’s OK to be sad” kind of stuff.

Within a minute, he was up and on to the next thing.

Not sad anymore.

I will always believe it is because he felt validated.

Just like in the movie, “Inside Out”, when Sadness validated and built resilience.

Peace be to us,

Gayle

So This is What Toys Are For?

Buying kid toys has always been a prayer of purchase – a plea to the angels that if I buy enough of the right kind of toys, John would eventually play with them.

Like other kids.

So please consider this a reason to keep stretching your child’s comfort zones with peers as models of how to play with all this stuff.

John is finally picking up a Nintendo DS, a radio-controlled car, and the Wii remote (at home and at church).

ToysToys1And hogging them.

Don’t give up!  Keep stretching our kids.

Peace be with us,

ToysGayle

Move! Move! Move!

2015-09-22 07.52.40You gotti9 BB Summer 2015a love an occupational therapist who will haul around an upright backboard just to play hallway hoops with a kid.

Thanks to Alma Liotta, O.T.R. for her years of service to John.

Oh, how he loves playing basketball!  This grin is for his (first ever) team photo shoot.

He has come a long way—his first scrimmage with i9Sports was so overwhelming that John just laid down on the court.  Mid-game.

With each experience, he builds a better database of what to do and how to do it.  Body position for offense and defense is his current robust challenge.  He mimes the coach’s, “Move! Move! Move!”, and for all the clumsy joy, Mom cries.

How about log rolling races?  John can’t roll in the grass in a straight lirolling racesne.   He has friends he can model after, and tries to catch them.   But, really, he is still learning where his body is in space due to out-of-whack proprioceptive and vestibular senses.

Keep our kids moving.  Whatever it takes.  Crossing mid-line, building balance, having physical fun that most of us take utterly for granted.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

It Always Goes Back to the Game

Here is John getting tested.  (In times past, the misery in the room was huge from sensory wars.  It was full-body wrestling for John and Mom.)

We call this 2015-09-09 13.45.01“The Headphones Game”.

And there are other games:2015-09-09 13.26.29

“The Blood Pressure Game”, “The Balance Game”,

“The Don’t Make Mommy Cry Game”,

“The Getting Poop in the Toilet Game”,2015-09-09 13.42.28

and my all-time-favorite, the “I Think I Will Try That” Game.

Hope some of these work for you.

Peace,

Gayle

 

2015-09-09 13.38.02

Apparently Not Afraid of Sea Water Down the Hatch

So John is slower to join in social gatherings, slower to figure it all out.

Because he doesn’t know what to do yet.  Fear of the unknown.

So, he will also be scared of the waist-high Galveston ocean water, the 1st time out into it, during daylight.

The 2nd time out, at night, with some time to figure it all out, he seemed fearless.  (No way I would be laying down in that mess in the dark.)IMG_5851

Sensory adjustment is overcoming FEAR.

Once our kids get something figured out, they can overcome their fear.IMG_5852

So please accept this encouragement to keep stretching all the neural pathways yet-to-be in your child.

Same with John: Once he decided he “wanted to try that”, he was ready.

Keep asking, “Do you want to try that?”

Peace be with us,

Gayle

Got Siblings? Got Friends? Got Cousins?

Do you have other kids in the family?  We also use school buddies, cousins, and nice kids wherever we go.

I validate to those children their kindness and good heart.

I thank them for teaching “a younger brother”.

I demonstrateIMG_5830 IMG_20150904_151314077 2015-07-27 10.16.58 to  them what speech delay is by grabbing my own tongue to slow it down—-and I try to talk like that.

I tell the parents and the school what good choices they are raising.

Reciprocal play (my turn, your turn), joint-attention (let’s play together), and sharing in each other’s joy builds social neural pathways for our kids.

Here are some examples, in case you “want to try that”.  It is a free intervention.  The payoff can be huge.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

 

“My Legs and Feet”

What is that1handwriting1In the August 2015 issue of WIRED, they discuss kids’ handwriting and if being terrible was a problem.   The author closes with the muse, “we should take a second to think about how beautiful it can be”.

“Beautiful”?

As compared to the beauty of all the kids starting cursive while the boy living with me is struggling with the mere grip of a pencil?

I am grateful he has learned to write his name.  Never to be taken for granted.  Nor compared to other children’s work.

How about Art Class?  This is the first drawing he has made by himself.  Not cheating with other people holding the crayons and markers.   I had to ask him what it was.   He told me.   And he had to correct my question of in whose class he had made it (that was a piece of processing itself.)

Never by himself has he drawn anything solo or willingly, let alone his own legs and feet.  That is what this is, in his words.

So, we all can take the advice of WIRED, of joy in the beauty of whatever our kids create.

I would rather have this, made by himself, than a masterpiece with cheating.

How about you?

Peace,

Gayle

It’s All in the Wanting

IMG_5323It must really be something John wants, to tolerate this.   And he does want it.

First meeting, 2nd year, 3rd grade boys, Cub Scouts.

Fully participated in all the team games.

What must that battle be like in his head:  to have joy override sensory defensiveness, building neural pathways to make it increasingly OK?

This stuff stayed on that face all the way home in the car, and up the stairs to bed after playing after he got home.

No facial claw marks proving, “OK, I endured it all and now I want this junk off!”

None of that in the 20-minute care ride home plus home time.

So, never give up on stretching our children past the comfort zones.

New neural pathways are the trophies of interventions.

And let’s not forget intrinsic motivation, right?

What does your child WANT to do?

I ask John all the time.   It’s a good conversation, no matter how the expressive speech goes.

(I also share this shortcut with you—his badges are stapled on.    And they haven’t fallen off yet.)

Best,

Gayle

 

 

Bribing a Child

For two weeks, we have another little 8-year old boy in the house.  Adam is my son John’s nephew, my step-grandson.  (This technically makes me a grandma, with Nephew Adam 2 days older than Uncle John.)  

Adam has no learning differences.   And, Adam loves junk food.   So I have bribed him that if Adam can teach my son John to get his you-know-what into the you-know-where, I will let Adam eat cookies all day long, for one whole day.  Adam is now fully engaged in John’s #2 toileting goals.

And I am also bribing the 2 boys each morning to get through their practice of TouchMath together.  Nothing fun is going to happen until then.  (Technically, that’s less bribery and more tough love parenting.)

I also have a pending deal with Adam involving getting John to actually chew gum.AdamJohnTouchMath

You might want to try some version of leveraged bribery.

I am using it shamelessly.

Best,

Gayle

 

Peace Within Your Own Skin?

Today I spent a few quiet hours with my 8-year old son in the water, marveling at how comfortable and playful he was.  His sense of peace, of pace, of not needing, brought tranquility to this churning mom-heart.  That so-busy-with-interventions heart, that is supposed to be balanced between two opposite worlds:  One half doing everything I can to help him and the other half accepting him just as he is, in the moment.John Floating

I fall short often of that second nirvana—that half of my heart at peace with him as he is in his own skin, becoming John.

He is not always this calm, quiet, full of simple joy.  Is it  because I am chasing something I shouldn’t?

How do we teach our struggling children to be at peace within themselves?  To find and hold that inner harmony, to be at equilibrium enough when that social snub comes.  To not grieve for that party invitation undelivered?  To not need, to not be needy?

Peaceful in their own skin.Slide1Heart

For John, it would, of course, start with me.

What kind of example do I provide?   What did I miss?

Sometimes I am Mary when I should be Martha.

Sometimes, the opposite.

“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.”
― Robert Fulghum (“Everything I Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten”)

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

 

“I Think I Will Try That …..”

Says John.   And then he does.  2015-06-10 14.16.06

When he is ready.   Not when Mom nags, hovers, or cajoles him.

When he was ready to swing out, Tarzan-style, on a long rope over the deep pool at SplashTown.   Letting go.  8 times.

When he was ready to try the archery range at Scout Camp.  Or over to the basketball hoop, with no one he knew.

When he was ready to try the electric hair clippers.

When he was ready to try no more pullups at night.

When he was ready to try . . . . . oh dear angels . . . . actually pooping in the toilet? (am I dreaming?)

The magic of self-directed intrinsic motivation—when he says he wants to.

So, with your learning ones, try saying,

“Do you want to try ……?”2015-06-19 21.10.412015-06-08 17.56.01

And then we back off.  We really have no control.

Best,

Gayle

Use Those Kids!

2015-06-08 16.47.24Other kids can get John to do things.  Important, powerful, stretching, social, scary things.  So I use that.

What you see here is a hot, scared, hesitant, sensory-averse kid (yellow shirt), doing something for the first time.  Out in the neuro-typical world, alongside other faster kids.  Because his team-mates said, “Come on, John.  Come with us.”

Sometimes John would say, “I think I will try that” to me, like it was his idea.   Sometimes, wordlessly.

So, find some good, kind kids with good, kind parents.  Explain, in short form.  (I tell them that John is scared, and that his tongue doesn’t work as fast as theirs.  I stick out my tongue, grab it with my fingers, and try to talk.   I ask them to do the same, and they get a real fast idea what expressive speech delay is.  Not scientifically accurate, but, hey…..)

And I then ask the kids to get John to come with them.

Some day, I will have to deal with stranger danger, but not today.  Today is about the archery range at scout camp.

I hope this works for you.   It is golden in John’s world.

Love those other kids.

“It is Fun to Have Fun, But You Have to Know How” (Dr. Seuss)

Most kids seek the spotlight, right?   They yell, “Hey, Mom, look at me!”

But what if not?   If they do not seek attention, shy away from other kids, do anything to escape?

This version of John (in the photo) is only recent.  It has taken years of work to get that expression of joy you see.   Years of work that you might be thinking isn’t so much worth it anymore for your child.

“The sun did not shine.  It was too wet to play.  So we sat in the house.   All that cold, cold, wet day.”

"Look at me!  Look at me!  Look at me now!  It is fun to have fun but you have to know how."

“Look at me! Look at me! Look at me now! It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.”

Nope—do not listen to that fish in the pot.   Do not “just sit, sit, sit, sit” !

Movement will always help our children.   Balancing, jumping, crossing mid-line, climbing, and all purposeful movement will build gross motor skills into fine motor skills.   It is a blessing of natural consequences that children learn physically, socially by purposeful movement.

And as our kids master physical movements (as when my son could finally launch a 2-footed jump), they will know they have done something worth “Look at me!”

These moments of small joy are worth the consistency and effort you make each day, every day.

Learning is for today.

On my good days, I live “in the moment” with my child.

You?