Post-Bad Patch
So it's typical of kids with these kinds of issues, and it's happened before, but Simon just worked through a bad patch. He slid into it and for a few days was really overloaded and out of it. He was unfocused and hard to talk to. It seemed to lift after four or five days, but then the next week wasn't all that great either.
Now, he's back. I really feel like he's actually back. He's pooping on the toilet, can talk about the calendar and the weather. He's learning and talking about new things, etc.
What's interesting about having a child with these issues, and why I'm writing a blog about/for parents of kids who are "on the spectrum" (a term I hate) is that my ideas about the right thing to do for my child really vary from month to month.
When the bad patch started to happen, I was pretty determined to work him through it, try to snap him out of it, like an athlete working through an injury. Not only did it not work, and not only was it frustrating for me and stressful for Simon, it made me realize that there's different approaches at different times. I finally got to the point where I would "shadow" him, and always be in the same room. He would do his thing, and I would bring a book with me, but at least we were in the same room. There would be moments here and there where he would say something and I could chime in, and we could have a little connection. We could still have some fun and laugh and have some nice times. I could still make him feel loved.
The other thing I learned is that I need to stop blaming myself. I've just been aching about the fact that I put Simon in daycare, part time, for over a year. I've been blaming myself and work for Simon being isolated and withdrawing. The day care was a bad move, and it didn't help things, and I was in denial that it wasn't working. But if this issue was as simple as a childcare choice, it would be easy to correct.
Simon now does (including therapy school) about 7 hours of therapy a week. I work with him at home and give him a lot of focused attention. But he'll still have bad patches. He has neurological issues. Not parenting issues or bonding issues, but hard-wired neurological issues. And some of this we just have to keep our fingers crossed on, do all the therapies, do the right things at home, and then just hope for the best. If this was my fault, I could have fixed it by now. Simon's been out of day care, of any kind, for over a year.
On a different note, we're doing the RDI drum work. I just think RDI is so on the right track. I try to get Simon to drum to my beat, and it's a lot of work, but he's starting to get it. We do 1-2-3 HIT, 1-2-3 HIT. He can sort of do it, but only if there's a huge motivator, like we'll use the siphon on the fishtank if he does the "drum exercise". So he'll put up with it for about 3 minutes. But it does get him to look at me and follow my cues.
Spring is coming in three days. I've been training him on the seasons since fall and he's getting pretty good. I think he gets some of the underlying ideas and can recite the longest monolog on the subject. If you didn't know he's memorized it, you'd think he's a genius. He's also spending a lot of his free time trying to teach himself how to read. He's learned to write numbers without any help and is interested in clocks and telling time. Today Amy taught him about clockwise and counter clockwise and he was pretty into that.
Printers are out, whirlpools that form when he's draining the sink are in. He pretended the kitchen was flooding, and he was putting a pretend drain on the kitchen floor. I pretended I was swimming in the water and getting sucked down the drain.
He liked that.
It's nice to have him back.
K
Now, he's back. I really feel like he's actually back. He's pooping on the toilet, can talk about the calendar and the weather. He's learning and talking about new things, etc.
What's interesting about having a child with these issues, and why I'm writing a blog about/for parents of kids who are "on the spectrum" (a term I hate) is that my ideas about the right thing to do for my child really vary from month to month.
When the bad patch started to happen, I was pretty determined to work him through it, try to snap him out of it, like an athlete working through an injury. Not only did it not work, and not only was it frustrating for me and stressful for Simon, it made me realize that there's different approaches at different times. I finally got to the point where I would "shadow" him, and always be in the same room. He would do his thing, and I would bring a book with me, but at least we were in the same room. There would be moments here and there where he would say something and I could chime in, and we could have a little connection. We could still have some fun and laugh and have some nice times. I could still make him feel loved.
The other thing I learned is that I need to stop blaming myself. I've just been aching about the fact that I put Simon in daycare, part time, for over a year. I've been blaming myself and work for Simon being isolated and withdrawing. The day care was a bad move, and it didn't help things, and I was in denial that it wasn't working. But if this issue was as simple as a childcare choice, it would be easy to correct.
Simon now does (including therapy school) about 7 hours of therapy a week. I work with him at home and give him a lot of focused attention. But he'll still have bad patches. He has neurological issues. Not parenting issues or bonding issues, but hard-wired neurological issues. And some of this we just have to keep our fingers crossed on, do all the therapies, do the right things at home, and then just hope for the best. If this was my fault, I could have fixed it by now. Simon's been out of day care, of any kind, for over a year.
On a different note, we're doing the RDI drum work. I just think RDI is so on the right track. I try to get Simon to drum to my beat, and it's a lot of work, but he's starting to get it. We do 1-2-3 HIT, 1-2-3 HIT. He can sort of do it, but only if there's a huge motivator, like we'll use the siphon on the fishtank if he does the "drum exercise". So he'll put up with it for about 3 minutes. But it does get him to look at me and follow my cues.
Spring is coming in three days. I've been training him on the seasons since fall and he's getting pretty good. I think he gets some of the underlying ideas and can recite the longest monolog on the subject. If you didn't know he's memorized it, you'd think he's a genius. He's also spending a lot of his free time trying to teach himself how to read. He's learned to write numbers without any help and is interested in clocks and telling time. Today Amy taught him about clockwise and counter clockwise and he was pretty into that.
Printers are out, whirlpools that form when he's draining the sink are in. He pretended the kitchen was flooding, and he was putting a pretend drain on the kitchen floor. I pretended I was swimming in the water and getting sucked down the drain.
He liked that.
It's nice to have him back.
K
posted by Kathryn711 at 11:25 PM
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