Monthly Archives: January 2018

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New Neural Pathways for Impulse Control, Sometimes the Hard Way

Interventions When They Choose (Hard Way or Easy Way)

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It was hiding on the couch

You know that stalling is a actual choice, right?

So when John wasted time this morning instead doing what he knows to do (The List),

he was choosing his own intervention the hard way.

Time Management: Crisis Mode.

Because time awareness is an intervention.

(And we often talk about decisions in a very primal way:  “Hard Way or Easy Way”.)

He wanted desperately to carry his drumstick bag to school on the bus.

He puts a lot of his identity in matching the other kids.

But we ran out of time this morning.

Unless he wanted to miss the bus.

He would rather die than miss the bus.

It has really helped that he has seen other kids almost miss the bus,

and that has become a deep neural pathway.

So this morning, ultimately, John chose to control a deep neural impulse

and inch a bit toward more sensory integration.

He couldn’t find his beloved drumstick bag to carry on the bus.

And carrying just his percussion binder now isn’t good enough.

The bag trumps the binder.

Swallowing vitamins are part of the daily routine

So he searched wildly and loudly at the last minute.

(For the record, we practice nightly getting everything ready for the next day.

It is a habit that has served Mom well.)

He couldn’t find the drumstick bag.

It was on the sofa.

Mom didn’t rescue him.

So he had to choose the bus or the bag.

Once out the door, he had to face the consequences of an earlier choice he had made:

“You decided to take your vitamins while we walked”

instead of with breakfast.

Which of course would have been easier.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him twirl around in a little hissy fit.

Mom just kept walking silently toward the bus (a non-verbal, minimal prompt).

In a few seconds, he decided to start walking toward the bus stop.

Tears in his eyes.

We talked about how time goes too fast when he yells.

We talked about how surely we will find the bag in the house.

And how we will try again and do better next time.

So, back to the vitamins, a question he hears daily is “Now or in the car?” or

“Now or walking to the bus?

He does not like swallowing vitamins (and he takes a pile of them for methylation support and healing).

And if he stalls in the car, I pull over and just wait.

Oh, he hates that.

So, he is time aware at times.

If he stalls while we are walking to the bus, we just stop.

We use this same location decision of “here or there?” for our Neuhaus Scientific Spelling and other academics.

In fact, this option gets offered to John constantly, to encourage him toward good choices.

So, to let your children feel empowered, let them choose.

But make all the options something you can live with.

As a bonus: Fun times with your children will occur as they practice making choices.

For example, last night driving home from taekwondo,

he leaned his seat way back, almost flat.

“I want to be more comfortable”, he said.

First time in his life those words have come out.

So, keep stretching your kids, and use the power of their own decisions.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

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Language Processing, Graphemes, Phonemes, Penmanship and Blue Stripes

Some Ideas on Re-Direction and Intrinsic Motivation

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There was a time when I didn’t have dyslexia on my radar.

Those days are gone.

John does have language processing challenges.

So, with all that I have learned recently,

there are some things we can do to squeeze in yet another intervention.

With the advice of Neuhaus-trained professionals, I took two on-line courses in Scientific Spelling.

And we are doing the best version now at home daily.

It goes on The List.

We built the habit over the school break and on weekends, so John doesn’t try much any more to re-negotiate.

We are also concentrating on getting p’s, d’s, b’s and q’s looking the right way.

Even sent in all his pages to school, to keep John’s school team in the loop.

Qu (kw) has been a special challenge so we repeated that day.

Time for instruction is a precious thing.

If a child receives a pull-out for specialized instruction/intervention at school, they miss something else.

John has spent years “missing something else” while the rest of the pack moved on.

Trying to find balance in this continues to keep our days efficient.

We use The List daily.

We use “earn it” daily.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I have said, “How’s the list coming?”

to genius, conniving, relentless attempts at re-negotiation.

Another thing out of my mouth constantly is “I hope you earn it”.

That works in many circumstances.

Like when John decides to make bad choices when Ms. Rosemary (QRI, OT, Nutritional Balancing) and Ms. Melanie (piano) come to the house.

Eventually, his precious taekwondo blue stripe ends up on the door jamb, to be earned back with Ms. Rosemary,

and his favorite movie videos are to be earned back with Ms. Melanie.

I have to deal with my shame when he makes those kinds of choices,

and yet we build interventions for intrinsic motivation and who has the power.

May some of these ideas help in your world.

Peace  be with us,

Gayle

 

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The Joy of Sensory Integration Therapy in the Cold and Dark

The Unexpected Things a Kid Will Do Because of Other Kids

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Athletics and other kids are very power motivators in John’s life.

It was the end of a long first day back to school in January.

Also the first night with his new Boy Scouts shirt.

Tonight:  Physical Fitness.

We (the 2 dad leaders, all the boys and myself) walked through the darkening cold to the nearby high school track.

Time for laps.

John joined in the pack, and off they went.

Some of the time, I could track him by the red flashing lights in his shoes.

Sometimes he was close to a running buddy.

Sometimes not.

Really too dark to tell.

After 3 laps, he comes off the track and heads over to the bleachers

where the other boys are gathering.

He should have done 4 laps, but I didn’t interfere.

Not too many days before, he was sick.

And his 3 laps coincided with the other kids doing 4 laps.

He talked about that experience and victory until he went to bed.

Who would have predicted his great joy in running in the dark cold

with his Scout buddies?

The next night, taekwondo class went out into the cold dark for a jong bong seminar.

Too many kids twirling long poles for inside the studio.

Forty-tive minutes of mid-line crossover, proprioceptive and vestibular movement-based learning.

Therapy that no one would call therapy (or boring).

So we never pass up an opportunity to stretch our kids.

Stretch them past the cold, the dark, the fear, the social isolation.

Bring them into the joyful camaraderie with other kids who are also learning.

Hope this helps in your world, to try new ideas that offer themselves.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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Car Electronics Put to Useful Training

Maps, Navigation, Reading & Decision Making

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“Exit 87A!”

John was getting into this co-pilot job.

Usually I don’t let him have electronics in the car.

I want him looking out the window, talking to me.

Being “mindful” as a kid.

But, let’s look at the Garmin or other phone-based GPS (Waze, Google Maps) navigation as something to learn.

There is clock sense, direction (left, right, north, south, east & west), distances in miles, street names, speed limits, and developing “earth sense” to master.

When we have other kids in the car, they show him all the menu options, turning features on and off.

Some features are voice-activated, and that is a whole new playground.

There are look-up menus for names of places.

He gets to practice spelling and typing.

When he looks for a place and finds it, he gets excited.

And when our destination wasn’t in the database, we found a place next door, and used that to navigate our way.

Once we arrived, we walked over to the other storefront, and had a little teachable moment on the power of substitutions.

So, now John is in charge of driving shot-gun, and giving me driving directions.

He has been elated with the fun-ness of it.

In the light of day, or the dark of night.

He always has had a great sense of where he was (in the car), and this reinforces that problem-solving.

Let’s just not tell him that he is learning.

I hope this helps at your house with all your young drivers-to-be.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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The Value of The List

On Paper. Otherwise, Too Many Words

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May I suggest to you the invaluable piece of paper.

And a pencil.

“Low Tech, High Touch” (for all you John Naisbett fans out there).

Saturday mornings we still and always have learning modules.

We call this his “list”.

When there is push-back on too many words,

a noble yet humble piece of paper saves the day.

Consistency, meeting expectations, and the structure of building good habits for the rest of his life.

As we put the teachable moments into improving neural pathways in his working memory, executive function & language processing.

Sure, he hollers about it.

That’s when I walk away and let the list speak for itself.

No negotiation, re-negotiation or bargaining.

Just another day’s work of building neural pathways in the right directions.

That doesn’t change just because it is the weekend or a school holiday break.

We have added Fast ForWord and Scientific Spelling.

Because we need to.

We have worked on academics all but two days this holiday, working through “sick”.

And if there is too much push-back from John,

we write on his list, “OR you can do Mom’s list”.

Nothing is more boring than Mom’s list.

It’s a total buzz-kill to John.

Fastest thing I have found to help him with good choices.

So maybe this helps in your world.

Peace be with us,

Gayle