Kids+Mommy+2 Books= 15 Amazing Minutes

It's been a long time since I was able to read a book with both kids at the same time!  Brycen is pretty sporadic in when he wants to sit long enough for a book...and he definitely doesn't have the patience or excitement for the ones that Aubree chooses.  But both kids came home from school with a project to read 10 books with us for "Read Across America" celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday over the next week.  I decided instead of focusing so much on writing for Brycen's work at home this week, we would focus on sitting long enough for books and having him participate in some of the simple words either verbally (his approximations/sounds) or with his device  For Aubree, this isn't an issue as she would love if we had time to read her books all day long!!

I decided the best time to try this was before getting ready for bed.  That way I could use the incentive of having ice cream for bedtime snack if Brycen would actually sit and listen to the books.  I had Aubree choose "Brown Bear" and "A trip to the Zoo" since I knew that Brycen knows all of the first, and many of the words in the second one since it's based on beginner reading skills.  I also decided to just go with his verbal word approximations instead of the device to see how much he really could read.  Really, the only way to judge this is to listen for at least one of the sounds in the word since he rarely puts more than that together verbally for a word.

Brycen actually sitting for a picture with the books we read!!

I was in AWE of him!  Of course getting him to sit was the hardest part, so I had to wrap my legs around him while sitting on the floor with him, and put pressure on the tops of his legs.  Aubree and he took turns "reading" each page of "Brown Bear."  He did GREAT!!  Of course most of that is memorization, but I could clearly hear "see", "you", and "me"!  During "A trip to the Zoo" he loved every time the word "zoo" came up as that is one he loves to attempt to say and spell on his own.  He also pointed out and attempted to say other words like "mom", "baby", "so", "to", "look", and "no."  He needed quite a few reminders to pay attention to the books, some physical prompting to sit up straight, and hand-over-hand to use his finger to point at some of the words, but he did so much better than I ever anticipated.  He loves verbal praise and hugs from us when he does something right!

Enjoying their ice cream after reading and putting on pajamas!

It was an AMAZING 15 minutes!  It was exactly what I dreamed about when we were married and starting a family...enjoying a book or something else with my kids sitting by me and happy as can be! 

Autism Does Not Mean Giving In

Through my networks of friends that also have a child with Autism, I have heard many times that others think we just give in to our child's behavior.  We don't push them enough or we let them get away with certain things.  I can guarantee the majority of parents in my main network are not this way.  Of course we choose our battles just like any other parent, and you may not agree with which battles we choose not to fight, but we probably don't agree with the battles you are choosing either.  For example, Brycen has recently decided he will not eat at the table (or very rarely will) for meals.  After stressing about it for a few days, we decided it was more important for him to eat than it was to worry about where he was eating.  He's 40lbs soaking wet...and 5 1/2 years old...he NEEDS to eat all he can!  Therefore, we choose not to battle over this with him, so most meals at home are eaten on the floor of his choice.  Sometimes he chooses the dining room floor, other times the living room, sometimes the floor in his room, sometimes the bedroom downstairs.  And you know what???  He then eats and we don't hear anymore out of him the rest of the meal. 

So, today Brycen was having some real issues at school.  Of course we try to determine what is different in life that could be causing this.  Is it because Daddy was gone all weekend with Papa in the hospital...or is it the sniffles and stuffy nose Brycen is experiencing...or yet the fact he has woken up the last couple nights for a couple hours (though this is usual)...or could it be the change in schedule at school for Valentine's parties?  Wouldn't it be nice if he could just TELL us why he was so upset and why he was refusing to do his work at school?

He is smart.  We all know that he is keeping up with most of what other kindergartners are doing right now within his communication limitations.  So the fact that he had a worksheet to do to fill in the missing numbers up to 100 is something he is more than capable of doing.  He was given tools to do it (chart, his "talker", teacher nearby) but he just didn't want to do it and had attitude about it just like a typical 5 yr old testing his boundaries.  When I witnessed this attitude at school last week, I came home with intentions of forcing him to do more learning activities at home.  Before this, we focused mostly on communication, socializing activities, or just giving him some downtime.  Now, we are going to make him "journal" every day in a notebook, and tonight his "homework" was going to be finishing the worksheet that he was refusing to do at school as agreed upon with his teacher.  Well, when Brycen came home, a note was in his backpack saying he finally completed it before the end of the day...but I was NOT happy with him, so he was still going to have "homework" to do before he began doing fun stuff/downtime.

This is where I think many parents think we just give in to our children...or maybe just parents in general give in to their children when they don't want to do something.  Well, I'm NOT one of those parents.  I want him to succeed in school.  Learning/education is #1 in our book as it should be for all children before extracurricular activities come into the picture.  If your child cannot succeed in the educational environment, then I personally don't believe they should get the privilege to attempt success elsewhere. 

So, after dinner, Brycen brought his Cars lego set to me to do.  No way, Brycen!  You need to "journal" first and do more numbers before you get to play.  He was NOT happy!  He cried, he threw the pencil and paper, and hit me.  "First work, then car" had no affect on him at this time.  Yes I knew he had a bad day, yes I know he has a cold, yes I know his routine is off with Daddy leaving again to go see Papa and Grandma, but there are just some things in life that you don't have a choice about and learning is it in this house.  This was at 5pm.  After 10 minutes of not calming down, I sent him to his bed.  He laid up there, threw his blankets around, kicked the floor, screamed...so what?  I checked to make sure he was safe, told him that I was not happy with him, and once again said "First work, then car."  A few minutes later, he came downstairs a little calmer and once again wanted me to give him the Cars legos.  He agreed to sit down and journaled "car...bold" (car...build) with my help to sound out the letters and his device.

But he refused to write his numbers...and all I was asking was 1-10 so it would take him only a minute.  He wasn't having it and started throwing again, pushing, screaming...and I sent him to his bed again.  He came back down about 15 minutes later and seemed to forget about it and began pacing around the house.  I asked him to pick up a couple things for me and then asked him if he was ready to do his "work."  He yelled and threw again and then proceeded to lay in our bed kicking and occasionally screaming.  He was safe and that's all that mattered.

6:45pm...almost 2 hours after the entire ordeal started...and he walked over to the table.  He threw the pencil once, then when I handed it to him, he proceeded to continue with his numbers.  He even went past 10 and all the way to 20. 

So he earned his lego set back...and he proudly put it together with only a little help (and his sister's watchful eye)!

I did NOT give in!  He is smart enough to know I am serious...and just because he has Autism doesn't mean he gets away with stuff.  I want him to understand that life is not getting everything we want and people giving in to us...we must work at what we want...and he is more than capable of understanding this just like you and me!

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

Larry Elder Obviously Brycen is making progress across the board because we have changed his goals recently for Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy at the clinic, as well as Speech Therapy at school.  Occupational Therapy is mostly working on fine-tuning the skills he has...such as completing the entire act of zipping his coat (pretty much done), as well as building strength in his arms throwing overhand, working on decreasing the size of his writing skills (can write all letters and numbers, but size is quite large and all over the place), and then learning how to write his phone number and address (he can already find the info on his device, but we want him to know how to communicate it without his device).  In both Speech therapies, we are focusing on more functional communication and using his device to form phrases (stringing at least 2 buttons together) and to make more than just requests.  After discussing this with multiple team members this week, I came home yesterday mentally exhausted on how to start all of this.  It seems easy, right?!  Just program a bunch of words in a page on the device?!  Well, to be honest, it's so much harder than that.  I thought I knew not to take spoken language for granted a couple years ago...but I'm starting to REALLY see not to take it for granted as we progress along with his usage of the AAC device, but not progress along much with his spoken language skills.  Programming basic words in the device is easy...it's categorizing them into pages that he will understand (verbs, nouns, adjectives), and keeping up with what typical 5 yr olds comment or discuss with the people around them on a daily basis, while also not overwhelming him with the entire process.  Using an AAC device just isn't "natural" like spoken language is to the majority of people...there is a learning curve that goes much deeper than the curve associated with spoken language. I spent this morning googling a bunch of websites about "core language"...and was lucky to stumble upon an awesome site that actually focuses on the stages of language and how to keep adding on to each stage as he learns!  Very excited to research this more and get started on this new "stage" of Brycen's development with his AAC device! http://www.aaclanguagelab.com/ So like the quote above says...we can't set a goal without a plan on how to achieve this goal, otherwise it's just a wish of what we want for him!  It's about our action and motivation to achieve these goals WITH him!