Little Books Make a Big Difference

Who knew having your child draw out step-by-step the difficult portions of his routine could change their world for the better?  This is precisely what happened when our son’s Occupational Therapist recommended we have him draw out his morning routine from getting up through to going to his classroom.  The purpose, to eliminate the recent meltdowns at school drop off for the previous few weeks in January and February.  His school was starting to devise a plan to assist and included his therapist in the mix.  First was to try this idea of a book.  If that didn’t work, then the school would implement Plan B.

I created a little paper booklet out of 4-10 sheets of paper folded into forth and cut in half.  So I had two small books from one batch of paper.  Next, I wrote out each step in the book with my son present and asked him what the next step should be.  Then, he got to draw each step and color it.  While this is a fun art activity in itself, I didn’t think it would really stick with my son.

The next day we put his little book to the test.  I had him read it in the morning, then on the way to school discuss what he drew regarding being dropped off.  Once at school, he gave me a hug, a kiss, and walked right in.  I couldn’t believe it.  It worked.  A simple little thing like creating a book about his morning routine WORKED!  I began to wonder if this would work in other areas as well, and was thankful we didn’t have to move to Plan B.

That night, we praised him on a job well done, and asked him if he would like to do a book about his bath time routine.  My son said yes.  So, with the second portion of paper we repeated the steps of the first.  He had a good time doing it once again.  We went over it and then off to test it.  Needless to say, the first few days were met with some resistance, but not as much as before.  All I had to do was ask him if what he was doing was in the book.  When he answered no, he corrected his actions and started following the routine.  We still have issues from time-to-time, but not nearly as bad as before.

Next up, Bedtime Book.  Seriously, if you have a sensory 6-year old having issues with focus or meltdowns with routine, try the books.  It may save you from forming a few new gray hairs.

My Son…The Geek, and I love IT!

I had great hopes of having an athletic son.  All signs early on in age pointed to that direction, for the most part.  He had strong legs and speed.  I should have seen the Geek signs early on.  He was fascinated with ALL technology even before he could walk.  If it was an electronic that had buttons, they must be pushed.  Took our iPhones before the age of 2 and learned how to use them in a heartbeat (causing us to lock programs and our phones – still have to do this).  Moved into knowing how to use a computer by the age of three that includes use of a mouse appropriately as well as the UI.  And so it has gone.  So, why at the age of 5 does it surprise me that my son would rather draw and watch Iron Man than his beloved CARS or WALL-E?  or the fact he would rather read a comic book than his school book?  However, his Geekdom is fostered and grows in our household of Geeks.

While I was the athlete, I too am a Geek.  So it is no wonder that my son will have 20 question as to why Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader or where Thor lives and why and when is he on Earth.  We encourage it.  But truly, it isn’t until you are out and about on a weekend wearing a denim jacket and jeans with a white shirt and you hear your 5-yr old say, “Mom, why are you wearing your River Song clothes?”  Sigh.  Yes, he has heard us talk about Doctor Who and River Song.  While he himself has not seen the series, he knows her character as he requested I show him a photo of her.  So like any good Geek mom would, I hit Google and pulled up the very image I based my costume for Halloween off of.  Granted, the day of the question I was not wearing the holster, he still recognized those pieces as my costume.

I’m sure people often wonder what we are talking about or think our conversations are awesome.  Since I spend a great deal of time with my son out and about, usually the task of informing him about the Geek world falls to me.  This includes having conversations with the Moon and the Sun (I am required to do the voices), answering questions about the Marvel Comic world (thanks to my husband, his college buddy and a close friend I have vast knowledge and resources), discussing which characters belong to which Comic world…Marvel or DC (this is when he crosses Batman into Iron Man’s world), how to build a robot (a real one that works like in Real Steel – Thanks, Bethany!), and how buildings are made.  That’s just a few.  I never get conversations about Hockey or Soccer or Football.  Sports are the farthest thing from his mind.  He wants to draw, build, create working robots and be War Machine (for real – He wanted to be Iron Man, but realized that suit required Tony Stark who has the chest piece).

So I have a Geek.  I LOVE IT! Sad I won’t get free tickets to Hockey games, but I’ll settle for the creator of the first real fully functioning Mack II suit.  Knowing my son, it won’t be silver.  It will have “Flames!”

Discharged…

Last week was my son’s last visit with his neurologist for his attention issues.  He has been discharged due to improvements and having taken in account several new developments.  However, she did leave it open for us to return IF we see no changes in his attention over the next year.

In the meantime, our son has been increased to the maximum Omega-3 dosage for school-age children, get his vision therapy under way, and keep up with his sensory therapy.  Also, she recommended focusing him on things of interest, such as utilizing his active intelligent imagination in as many aspects as we can.  For focus issues with non-interest work, use a timer and give him frequent breaks.  That we can do as we have seen it work with his bathing.  She also mentioned reducing the amount of quick-cut television programs, films and games to which he is exposed.  That is going to be a bit harder as our entire media world is fast-paced editing.

Yet, we couldn’t be happier with the diagnosis, but are now faced with redirecting our efforts.  Luckily, he loves comic books and art.  This being something both my husband and I can work with, we are going to star encouraging him to spend time drawing, painting, and writing the stories or drawing the stories in his imagination.  In terms of Math and Science, we will figure out how to make that fun and creative for him as well.

As luck would have it, we had the Texas Book Festival here in Austin this weekend, and an illustrated book caught my attention.  Turns out to be a few books that actually tell the story of using your imagination and creating stories and drawings with them.  The other is about the creative process and how to direct it.  I’m looking forward to reading these with my son and hope they will help in making the connection I’ve been desperately trying to explain to him for a few weeks now.  If so, I will post a review on the site for the books and how to make them interactive for you creatively intelligent child.

Given all of this, it makes me wonder if the work he doesn’t do at school due to his attention waning on those areas makes me wonder if he is just bored with that particular item at the level it is presented.  It’s worth testing the theory when he comes home with his unfinished work.  That way I can see if it is boredom or just his sensory issues.

Forward to a new challenge and onward with a few old ones.

My Son…The Human Brick

That’s what it feels like when he gets into one of his moods and shuts down.  Recently it has been school drop off.  He’s fine until it’s time to go to class, but then it becomes, “I just want to go home!” He then sits down on the floor with a pout face and won’t talk or move.  When I do try to move him, he know how to make his body into a dead weight.  At 60lbs. that is a lot of dead weight.  For all intents and purposes, he is a human brick at that point.  Unable to reason with, unable to move without extensive effort, and stuck to the ground with mortar.  Okay.  Not mortar, but it might as well be.

With some assistance, I manage to get him to move in the direction of his classroom.  But, it isn’t long until he returns to being a human brick at the classroom door.  Seriously, it is beyond frustrating.  I won’t say humiliating, because the teachers all understand this happens.

I have my suspicions as to why this is occurring this week and the first day back last week, but I need him to tell me.  It will help in him understanding the importance of communicating one’s thoughts.  He tends to be a poor communicator, except when it come to his imagination and stipulations for why he is answering a homework question a specific way.  However, once I can get him to communicate WHY he is turning into a human brick, we are stuck with frustrating drop offs at school.  That vital piece of information he is holding in him head, is the key to solving the problem.  I can’t even create a plan of attack on this situation as it would be futile.

Perhaps time and patience will be a key.  In the meantime, a new row is added to his daily achievement sheet for Drop Off.  Perhaps getting a gold start will help him work on being better at drop off as it is helping in other areas.  Then maybe we can say goodbye to the Human Brick.

Texas Wildfires

On Sunday afternoon we received a call from a friend to tell us there was a brush fire near our house.  We were 15 mile away at the time and nowhere near our home.   Gathering my son and husband, we rushed to our home hoping we were still able to get into the area.

Our son started panicking a bit in the car as we were rapidly going over what we needed to get once we got into the house…assuming it wasn’t too late.  My little boy knew something terrible was happening, but didn’t fully comprehend exactly the magnitude of the situation.  As we drove home, we tried to explain there was a fire near our house.

Luckily, my husband was quick thinking and we managed to get into our neighborhood and grab some, not all, of the important items.  Primarily a set of clothes, medicines, the bird, and so on.  We ran about our home in various direction grabbing items, throwing them into the bags and eventually the car.  My poor son started to get upset that he wasn’t going to be able to bring all his toys.  The wonderful father my husband is, calmed our boy and told him to grab only what is important to him (two toy planes, Cmdr Rex Bear, Jedi Bear, Baby Bear and Perry, and Star Wars Episode II).  This helped a bit in getting him to participate in the evacuation and feel like he had some control over what was happening.  In total, I think we took a 15-20 minutes and were out of the house and on the way to a friend’s home across the Dam (which we couldn’t cross and had to circle around and additional 20 minutes).

The last 30+ hours have been spent monitoring the fires in our area, watching video and viewing pictures of homes burned to the ground hoping we’d hear something about our area.  A friend and neighbor set up a Facebook page specifically for our neighborhood to keep up-to-date and share information and questions.  I must say, this person went above and beyond to gather us all and connect us in a positive way.  Another group was acting as the Community’s primary source of information, and again a blessing to all of us.  The world of the Internet and social networking has created order out of chaos.  We were all scattered, picking bits and pieces here and there of news.  These two Facebook pages brought us a sense of peace and central locations for communicating with one another.  Again, we all sat and watched and waited and anticipating.  This afternoon our direct neighbors found out what we could only speculate…our homes were safe and their dog was picked up.  A huge relief to our weary minds.

Still my son has been a trooper.  He even told his teacher his perception of what is going on “My big tree is on fire and we had to leave our house.”  Okay.  He is sort of right.  Only it was many trees.  For a child who is sensitive to change, he has been wonderful.  However, that may be due to the fact we are staying with some great friends and he has been playing non-stop with their son.  Distraction is good in some cases.  Still he just wants to go home as he says, “I love my home, but if we have to get a new one, I want the blue house.”

Tomorrow we may get to go home.  We haven’t heard yet officially, but the word should come in the wee hours.  The schools in our community are closed as one is being used as the staging area for the fire department, and power has just been restored (man is our refrigerator going to STINK).  Right now, we are relieved but anxious to return home and see it is still there for ourselves.

I really must thank our friends Carlos and Christie and their little boy for taking us in and being so understanding as they have been through a similar experience with Katrina.  They are wonderful people and very kind-hearted.  We don’t know how to repay the for their kindness, but will be happy to figure something out.

Tomorrow is another day, only we are a bit wiser with a better idea of what is important to us…Each other.

Finally, Thank you to the Austin Fire Department and all the Fire Departments who drove in to help with not only our wildfire, but that in Bastrop, Spicewood, Pfluggerville, Cedar Park, Barton Springs, and Lakeline/Pecan Park.  You are truly the heroes and deserve so much more than our gratitude.  Thank you for doing a wonderful job and helping to keep our little fire…well…little.

Monday’s Are Hard

My son has a bad case of the Mondays.  This was evident when he refused to wake up, then refused to give me a hug, said he hated my hair (I had it done last night), refused to eat breakfast, and then refused to wear the non-light-up shoes to school.  To say he started the day off with a negative attitude would be an understatement.

The walk to school was slow and consisted of my son complaining about his shoes.  First it was, they were too loose.  Then it was that he couldn’t run in them because they had holes (holes for his feet to breathe), and finally, back to he can’t run in them.  Every time I countered his complaint, he came up with something new hoping he’d get somewhere in his stalling.

We met up with his friend he likes to walk to and from school with.  Only today he refused to walk with his friend.  He started to run at first then stopped, turned back to us, and moped more.  This continued into the school.  My husband took him inside, but it only ended up worse.  Our son refused to walk with his classmates to class and had to be dragged off the bench to the floor where he curled up in fetal position.  There he cried and kept saying he wanted to go home.  Let’s just say everything went downhill and we ended up leaving him in the capable hands of the school’s Vice Principal.

Since we have not heard from the school, we know he is fine.  It is a mystery why he imploded today, but with any luck, our little boy will be back to his smiling self and happy to see his friend in the morning.  I just don’t think I can take a week of Mondays.

From a Small School to a Big School

Monday marked my son’s first day of Public school.  This may not seem like a big deal, but to him it is.  He has been attending a small wonderful Montessori school for the last two years.  The routine was entirely different as was the atmosphere.  His Montessori reminded me of the John Muir lodge at Camp SCICON in Tulare County, California.  It was organic natural, not institutional in the traditional sense.  The teachers were fantastic and friendly, not to mention willing to help my son fit into the Montessori way of learning.

We sadly said good-bye to his beloved Montessori school and started at Public.  His local elementary school has over 750 students, and I’m sure in his mind is HUGE!  His Kindergarten class is only 16-18 students may be less.  My son’s last initial is an S and he’s #13 on the list.  However, there is a lot of strict routine and everyone does everything together.  The everyone together thing is a good thing for my son as he can follow the herd and not easily get as distracted.

His first day was a bit rough as it was all new and he didn’t want to leave us.  The second day had a bit of hesitation, but walked with his class with little to no problem (except when he collapsed near the cafeteria door).  Today, not one single problem.  He didn’t get upset when I offered comfort to one of his classmates who was having a sad morning departing her Daddy.  He then walked with no issues away and didn’t cry or look back.  Next week we should be able to transition him to going in the cafeteria on his own.

Each day at pick up he has a smile, his teacher lets me know if he did well, and so far he has been great both days.  Fingers crossed this continues and his attention and sensory don’t flare up.

While I may still be on the fence about the curriculum, I know we made the right decision in terms of his social and mental well-being.  We can supplement his education where needed.  As a side note, he was very happy he didn’t get the letter sound bag as he says, “I know my letter sounds already.”  The Handwriting portion of the class will be excellent as will the social studies and science.  He has math sewn up and we will continue to supplement at home.

In all, this looks to be a good year and a smart move for my son.