The Wedding!

The news everybody is waiting for: Ashley got married and Duch did great at the wedding! She looked beautiful and enjoyed the wedding experience. Shelby will show us the official pictures of Duch, but for now, here are some unofficial pictures! Thanks to Ashley, Shelby and their family for including Duch in the BIG day! And thanks to Maddie for walking with Duch, and to Kelsey and Kaffie for helping her on the rehearsals and the actual day. And thanks to Jessie and Kristen for helping us on the day of the wedding with the 3 kids' logistics. I am telling you, "it takes a village ...."
The funny thing is Duch was playing with Zoe yesterday and I heard her saying "Let's get married" :)

Outreach Schedule with Megan (June 8-10)

Outreach Schedule with Megan (June 8-10, 2011)

Wednesday, June 8

9:00-11:30 Megan plays with Dusya (volunteers watch during that time).
11:30-12:00pm Q&A
12:00-1:00 LUNCH
1:00-2:00 Megan plays with Dusya (volunteers watch during that time)
2:00-2:45 pm Observe and Feedback to Jessie
2:45-3:30pm Observe and Feedback to Shelby
3:30-4:00pm Q&A about Feedback etc

Thursday, June 9

9:00-11:15 Megan plays with Liam (volunteers watch during that time).
11:15-11:45 Q&A
11:45-12:45pm LUNCH
12:45-2:00 Megan plays with Liam (volunteers watch during that time)
2:00-2:45pm Observe and Feedback to Kristen
2:45-3:30pm Observe and Feedback to Jessie
3:30-4:00pm Q&A about Feedback etc

Friday, June 10

9:00-12:00 Group Meeting
12:00-1:00 pm LUNCH
1:00-2:30 pm Megan and Tony play
2:30-4:00 pm Q&A/Suggestions for Tony

Summary of Group meeting (May 22, 2011)

Here are the notes of the consultation I had with Megan on May 22 and the group meeting we had that same day.

DUSYA

1. For Duchis the biggest change we are implementing is that the Sonrise Playroom is not anymore a 99% YES room. She has come SO far that not it is time to start showing that friends have their own opinion and that we can be friendly and easy-going but also we can show her how friends can have their own ideas. We are teaching her FRIENDSHIP SKILLLS now: think that you are all 5.5 year old to show Duchis how her friends her age will play with her. Here are more specifics about how to teach her friendship skills:
- The trick is to be friendly, easygoing, and to playfully tease her. We don't want it to be a struggle for her, or to be bosy or to provoke her purposely.
- When playing with her, you can show her that her friends will not always want to play Duchis' way by saying things like: "Duch, I don't want to play this way; I want to do it his way" or "I have an idea, let's do it my way this time. I will show you."
- If she says "NO NO NO NO", don't say "YES YES YES YES" because she does not like that at all, and that would be provoking her. If she tells you "NO NO ..." , you could say "why not?" or say "really?" or say "come on". The most important thing is the tone and the attitude. Be playful, be silly, be friendly. We want to be natural and fluid, like a friend, not like a teacher who is trying to teach her something.

2. With Duchis, we are also showing her more to share her toys and games with us. So, if you are playing dress up and she does not want you to touch the clothes, in the past, we would have done whatever she wanted. Now, we can tell her, that it is fun to share and that the game gets even better when you two share it together. Of course, if there are some toys that you know that she ADORES, don't mess up with those, yet, because that would be provoking her. Respect her wishes for toys she really likes, but for other things show her it is fun to share and that you also have ideas of how to play with them.

3. About the tent, we are taking the blanket or towels from the tent. If she says she wants a blanket, tell her the truth: "Duch, it is so much better without a blanket, because you can see me and I can see you. It is more fun if we can see each other."

4. If Duch is talking things from Liam's or Tony's room that you think Liam and Tony really want, just tell Duch: "This is Liam's" or "This is Tony's". That will also be a good lesson for her.

5. Megan said that the fact that Duchis' playroom will not be a 99% YES-room anymore to become more of a 60% YES room will be a challenge for Duchis at the start and she may cry a lot. It was great for her that she was the boss of the room because that helped us to gain her trust. Now it will be different and she will be shocked at the beginning. So, be loving, be patient, and she will learn day after day how friends work and to be more flexible and open. Be calm if she cries and do NOT react to her crying by doing what she wants or she will start crying more. She needs to see that cries does not work.

6. We talked about being CONSISTENT with Duch in multiple areas:
a. Invite her to clean up so that she helps you clean up. Don't let the room be full of things. Tell her that to get the next toy, she needs to clean up first.
b. She is almost out of the "I am done screaming" cycle. Don't get into that exchange. If she starts with "Are you done ...?" cycle, you just smile, show her THUMBS UP, and move on.
c. No blankets on the tent because she is hiding there.
d. When she says "no no no no", don't say "yes yes yes yes". Say other things like "why not?" or "really?" or something like that. Be playful.
e. Work on her workbooks every day a few pages. Get her to do it; she can do it.
f. Don't give her a pencil/crayon in the right or left hands. Just put it on the table in the middle and see what hand she uses to pick it up. We are not sure if she uses more the right or the left. Yulene is still trying to figure out.
g. Keep working on the experiments and art projects. We need to challenge her with new things all the time.

LIAM

1. We talked about not leaving Liam's cards and books on the floor when you leave your session because the next person is stuck with all that on the floor. Try to clean up with Liam and if he does not want, come downstairs to write in the notebook and let him have a break and then quickly go upstairs and put up his cards and stuff so that the next person can have a clean start of her session.

2. When you see Liam tip-toeing feel free to remind him, "Liam, walk on your flat feet". He is getting better, but he still tip-toes, so remind him.

3. Liam is talking so much, it is VERY exciting to see the progress in this area. He has ALL the words and sentences inside, it is a matter of him just saying them. This is what we agreed to do if he was talking very softly and we could not hear or if we were not sure what he was saying:
- Say "I am sorry, I didn't quite understand" and then WAIT
- Whisper back to him so that he can see how it sounds when you speak softly
- If it is a sentence/word you don't understand, repeat it back to him and say: "It sounds like you are saying ......, but I couldn't understand"
- Use non-verbal cues: Put your hand around your ear, like saying "what?"

4. We are working on open-ended questions. Ask a question and WAIT.

5. We are responding literally to his requests. If he says "book" that is not clear enough. Be friendly and helpful and tell him: "I love to read books" then WAIT to see how he looks for a way to be clearer.

6. We are working on multiple-choice questions. He tends to repeat the second option, like if you say "do you want the elephant or the mouse?" he tends to say "mouse." Megan said we should not say the words of the options, but  just show them to him and say "which one do you want first?" If he says "elephant and mouse" you can say "Oh, you want BOTH the elephant AND the mouse" and give him both, or you can say "Liam, let's pick one".

7. We are working on YES/NO questions. Ask a question and WAIT. If he does not respond shake your head, not your head, point ot the signs and he will realize what to do.

8. If you see him on the grass pulling grass, feel free to join him for 10 minutes or so and try to make a game out of it, just to break his routine a little. In teh playroom, play with feathers or bubbles, which have the same visual effect thant the grass in teh air.

9. Watch Yulene's videos again and take notes so that it is easy for you to keep doing the exercises. The ones for tapping are the squeezing exercises and the ones with the toes and feet. He is tapping a bit less now.

POTTY

1. With all kids, we said we want them to be more and more independent and more private. Motivate them  to go by themselves, to flush, to wipe, to put their clothes back up, and to wash and dry their hands. Also, they can turn the light of. We can also show them to close the door, especially with Duch, who has a door right there; the door thing is not necessary right now with Liam.

Thanks everybody for coming to the meeting!

Mark your calendars - Megan is coming to Houston!

Please mark your calendars for June 8, 9 and 10 (Wednesday to Friday)! Megan will be in town working with the kids! It is a great opportunity for everybody to learn from her expertise.

Here are some pictures of the last week to celebrate some of the fun stuff happening in this house:

Duchis loves Dora

Look at Duchis' hair!

Duch playing dress up

Liam got a haircut!

Tony's bedroom in Arlice

Tony had a concert at school - this is his K-teacher

Guidelines from Megan for the next two weeks (May 6, 2011)

Hi all,

I talked to Megan and here is what she wants us to do in the next two weeks:

DUSYA

1) Everybody needs to google "school experiments" or "kids' experiments" or related terms. Megan wants us to introduce games/experiments to Duchis to really vary things up in the playroom. Examples she gave me are:
- tornadoes
- sand + balloons = squeaky balls
- water + baking soda
- weather theme
- float or sink
- plant a flower

We could introduce expressions such as "I wonder why ...." and "what do you think ....?
So, for the next two weeks, let's introduce as many experiments as possible. The materials should be easy for you to get, so please bring them and let us know if you need stuff that you know we have in the house. Make sure to be very excited when you introduce this to Duchis!

2) With Liam we are going to work on language.  We have done this with Duchis before, so this is not new for us. What we have to do is RESPOND LITERALLY TO WHAT LIAM SAYS.

Example:

a) he says "book". We say "I love book", or "I love that word", or "the books is on the shelf". What Liam will realize if we all do this consistently is that "book" is not clear enough. He needs to tell us: "I want book" "Give me book" "Where is the book?" "Find the book", etc.  So, everytime he tells us a one-word sentence, you celerbrate by saying "I love that word" or "that word is great" or something like that, but you PAUSE and WAIT. If he walks away, that's ok, because that means he does not want the book enough. He will come back to try again later. If after a while he starts to get frustrated and he is not saying the full sentence, you can model ONCE "I want the book" and then away PAUSE and WAIT. The key is to KNOW that HE WILL SAY SOMETHING IF WE WAIT. He knows all the words in teh world and he is ready to be shown how to express himself more clearly.

3) We will also work with YES and NO with Liam. For the next two weeks just ask him two types of questions:
- Open-ended questions
- YES/NO questions

Right now, I think that instead of saying "YES", he is repeating what we say. Like, "do you want the little people book?" and he says "little people book". When this happens, NOD your head and point to teh sign that says "YES" in his room so that he realizes that it would be more clear if he says "YES."  For "NO", he sometimes says it, and other times he uses a protest word like "helicopter" "diamond" or "glider." Same thing, if you offer him something that he does not like and she says "glider", you SHAKE your head and point to the sign that says "NO" in his room so that he realizes what is more appropriate to say. Let's be consistent and he will learn this.

4) In Liam's room there is also a list of commands that I have been teaching Liam, so that instead of pulling us from the finger around the house, he realizes that it is more helpful to tell us "lay down" "come here" or "sit down" so that we know what he wants. Feel free to use that poster for games or point to the sentence that you think he is trying to communicate to you when he pulls from your finger.

5) Liam seems to be going through a period again where he is itchy and wants to be naked and he may start having potty accidents again. So, please always remind him to go potty and to wear at least an underwear. We want him to be comfortable, so we just have to keep encouraging him to use the bathroom and to wear his underwear. Lots of love and patience also as he passes this phase. These are some of the effects of the cleaning with the homeopathy.

Have fun in the next two weeks! My next conversation with Megan is on May 23rd.

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!

Boundary setting

In my conversation with Megan this week "setting boundaries" came out. And, then I see that the Sonrise Blog has a posting on setting boundaries!!!  Take a look, there are great ideas here for setting boundaries for Duch, Liam, and Tony.

"FROM WILLIAM: Part of a child's life is to learn you do not always get what you want. This applies to autistic children as well as neuro-typical children. For any child a main part of their focus on a day to day basis is to get what they want exactly when they want it (i.e. food, drink, the toy, computer, a ride in the car, etc.) So here you have a child focused on getting what they want and us the parents deciding what they can have or not have. This is one of the roles we have as a parent - to set boundaries on what we want our child to have or not have.

As parents we also want our children to be happy - we love them and we want them to feel good about themselves, about us, the situation and the other people in their lives.

For many moms and dads holding these two ideas, controlling what my child can have or not have and wanting them to be happy individuals, can cause a major impact to the effectiveness of their parenting. The way to hold both these ideas in harmony is to be easy and relaxed when your child gets unhappy when they don't get what they want. As a parent it is our job to control what your child can do or not do - you are always assessing what you believe is the best for them (i.e. I don't let my 9 year neuro-typical child play out in the street at 10pm at night even if they want to.) No matter what, my child will always protest (cry, whine, make themselves unhappy, tantrum, hit, etc.) about something I have stopped them getting - this fact is unavoidable.

The key to parenting effectively when setting boundaries is being comfortable when your child gets unhappy. Remember that your child is learning a valuable life lesson - you don't always get what you want no matter how hard you cry, hit, scream, tantrum. In fact to give them what they want when they act this way will encourage this behavior to happen again and again.

When you set your boundaries be strong, love your child and allow them the space to get unhappy and learn that you don't always get what you want even if you cry, tantrum, etc."