Category Archives: Re-Directs & Boundaries

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Oh, Poor Choice! You Now Have to Cuddle!

Forced Cuddling, Part 2

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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

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“You Are Miserable Because You Are Stalling”

An Intervention for Kid Accountability

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My son has a daily list of things he must do.

Then he earns electronics.

Sometimes John stalls in magnificent ways.Stalling

I continue to learn new ways to remove myself emotionally from his poor choices.

I use these words, “John, you are miserable right now because you are stalling.”

Of course, electronics is at the bottom of his list.

And now, the basketballs are up in the window.

For anyone who has been in our house, it is a kid house.

A therapy house.

Everything bounces, wiggles, rolls, moves.

Balls are frequently in the air, or about to hit what would be a forbidden surface in a “normal” home.Stalling1

But now, the balls are on the list, and up on the high ledge.

And Mom has to hold her ground.

Maybe this work in your home?

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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So I Must Start Earlier

Because My Kid Stalls, Manipulates, Cajoles, Re-negotiates, and is Sometimes More Determined Than I Am.

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Yikes! This morning I promised myself to start earlier on everything:  getting up, getting out the door, going to bed, anything with a clock on it.

I am holding my ground on No Electronics Until The List is Done.  oxygen mask

The List is made each day, at John’s request, and works more profoundly on paper than in the air.

Duh.

I do doing pretty good on No Re-Negotiating, and give myself a C+ on Just Say It Once.

And, this oxygen mask process:  “You First, Then Your Child” also works with Peace, Joy, Time-Outs, Walking Away, No More Nagging, on and on.

I must put this mask of Calm on me FIRST.   Then on my child.

The other way round doesn’t serve my joy or helps me make good decisions on how much I let the stress of each event pile up on me.

Peace to us all,

Gayle

 

P.S.  Clip Art courtesy of PowerPoint Library

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Where Are My Remotes?

Good Question!

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Up high on the shelf.  That’s where.

And all the electronics are unplugged.

Because John is testing Mom, to see if he can get away with something.2016-02-07 18.27.41

You see, everything was going smoothly, according to (Mom’s) schedule this morning, on target for getting to Sunday school on time.

But then, unexpectedly (although anything is expected, so nothing should be unexpected, right?), John started making bad choices.

So the remotes are up very high, everything opiate is unplugged, and John has learned cheating doesn’t pay when using my phone timer for reading minutes.

Also, he needs to eat his breakfast.

The more I hover, the worse his decisions.

So I left the area, and got myself ready.

After a short time, John tracked me down to tell me good news.

He wanted his remotes back, also.

At my house, sometimes when the audience leaves, the best stuff happens.

Maybe this might work in your world.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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Look What We Found in the Park in the Dark

We will take it home. We will call it Clark.

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It is a football.   2016-02-17 19.33.48

A kid playing with a football, in the dark, trying to throw it, catch it, kick it.

No big deal, right?

But remember that some kids don’t learn how to play with toys at the right age.

And parents of those kids keep buying toys, hoping that the next toy will be the one that makes play “normal”.

So, for all us parents who dread toys, birthday parties, unwrapping gifts, and childhood play in general,

please be encouraged to keep giving your child the opportunities to grow into them.

Let them see other kids play with stuff.   That is how John learns—–by watching other kids.

This photo isn’t remarkable to most parents.

But to some of us, it is a hope for tomorrow’s toys.

In the park in the dark.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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“It’s Always Something” (Rosanna Rosanna Danna)

Uncertainty to Fear to Anger to Remorse to Peace to Joy

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FearAngerRemorseJoyJohn made a string of decisions that broke Mom’s heart.

The natural consequences of these decisions conjured up Uncertainty of the future.

From Uncertainty, Fear set in.

From Fear to Anger. (Mom got mad on the inside and the outside.)

Then Remorse set in, and we (son & mom) talked about how we were both going to make better choices next time.

By the time dear Rosemary Slade, OTR, arrived, I was still neck-high in Remorse and Sadness.

By the time we had transferred wisdom from Rosie to Gayle, Peace and Joy were trickling back in.

Key points to share with you (in case it helps you):

  1.  If he doesn’t want to yet, he won’t.  (Mom, remember intrinsic motivation?)
  2. If it weren’t this thing, it would be that thing.  There will always be something else.
  3. He is going to go through childhood. So let him.
  4. Hold your boundaries, Mom.  Hold your ground.  With Peace.

(Mom, you are moving too fast through today!)

Maybe this can help you with your daily path toward joy.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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No Chair for You, Young Man!

No "just standing" either

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2016-01-24 11.00.18Every opportunity to cause movement, mid-line crossover, off-balance anything, is worthy.

No Chair for me

So, never a chair if I can avoid it.

Always something that wiggles, rolls, moves, slides around.

I always try to position his body and his stuff so that he has to reach across to the other side.

So, if you have one of these kind of balls, let your child sit on it.

Point legs the opposite way, put cups on the wrong side.

Try this at your house every day.

Also, this balance board is nifty, and we use it for playing Wii and anything else that is just standing.

These balance-building interventions are working in my world.

I hope it will work for your child.

The science is there.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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Eckhart Tolle, Anger, Apology & Awareness

Mom/Kid Strategy for Next Time

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John made a decision I didn’t want.  Over and over.

Mom uses humor initially, but eventually my laughing becomes anger.

Then yelling happens.

(On one hand, having a verbal jousting with a child learning how to use expressive language is a great achievement, even adventure.)

But yelling isn’t a good empowerment, right?

Then we cool down, I apologize to John (and vice versa).  We then talk about what went wrong.

And we come up with a plan on what to do and not to do next time.

This happens twice in 14 hours.

So, when the third opportunity to yell arrives, Mom remembers the new plan.

Much better!

Later, I was watching Eckhart Tolle, and found his conversation on anger.

Hope this helps you as it has helped me re-find my joy.  Check out what he says at 9:25.

Peace be with us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqX5IFKYFWk

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Erasing the Whiteboard is Cheating

So We Will Use Paper & Pen----And You Own It.

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2016-01-24 09.08.22John has been learning that cheating is not OK.

He used to think it was really funny when he grabbed the white board and wiped the list clean.

Then he found out we would just write the list (of stuff to do) on paper instead.

With a penalty—more of whatever he was trying to avoid.

And no electronics until the list was done.

And I tell him, “John, you are miserable right now because YOU are making bad choices.”

I know he understands.

I just have to keep my ego out of his rebellion.

I hope this helps in your home.

Peace to us,

Gayle

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Will I Corrupt The Boundaries?

Will I Allow My Child to Regress in Hard-Won Behavior Boundaries?

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Today, so far, John has decided to make a string of personal decisions that brings me to my knees.

Then (with the help of the angels), I decided to look at it all a different way.2016-02-13 08.43.14-12016-02-13 10.34.16-1

What if he is once again testing whether I love him enough to hold my ground?

Believe in him enough to remain emotionally calm but consistent in our rules together?

So I tell him I am very sad he is wasting his time.

And that he can earn back his ________ (not sure what your word is—-for John, the word is electronics) when his list is done.

(We had already made this list together, and he had read it out-loud.)

He wants privacy, so he moves to the stairway.

OK with me.

I am busy enough doing my part—emotionally calm, consistent, as full of hope and joy as possible.

Maybe this can encourage you, so that you know you aren’t alone.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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Metronome It, for Brain-Sensory Integration

Steady Beat, Please

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Scott Theirl, DC, DACNB, (Functional Approaches to Increase Brain Cell to Cell Communication) recently shared his ideas on using a metronome to help kids.

He said to let a child do things while keeping a slow steady beat (ideally <60).

2016-01-19 13.07.29

The 60 setting means 1 beat a second.

He suggested start at 60 and move to a lower/slower number.metronome

Slower is better.  Slower is harder.  Slower takes more concentration.

There are many free metronome apps.

We are now using a slow steady beat to dribble a basketball, whack on a drum or xylophone, toss a ball into the air (or up the stairs and let it roll back down).

Jumping rope or jumping on a trampoline (really hard at a slow steady beat).

Tap a finger, clap hands, crossing mid-line, at a slow steady, self-aware pace.

In the car, outside, when a child is bored, during a meal (make it a game, right?)

Slower the better.   It will help build purposeful dendrites and help with whole-body sensory integration.

Thanks, Dr. Theirl.

Beats be with us,

Gayle

basketball

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Leap-Frog the Problem

Sometimes I ignore it if I can

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OptimismBiasThis morning was unexpectedly rough.

“The Optimism Bias”, Sharot (2011), says our brains are wired to be irrationally positive.

So, I expected things to go as happily planned.

But everyone started making bad choices.

John.  The dog.  And even Mom.

And things went downhill fast, but there wasn’t time to fritter away.

I learned the hard way that it is better to lead from the front (looking back over my shoulder) than (to try to) push forward from the back.

Sometimes I have to by-pass my son flopped on the floor and the dog who won’t do what he is supposed to do.

Leap-frog them.  In every way.

You see, I have an injury trying to heal, and over-using that arm/shoulder isn’t helping.

But I got mad, and, well, you know how that goes.   My demise.

I re-injured myself.Leap Frog

So, see if this helps in your house:  Roll around the roadblocks, and see if anyone follows you.

(I am lucky this works at my house.)

But it does take more time.  And Mom can’t be in a hurry.

Because it’s called auditory processing disorder.     Not “warp-speed”.

(It is also called “very very stubborn”, but that’s another story.)

Peace to us all,

Gayle

 

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Even If You Are Sick,

No hitting anything, and something to learn.

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Today, John has a lingering temperature.

Still, he pushes and tests the boundaries we have together.Fever HomeworkThumb

He doesn’t act sick when he tests boundaries.  I guess he forgets.

He hits the dog (a little hit, looks at me and smirks).

More than once.

So we work up to 5+5+5+5=20 minutes.

Timeouts in the bathroom.

Opiate on the mantel.

(I try not to have feelings about this intervention.  Just consistency.)Opiate Mantel Thumb

Still, today is the most important day of his learning.

Boundaries, consequences and consistency.

Same daily lessons for Mom.

Some days, I hate consistency.

Peace be with us.

Gayle

 

 

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Can’t Argue with the List

& Zero tolerance on whacking anyone or anything

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Argue ListSometimes our kids hit.  Us.  A sibling.  The dog.

(Or is this just at my house?)

Last night was very sad this way.  Homework was involved.  Everyone ended up crying.

John ended his evening in a long time-out in the bathroom while Mom put her heart back together.

Today, I shared the deep & wide wisdom of Rosemary Slade, O.T.R.  We came up with this plan, and maybe it could help you at your house.

  • John and I made an actual paper list of homework items to be done.
  • John’s job was to independently mark off each item when completed.
  • So when John took a whack at the dog, 5 minutes timeout in the bathroom.  (No Mom words. Just into the time-out bathroom and loop the doorknob such that his little nose sticks out and 1 eye can see.   Good location so Mom can do her stuff while the phone timer runs out within eye-shot of John.)
  • Next time the poor dog got a whack, 5+5 minutes.
  • Zero tolerance on hitting anything or anyone.
  • Make the consequences hit the soft underbelly of all-things-electronic.
  • No hitting.  No yelling.  From anyone.

Things went quite well the first night, as we built the habits.

Now I have to be consistent.

Maybe this intervention can help at your home.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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We Are Just Going To Stand Here Until . . .

A re-direct to try when you need a good choice

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Just Stand HereWhen John doesn’t want to make a good choice (at home or out in public), it has worked astonishingly well for Mom to say, “We are just going to stand here until you are ready to . . . . . . . ”

And we just stand there.

In the bathroom, in the parking lot, going up the stairs at church, in the grocery story, wherever.

We usually are still for about 4.5 seconds, and then his wanting to move gets bigger than his stubborn.

It is a little miracle.

I share it with you.   Maybe it can be a little miracle with your young ones.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

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Evil Secret Weapon

Choices Too Loud for Even the Bathroom

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With all our vacation “teachable moments in the bathroom” (because I was mortified by John’s bad choices in front of my extended family), quite by chance I found an ideal motivator.blow dryer

Extrinsic. Not intrinsic. But still dirty pool.

I just held up the blow dryer.

“Do you want to _______ or help me with this blow dryer?”

It was instant compliance.   With no effort or persuasion needed.

Maybe this evil idea could help you.  If you are OK with the dark side of it all.

Some days are just a bit more desperate.

Peace be with us.

Gayle

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I Hate Opening Birthday Presents

So Mom just saved them and put them under the tree. And waited.

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Getting John in and out of birthday parties has gotten easier over the years, but getting John to open his actual birthday presents has been bloody murder.2016-01-02 13.41.39-1

So, this year when John just couldn’t be bothered to open gifts in August, I set them aside and later put them under the Christmas tree.

Not yet any thank-you notes, didn’t re-wrap anything.

Just stuck them under the tree.

(This was in my recent fortune cookie:  “If you put up with small annoyances, you will gain great results.”)

So this Christmas, John got into ripping off some paper.  Finally, on his 9th Christmas.

I took photos to prove it, cause I wasn’t believing it.

John hit his limit about half way through, so the rest of the gifts are still stuck under the tree.

Wanted to let you know that you aren’t alone in waiting for what should come so easily.

So we wait.  But we keep working on neural pathways, always.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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Scared of Star Wars

But Mom Pinned Me Down

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2015-12-29 21.27.25-1John avoids new movies of any kind.

Especially scary, loud, sensory ones.

Each new movie into his acceptance is major effort.  I have to pin him down—make him sit with me.

Eventually, he gets comfortable with it.

So, Star Wars is here, right?  During the holiday vacation at my sister’s house, we made the commitment on the Star Wars series.

A nightly family ruckus of pin-John-down-and-make-him-watch-a-Star-Wars-movie.

Each movie got a little less like a wrestling match.

I don’t know how much of the story line his brain was absorbing.

From a sensory standpoint, it was progress for sure.

We turned on captions/subtitles, and that helped everybody.

Not ready for the big theater yet.  Something to look forward to, some day.

Just surviving the family-viewing sofa was victory for now.

May the Force be with us.

Gayle

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My Eyes Don’t Match My Ears – Data Out of Sync

So Build a Bridge--Turn Captions / Subtitles ON!

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Eyes Dont Match EarsWhen we are overwhelmed, we turn away, don’t we?

So do our kids.

This link to a study by Vanderbilt University shows how the ears and eyes don’t get their information to the brain for processing at the same time—-for those with learning differences:

http://video.dailymail.co.uk/video/1418450360/2014/01/1418450360_3055499925001_8.mp4

Explains why our kids can’t look at us when they are processing the audio stream of instructions.  All these words we throw at them, full of our expectation for immediate action, and they have a full-time job of trying to fulfill it.

And we want them to look at us also, as their eyes give their brains out-of-sync data?

So, if you have a heavy cognitive load processing in the best case, and your eyes betray your mission, who would want to look?

The good news is that our brains are able to build new neural pathways with practice.   Not easy, but as long as we are alive, the brain can do its magic.

So, build a bridge!   This season has a lot of watching media.  When I turn on the subtitles / captions, my son pays attention in a completely better way.  His brain can better blend all the streams of data, and figure out what is going on.  He stays glued, not turning away.

So we keep practicing.   So can you, and turning on captions / subtitles may really help.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

 

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The Angry Room

(and the rest of the house is Happy)

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Some days are just hard.  John tests my boundaries all the time.

This morning, instead of “lovely, peaceful, almost-Christmas”, it apparently is

The Angry room

“I-am-gonna-fight-TouchMath-and-hit-Mom-and-fight-TouchMath-more-so-she-puts-me-in-time-out”.

I do my best to turn off my emotions.

Once again, this sign gets marked on the bathroom floor at the doorway.

I hold my ground.

It’s the only way John is going to have a good adult life.

Whatever it takes for him to become a Jedi master of self-awareness and self-control.

The Force has a long, long, long way to go here.

May the Force always be with us.

So, my dear fellow parents, set those boundaries so that you can live with them (for all your reasons).

Hold your ground.  Your child will believe you.

Eventually.

Do it because you love them that much.

Gayle

 

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Rubbing It In, On The Floor

(but 1 more thing is 1 thing too much, Mom)

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Trans-dermal vitamins are rubbed in, absorbed through the skin (here you see 2 white and 1 red trans-dermals).

Transdermals

John gets to do this himself, crossing mid-line (both north/south and east/west).   If Mom rubs them in, John’s mid-line crossover misses out.

There also is no benefit if John rubs them into his clothes, sofa, pillow or rug.

One evening, John flopped down on the floor and refused to budge.

So, I squirted the 3 vitamins onto his tummy, while he was on his back, back-talking.   And I told him to “rub”.

Round and round, up and down, back and forth.  Crossing mid-line as much as possible.

So, now that method is his favorite way.

TransdermalDistractions

(There is a second lesson here, for Mom.  When I was trying to get the photo you see here of his tummy, he didn’t want to cooperate.   It took longer than I had expected, and the skillet full of cooking veggies burned.   You see here my plan for a healthy pile of food instead on its way down the drain because Mom just had to fit 1 more thing into a busy morning.   Instead of veggies gently sautéed in coconut oil, John had to eat french fries with his eggs.   No time to start the veggies over.)

Will Mom ever learn?

Peace be with us,

Gayle

 

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Ugly Work Erased

It's called "Self-Directed Learning", even when it is ugly.

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John’s incoming homework, “Weekly Work Study Homework #13” (pr, sh, th, pl) was done badly at first.   Ugly Work Erased 1

I told John it was “ugly”, erased it, and left it for John to re-do. (Also, note the highlighting to help him match pieces together, and I will fade this prompt ASAP——this tip from Alma Liotta, O.T.R.)

I was in the opposite corner of the house, he had willingly turned off the computer (but I did ask him to), worked on the homework by himself, (I did ask him to “make his teacher happy”) and brought it upstairs to show me when he was done.

I then added more demands & more work to it, and John then brought it back up to me after that.

This is John’s first  self-directed homework, and I didn’t hover or micro-manage him.

It still isn’t good, and there is always more to do.

Still, a victory, for what it is.

We have been inching toward this, and so can you.

Motivation is a complex thing, and the magic is when someone triggers self-directed intrinsic motivation:  because they want to, and would do it again when no one is looking (or hovering).  It is a lifelong tool.

So important to anyone still breathing.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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Adding More Minutes

3 Years of Misery in the Grocery Store

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2015-11-17 19.30.48It was miserable in the grocery store with my son.

I didn’t look anyone in the eye.

I attended to his re-directs, and that’s about it.

I think I got most of the purchases I was aiming for—-very hard to concentrate on my business with him on the warpath.   In a public place.

I even got whacked.

Instead of amping up, I cheerfully (was I really cheerful?) added 10 more reading minutes with each blatant, little-boy-smirking act of rebellion.

I think I kept pretty cool, I am happy to share.

By the time we wheeled out, seemingly three years later, he had “earned” 50 minutes of reading to get through before anything electrical was going down.

I think it made a profound impression—-at least, I surely hope so.   Only time will tell.

We then made it through some cool books, and he was actually proud of his reading.  He even wanted to sit on my lap and doodle.

He has never doodled before.

So, maybe this intervention might work with your adventures.

Peace be to us,

Gayle

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Reading the Dictionary

"I chose a book with no pictures---that makes me a big kid!"

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2015-11-02 16.46.12Maybe someday it will be a Harry Potter novel.  But for now, for the required daily reading, John picked his new dictionary, given to him by the school.

(May be he was faking it.  Then I would give him points for cognitive manipulation.) 

There is lots of cool information in there, before and after all the A-Z.  John was reading aloud the presidents’ names.

To encourage you to read daily with your child!

I say, “who is reading?”   (you or me?)

When I am the reader, I pick lyrical, beautiful lines of words and read them aloud.

I hear that (the mere) exposure of all kinds of words feed the brain, and I am banking on that!

So, we read anything at hand:  road signs, cereal boxes, the newspaper, anything.

And so I hope you and yours.

Peace be to us,

Gayle

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Plan B May Be Better

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Plan A Plan B BalanceJohn was mad because I was making him do his daily reading homework.  In the car as we were driving.

The window was partially open.

Not sure he really meant to let it fly, but the book was gone.  I couldn’t exactly see his face, but I think he was actually surprised his book disappeared.

First time he has chucked anything out the window.

So, he lost gymnastics Fun Friday Night as a natural consequence.  (He would have lost Wii Sports and Nintendo DS, but those were already gone because he was pinching his friends in specials.)

Then, something completely unplanned happened.

John’s teenager sibling wanted to watch Singing in the Rain because his high school was performing it the next day and we had tickets.

The two kids ended up snuggled together on the sofa.  John started laughing at the “Make ’em Laugh” genius of Donald O’Connor.  Then John tried toSinging in the Rain tap dance. First time.

Also first time he had ever paid any attention to a non-animated movie.

So, try this movie at your home.  There is a lot to engage a child with learning differences.  (Speech therapy, mid-line crossover, and lots of physical therapy with tap shoes on.)

Like for me, maybe Plan B will be better than whatever your Plan A was.

I know I can get overly focused on fulfilling the interventions.

Oops–lost my personal joy along the way.  Missing the important “in-the-moment” stuff that can happen.

“Bad choice, Mommy”, because joy is important too.

Your joy.  Your child’s joy.

Peace to us,

Gayle

 

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Monkey Child and Bathroom Words

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Recently, John has enjoyed the thrill of saying bathroom words in the wrong places, including school, to Mom’s deep chagrin.

Further, John needs practice with fine motor everything.   He pretty much hates writing (printing), let alone the approaching cursive.

So, when John repeats something over and over (I label this “monkey boy”.  To his face.), he is told he gets to say “one good sentence, then write it.”

Thus, when school behaviors show John’s “bad choices” (a phrase I use every time it applies), out comes the paper and pencil with grip.2015-10-02 12.18.17-1

Ten…..oops..…nine good written sentences.  In this case, “Wee wee is a bathroom word.”  

Then a personal hand-delivery to his teacher with a verbal apology.

Special thanks to Alma Liotta, OTR, for this paper to best help John write less diagonally  (which I scanned and made copies of to use at home and at school).

Hope this works for you and yours.

Peace to us,

Gayle

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Blowing

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Candles 4 Times 1 Candles 4 times 2Every year, birthdays have been a torture.  John never wanted to unwrap anything, blow out anything, or sing anything.

So, to encourage you to persevere with your interventions, 9 was our magic number.

Wanted to sing (joyously).  Wanted to blow out the candles (over and over.  We lit them 4 times.)

John was huffing and puffing so hard, moving his head more than he was moving his lungs.

Almost caught his hair on fire (more than once).

Wouldn’t eat the cake (no sugar, so no loss there), and we didn’t bother to wrap the gifts!

So forget the wrapping.  Just get candles & matches.  We even used the left-over cake from Saxton’s birthday. (Mom dug it out of the freezer—we had low expectations.)

There was spit and wax everywhere.   It was glorious.

So, never give up.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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Where Are My Teeth?

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John brushes his teeth by moving his body—NOT the brush.brushing teeth

To know where the brush is, it’s a 2-fisted grip.

He moves his whole body to find the brush.  The brush just stands there.

He is very good at chewing the brush.  That is mastered.  It is utterly pulverized.

Ah, but actually using the bristles?  Not yet.

Maybe some day.

How does tooth brushing, with all that oral defensiveness, work at your house?

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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Are My Lips Moving?

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2015-09-06 10.14.33I am watching John read, 20-minutes a day, required homework:

I see his lips move, his finger move (tracking the words in the line), and then I see him swallow.  When he swallows, he stops moving his lips and finger temporarily.  Then, back to things moving.

So, it would seem, his moving parts are really part of his reading process.  He’s not reading completely in his head, statue-like.  He’s got body parts involved in his reading.    So, try letting your children move (anything, really) when they read.

Sometimes I hear him talking to himself.   (Not that long ago, John had no words we all could hear.  Now he’s talking to himself.)

Please let this encourage you, to keep stretching and challenging your smaller loved ones.

Try uphone timersing the timer on your phone.   When John cheats on his reading (and he does!), I stop the timer and call him on it.  He hates that.

It turns out turning on and off the phone timer is a big-deal tool for John to self-regulate himself.  It’s free, and he is in charge of running it.

Maybe these ideas will help you.

Peace be with us,

Gayle

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Breathe In, Breathe Out

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2015-09-16 16.00.30John couldn’t blow out the2015-09-16 16.21.11 birthday candles on 2015-09-16 16.14.22a cake.  For years.

So, for him, breath control to KNOW if he was actually breathing in and out was tricky.

(“If I don’t know where my body is in space, maybe I don’t know where my breathe is, and humming is a way I zone out or try to find something that I don’t know where it is.”)

So, we named it (humming), and then limited it–gave it boundaries.  Can’t hum in the classroom!   So, for school and home, “Instead of humming, I can …..”)

Instead of hummingAll well and good, if you know how to “breathe in and out”.  John didn’t know this.  He accidentally does it all the time, but purposefully knowing—-no.

Here are photos of Rosemary Slade, O.T.R., helping John to figure out how to “breathe in” and then to “breathe out”.

Hope this can give you some ideas to try yourself.

Peace be with us,

Gayle