It was The Best Post in the World

Well, I follow in the footsteps of Tenacious D (without the devil and music and stuff...oh and fame). I was all poised to write an epic post and my blogger wouldn't let me sign in! I have no idea what I was going to write but I'm sure it was the best post in the world. Instead of the best post in the world, I'm just going to settle with some reflection of our term.

Some days the self doubt creeps in and I think I'm not teaching Lachie anything. I have been thinking about that and I think that's a little unfair to both of us! He has achieved so much this term and I just need to look back on these posts and see that. I read (or saw) something, somewhere on Facebook (gets a bit like that) about self dialogue. I decided to pay attention to Lachie's self dialogue (which he often verbalises) this week. I was hoping to hear that he felt he had done well this term, I was sad to hear, "I'm not a good boy" "I can't."  Who's responsible for this? Us as his parents mostly I think. I need to change it and model positive self talk to him. So no more doubts!

This term Lachie has loved The Gruffalo, The Rascal Series, The Very Cranky Bear, The Lorax, to name but a few. Through texts he liked I was able to engage him beyond what I could with a stock standard activity that he found meaningless. My approach next term will definitely be deep exploration of texts he chooses himself. He's only engaged in what he's truly interested in and I need to embrace that. After all, adults tend not to continue with something that they find boring for too long. We do have to do some things we don't like but he is a child and I need to help him to treasure his childhood for as long as possible. All in all I feel we achieved a lot this term. He's well and truly de-schooled. I'm still looking for a good school for him, I don't think he shares the same view so we need to tread carefully when we talk about school. I don't want it to be a punishment if we do send him back. We are taking it day by day at this point.

Being THAT Exhausted

If you follow many blogs about Autism, especially ones that originate from the USA, it's difficult not to have been touched by the story of a mum of an ASD teen who attempted murder suicide. After a final blow, a withdrawal of support, she did the unthinkable. I'm not going to write a lot about the specifics of the case, others have done that.  I'm not going to harp on about the need for support, I've done that. I do want to describe being THAT exhausted. I have felt it before, especially in the younger years with Gi Joe. I have seen it before and very recently. It's inevitable.

What does it look like? Different in every person I suspect. It's often the people who you give advice to, they will come back with a frustrating, "tried that, tried that, tried that..." If that is frustrating for you, imagine how frustrating it is for them.  The ones who are numb, the ones who stop caring about themselves, the ones who over analyse their situation, the ones who cry a lot, the ones who have given up, the ones who avoid.  I have been this person and I have been THAT exhausted. Once I was THAT exhausted I thought about driving my car off the freeway, my son was in the back. I didn't because I saw an out, my partner, my other kids, the special school.  The thought went through my head though. This one thought makes me no different from those who followed through. I felt I had an out, but I had the thought. They maybe did not feel like they had an out, had exhausted all their outs. It is hard to know and something we may never know.

What do you do to get through it? In order to help parents feeling this, asking if they are okay might be a good start, but then what?  Yes people need to help themselves first before they are any good to their children.  How? If you are it? How do you take a break? I am lucky, I'm not it, I can take a break, not always straight away but it happens. I don't really know the answers. It is going to take a lot of vocal hard work to change systems, mind sets, and to promote a greater understanding of the needs of Autism families. I hope that this post might help one person to recognise THAT exhaustion in a friend.

Marble Maths

Today we trialed 10 minute "table work." Lachie has become a little bit reluctant to engage and lovely home school gurus and my aunty suggested that I do 10 minutes at a time on a learning activity, interspersed with 10 minutes of a favourite activity. This past two weeks, watching Minecraft on You Tube has been all consuming. We had 30 minutes of table work and he did great. There was complaining about the computer but he ultimately completed the activity without complaining.

This activity is effective for Lachie as he loves to describe how the marbles feel in his hands. The concept is designed to support him to get used to operators and to understand addition rules such as doubling. He loves that he can see the numeral and feel and view the corresponding amount of marbles for that numeral. He also has the extra challenge of not having the marbles roll away and there is fine motor development in the need to place each marble in the section individually.

Smelly, Slimy, Clean

Today's sensory activity was designed to get Lachie to interact with different smells and to record his reaction to them. It seems that Lachie cannot smell his own body odour but has no issues detecting other odours which he finds unpleasant.

First I made smelly playdough, here is the recipe:

One cup (250ml) of plain flour
1/4 cup of salt
1 cup of boiled water
2 tbsp of cream of tartar
2 tbsp of oil

For smells, cocoa, rosewater, peppermint, jelly crystals. For colour, non-toxic paints, natural food colours, glitter or whatever takes your fancy!

Place the flour, cream of tartar and oil in a saucepan along with your chosen colour. If using paint I wait until the mixture is cool. Although I use non-toxic paints,  I thought it was better not to experiment with heating them.

In a jug place your boiled water and salt. Wait until salt dissolves.

Mix your salt water in with your saucepan ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon. It will look runny and lumpy.

Keep stirring until it is starting to look smoother and thicker and it comes away a bit from the sides. Remove it from the heat. Different added ingredients mean different quantities of flour, judge it by how it comes together, not necessarily how sticky it is. When it is a good consistency to pick up and knead, it will still be a bit sticky at this stage and depending on the added ingredients may not come cleanly away from the pan (cocoa is a really sticky one).

Place the playdough on a floured board or in a slice pan (this is a neater way of doing it) and knead and add flour as necessary to get a smooth consistency. Place in zip lock bags in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

Lachie was quite unimpressed by the smell. He tolerated it because he was interested in the rocks. He made different rivers and islands using grass, river rocks we bought from the reject shop for $4 and sticks. I wanted Lachie to be able to explore this activity without interruption so Aria stayed inside with Daddy.

The minion (AKA: The Me) and the Macca's man made an appearance in the play of course. We had the sensory tub set up but he wanted to use the messy mat instead.

After the activity it was time to clean the play dough off the rocks. The warm water and soap is calming and the slippery soap makes handling the rocks a challenge. This activity was also for Aria as she love to clean things.

Spot the Macca's man. As the bubbles grew so did their ideas about what they wanted to put in it. Of course, Aria engaged in the activity for longer than Lachie. She enjoyed the slimy rocks a lot more than he did.

Lachie was keen to dry the rocks and Aria got in on the action. There was a bit of push and shove here because they shared the same bucket and container but they worked it out in the end.

Back to Basics

This morning we played Snakes and Ladders and memory. I often wonder if the introduction of screens and waning popularity of these types of social experiences is impacting on our children's development. Brand name board games can be expensive but yesterday I found a range of cheap classics at Kmart for $5 each. I got Snakes and Ladders as I felt it would be good to teach Lachie maths concepts as well as give him the experience of set backs (going down the snake). Lachie at first was very upset over having to go down the snake during our morning test out of our new game. However, the game held his interest long enough to overcome his feelings of injustice and he eventually won. Apart from the obvious maths skills he learnt valuable social lessons. Turn taking and not cheating were definite challenges!





Snakes and Ladders from Kmart $5

Powerful lessons: Not all smiles and sunshine and not all book work!

Homeschooling looks all smiles and sunshine if you go by our pictures but it is full of hard work and self doubt. Yesterday I had to deal with a pretty bad public meltdown but I had to do it. It was worth it because no matter what it is my responsibility to teach right from wrong. The lesson Lachie learnt yesterday was more powerful than any of the book work we have done to date. He learnt mummy is no push over and just because you scream loudly doesn't mean mummy will buy you what you want. The only sad part about it was the stares and the whispers from two shocked women.

The tough social lessons being learnt are done in a way that I can control the interaction. My children do not need to be hardened through bullying and disrespect. Gi Joe is learning these lessons through the Army Cadets. He went on his first recruit camp on the weekend and we were told that he made us proud. It gives me hope and reminds me that we have to do the hard yards with Lachie to get the pay off that we have with Gi Joe. 

A new phase

So school has not worked for both of my boys. This is not surprising considering developmental level and social functioning issues that come hand in hand with ASD. We have taken a leap of faith and put GI Jo into Distance Ed and Baby Yoshi is doing registered home schooling. I have been amazed at how many people choose this option. I had never really considered it before but so far it is working out okay. I won't say that there aren't challenges but I will say that I am willing to tackle them face on as their mother. I am fortunate in that my friends and family have been wonderfully supportive. I have met many people over the past few weeks and have received advice to ignore the negative comments. I have not had to endure any, even our pediatrician is supportive. So expect to see lots of record keeping disguised as blog posts here from now on!

Here is an example of our typical day, I have decided to use Lachie's (Baby Yoshi) and Aria's name, it's just easier.

Monday 22 July 2013

Today Lachie chose to practice the letter K. Lachie has good English skills but his writing can let him down.  Lachie worked hard on the worksheet provided but was motivated to commence his theme piece for English.  Lachie chose to recreate No-Bot the Robot.  Bernard the Robot lost his bottom so we talked about what would happen if he lost other body parts.  Lachie was able to tell me that if he lost his arms he could not touch and seemed to understand that we can use our body to communicate.  Lachie told me that ants communicate with their antennae.  Lachie is still mixing up “D” and “B” even when it is spoken and then he is supported to spell a word with either of those letters in it.

We used our new whiteboard today and even though he liked it, there were some tears when Aria rubbed off the schedule.

Lachie was difficult to engage with maths today.  Although the activity was guided by his robot interest, he was very active and left me when I was cutting out the robot.  He did engage in a game afterwards but was not really settled for the rest of the day.

Lachie participated in a science experiment.  He checked the growth of his previous plant that we re-grew using celery and he enjoyed the planting of the parsley and was able to connect it with last week’s library book, Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley.  I lost Lachie’s attention when the steps were too long for him to write. The day ended with Reading Eggs and quiet television.  Although there were difficulties, he still managed to get the work done.

Considerations:

Park play is very important to Lachie and he does not understand the concept of a rainy day.  Weather visual and discussions around flexibility may help.    Lachie was unhappy that the routine changed from last Monday to this Monday. 

Montessori may allow Lachie more time to practice cross-curriculum skills.