Summary of Group meeting (April 17, 2011)

We had a great group meeting today. The only problem is I forgot to take a picture!! Here is a summary of the meeting and my conversation with Megan of this week:

ABOUT LIAM

1) I told Megan that Liam was enjoying puzzles a lot and that we kept proposing different ways to play with the puzzles. For example:

- I have classified the pieces into “flying machines”, “things that go on the water”, “rescue machines,” etc, etc
- I have also classified them into “red vehicles,” “green vehicles,” etc, etc
- I know Kristen built the puzzle, while wearing animal hats and talking about the animals and the vehicles
- I know Jessie and Liam have taken turns each one choosing the next piece to put together
- I know Shelby and Liam played magic carpet and as part of the carpet trips they put the pieces together
- Etc

Megan thought it was fantastic that Liam was being so flexible playing the game in so many different ways. She said that one goal is move the emphasis on the cards to emphasis on US, so while we are playing with the puzzles with him, we would be very spontaneous, funny, silly so that he realizes WE are the most exciting thing in the game. Megan said we could use the effects of SURPRISE and ANTICIPATION to mix the puzzle game with lots of spontaneous play.

2) I told Megan that Liam was a lot into kisses, hugs, squeezes, and funny sounds and faces (like “show me Indian” and “show me silly lips”), so she said that was exactly what she was talking about. She said this is the time to do lots of funny faces and anticipation and surprise games with him.

3) Megan says that this is a good time, again to print funny faces or emotion faces from the internet and to play a game of imitating those funny faces or emotion-type of faces.

4) I told Megan that Liam takes my finger and points to complicated words (like “agricultural airplane”) in the books for me to read for him. She said we could call that game “Let’s read words”, so that he does not need to tell us “let’s read words” for each word, but at the beginning of the game we can tell him that this game is called “let’s read words”. Shelby says that he has shown Liam that he could say “say the word” when reading words from the book. So, we could call it the “say the word” game. Also, Megan recommended that for the long complicated words, we could show him the phonetics of the words, like “aaa ggg rrr iii ccc uuu lll ttt uuu rrr aaa lll airplane” so that he practices the phonetics of the new complex words.

5) I told Megan that Liam was pulling me places without saying anything and that for “sit down” I do the ‘SSSSSSSSS’ sound and he remembers to say “sit down” and then for “come here” I do the “co” sound and he says “come here”. She said that those sounds are good for now, but that pretty soon I just have to use non-verbal cues for him to remember what to say. I have been using non-verbal cues when he takes me to the stairs and I wait to see what he says and he usually says “go upstairs” spontaneously. So, it is good to teach him commands he can tell us, but minimize the help you give him so that he practices spontaneous talking.

6) CELEBRATE a lot for all Liam is saying. He is LOVING being celebrated for talking and the more we celebrate, the more he talks.

7) These are ideas we brainstormed at the group meeting:
- Crafts for Liam, not only for Duch
- I will get him a workbook like the one I got for Duch
- Lots of ACTING OUT
- Acting out with music
- Acting out with puppets

ABOUT DUCHIS

8) About Duch we talked mostly about flexibility and the “Are you done screaming?” situation or the “Are you done with music?” situation. I told Megan that the conversation was becoming repetitive, so she said that at this point when she says “are you done screaming?” or “are you done with ….?”, we will just give her THUMPS UP and nod and not engage in verbalization. Duchis will escalate the whining, but we need to be comfortable with that and let her work through her frustration. For “are you done with music?”, for example, we can add things like “I really enjoyed the music and my favorite song is …” So, instead of engaging in the “are you done” “mommy is done” I am done” exchange, we can just do thumps up and add some nice sentences sharing things that we like.

9) Megan said that when Duch is crying/whining with the whole “done screaming” conversation it is not time to teach her things like “I am not screaming, I am talking”, etc, etc. She says that later in the session when we are doing something else, we can take Elmo and Zoe and act out whatever we want to teach her. For example, the other day it was 5:30am and she wanted me to get out of my bed. She would say: “I want mommy to get up” “it’s good morning time” “I want mommy to wake up” etc. I told her “five more minutes, Duch, I want to say in bed five more minutes”. She was getting frustrated and started to whine. I remained comfortable in my bed even when she was crying. Megan said that later, we could play out an scenario with Elmo and Zoe in which Zoe wants to sleep and Elmo wants her to wake up …. And then Zoe would tell Elmo to come back later and Elmo would say, no problem, I will be back, and then Elmo comes back and Zoe stands up …. So, she gets to see a situation in which she can be flexible and can be happy even if she does not get right away what she wants.

10) For the baby popcorn in the room, we decided to put some rules on her. Like, she can bring baby popcorn in a tiny bowl and she can eat for 5 minutes and then the baby popcorn goes to the shelf for a while. She can have more later. We are thinking she is trying to have breaks with the baby popcorn like she used to do with the potty breaks.

11) Duch is loving CLOCKS and the concept of time. We have a green foam clock. Create games or stories in which you go through different times of the day and do different things.

12) We went through several LEVEL-4 games from the SonRise play book. I will be assigning more Level-4 games to those of you who missed the group meeting.

About Dusya and Tony and Liam together

13) We talked about steps we can take to help the kids to play more together. Two things that are important are:
- The more they have fun together, the more they will want to be together. So if we think about easy things to do, like jumping on a mattress together, the 3 of them or any combination of 2 of them would have fun and would build more memories of how being together they had fun jumping.
- We talked about working for the next month on celebrating a lot every time the kids are together, doing something together, or playing close to each other, or sharing. So, I have been saying lots of: “I love how we are all together … Tony and Liam are together playing on the blanket ... “ or “this story time is so great with Tony and Duchis sitting together and listening”

14) Now that the kids have advanced so much, it is time to teach them boundaries. They can be happy even if they don’t always get what they want. Kids want to do things THEIR way, but we have some boundaries for that. Like, they have to go to bed at 8pm, or they don’t get to play in the front yard because of the cars, or we cannot switch from playroom to playroom like crazy, or we cannot spend 45 minutes in the potty reading books. The key when setting boundaries is being comfortable when the kid gets unhappy. Remember that Liam/Duch/Tony is learning a valuable life lesson - you don't always get what you want no matter how hard you cry, scream, tantrum. In fact to give them what they want when they act this way will encourage this behavior to happen again and again. Let them work through the frustration and remain calm, strong, and loving.

Our next group meeting will be on Sunday May 22nd, when I come back from Germany. And then in June, we will have a group meeting when Megan comes to visit again. The kids are doing AMAZING, let's keep pushing them to the next level!