Toward a Happy Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day can be a treacherous holiday for moms of children with autism.  Mother’s Day conjures up images of homemade cards, hugs and kisses, and sweet though messy attempts at making a special meal for mom.  Disappointed hopes and expectations can feel very painful.  What can we do?

My neurotypical third grade son has an angel for a teacher.  Every year she gets the children involved in a big project- the third grade Mother’ s Day Tea Party.  A couple weeks before each child writes a letter to his/her mom based on a template, answering questions like “Describe your mom.  What are some of the things you like about her?  What are some of the things she does for you that you’d like to thank her for?  What is your favorite activity together?  What are some of your favorite places?  How do you feel about your mom?”  The teacher uses the opportunity as a writing project with first drafts, edits, and rewrites, during which she can also make sure each child has an acceptable letter for the big day.  The children start practicing a special Mother’s Day song, complete with hand motions and simple dance moves.  They paint a little wooden tray complete with their handprints, which the teacher lacquers as a keepsake for the moms to take home after the party.  A week before, she has the children secretly ask their fathers or other special relative to help them squirrel away a nice teacup or mug for their mother  in their backpacks to take to school.  She has them plan the food and drinks, which she purchases herself out of a voluntary classroom project fund set up at the beginning of the semester.  The children also make invitations to bring home the week before.   The day before the party she cuts a big paper tablecloth for each set of 4 desks she arranges together, and has each child draw something special and cheerful for his/her mother on a quarter over his/her desk, where mom will sit.  The day of the party, the children set the table.  When 11:00 rolls around, the teacher opens the door and all the moms flood into the room as the children all say, “Happy Mother’s Day!”  Then the children give their moms their seats and serve as their waiters and waitresses.  After the tea, each child reads his/her special letter out loud to mom (while the teacher stands by ready with a box of kleenex!).  This is the most beautiful part, the kind of moments you live for, for yourself and also the privilege to witness the special relationship and all the love between each mom and child couple.  Then the children sing their special song.  There is never a dry eye amongst the mothers in the entire room, and some of the children also have tears of joy.

I love this idea.  It is brilliant as a meaningful writing project, executive function and social skills training,  includes the arts (painting, dance, and music), and builds community.  It teaches children how to honor their parent,  to be thankful, and how to show thankfulness.  I especially love this teacher because she conceived of this idea which is like a dream come true for a mom, when she herself is childless.  How did she know exactly what to do, that so hits the spot and touches the heart?  Where does she get the love and grace to do this, when she herself has not been blessed with a child of her own to have this kind of relationship?  Yet her face is all joy when she does this year after year.  She has a beautiful heart, and has brought the love of God to many a grateful third grade mom.  Certainly to this one.

So if you are a special education teacher or father or other close relative or friend of a mom with a child with special needs, please consider adopting some version of this project, with adaptations and accommodations of course.  Take turns- moms can also do a family party like this of sorts for fathers on Father’s Day.  Birthdays and other major holidays are other opportunities to teach this kind of appreciation for each other and learning how to express it, regularly.  It can start with just one part of the project, and grow through the years, along with the ability of the child.  What a lovely way for a child to grow in his/her capacity to love and express it.

I’m sure this kind of formation will take a lot of time and continuous efforts, but that’s what makes it become a part of the child’s character.  And gratitude is such an important virtue to train, as it is most certainly a key to happiness.  It’s so easy to not do this with our special kids because so much of it seems over their heads.  So start simple and little.  The seeds may grow.

In the meantime, one can always imitate the teacher, her face full of joy as she blessed others and their children while waiting patiently for her own.

Floortime as Play Therapy

Floortime is powerful play therapy.  You can use it to recreate an emotionally charged event in your child’s life, and allow him to play out different roles and endings as he desires and imagines.  But can you do this with a child with severe challenges in symbolic thinking and language?  Yes you can!  You can even go down to the sensory level if necessary to reach your child and access the event.  In fact, that’s what’s often necessary to help kids with PTSD recover from their trauma.

At the recent DIR Profectum conference earlier this month, I watched a videotape of a grandmother working with her granddaughter on a the sensory level to help her recover from PTSD night terrors and agarophobia a year after a traumatic car collision.  The child was swinging in a net swing and instructing her grandmother on how to push her.  Her grandma was working on stopping the swing as a surprise, to try to recreate some of the sense of sudden stopping that the child had experienced, but change the associations from unpleasant to pleasant.  So the key was making it fun and loving, and also to hand control over to the child.  So the granddaughter got to tell grandma to swing just forward and back, not side to side, and only stop her when facing forward and not while going too fast.  She gradually got grandma to increase the force of her push and stop more abruptly to make it more exciting.  They worked on these “self-titration” exercises over a year, till finally, the PTSD symptoms melted away.

So I tried it with Peter.  He had a hard time getting out of the car the other day to attend his brother’s track meet, as he gets anxious in crowded and noisy places.  So I gave Peter a race track/ramp and car, and watched him self- titrate the how far up he’d release the car on the ramp to control the excitement.  He ended up laughing in excitement when he was able to release the car from the top of the ramp. Then I had Charmander (a big stuffed animal) drive up in a toy car, and watch Peter release the car down the ramp intently.  Charmander grew very interested and leaned as far as it could reaching for the car, but was too scared to come out of the car.  Finally, I asked Peter, “What should Charmander do next?  Sit in the car or come out?”  Peter looked at me and emphatically stated, “Sit in car!”  Then he gently nudged the entire track/ramp next to Charmander’s car, and handed Charmander the racecar.  Charmander didn’t know how to make the car go, so Peter repeated his titration procedure of releasing the car at increasing distances up the ramp.  When he let it go from the top, Charmander cheered, and said, “I see!  You can go slow, and then fast.  Good idea!”  Peter looked at me with a huge smile, as if he really appreciated my acknowledgement of the coping strategy he’d worked out.

So when your child has either a strong emotionally positive or negative experience, think of the theme- as Dr. Greenspan puts it, competition, aggression, fear, excitement, nurturing, or whatever it is- and set up play dramas with dolls, puppets, or stuffed animals around it.  Or set up a sensory experience analogous to the one that affected your child.  Then let your child explore different outcomes, on his own initiative, at his own pace, with your support (such as choices- “Should Charmander sit in the car or come out?”). You’ll be surprised at what you learn, and what your child will tell you about his feelings and desires through play.

Getting Dressed with Charmander and Floortime

It’s maddening to get Peter up and dressed in the morning.  He keeps on asking for “one minute, please” and dives his head under the blanket.  We usually end up having to tickle him out of bed, and he moves in slow motion to get dressed.  After going to an outstanding DIR conference by Profectum at the Pasadena Convention Center this weekend, I thought I’d try a different approach.

So this morning when Peter peeked out of his blanket, instead of seeing me with his shorts in my left hand and “tickle monster” right hand poised to strike, Peter saw Charmander, his brother’s giant stuffed animal Pokemon character, wearing Peter’s  pants.  Peter snatched Charmander, took off the pants, and ducked back under the blanket, pants and all.  I waited.  A few seconds later, Peter’s hand reappeared from under the blanket, offering the pants.  When he peeked out from under the blanket again, he saw Charmander wearing his pants on its head.  Peter took off the pants, and dived under the blanket with them.  Lo and behold!  His hand reappeared offering the pants again!  We repeated this game with the pants appearing on Charmander’s chest with the pant legs threaded through its arms, then reversed on its back but through the arms, then on one arm and one leg.

Finally, Charmander wondered if the pants might go on Peter’s legs. Charmander wiggled under the covers and got both legs of the pants threaded onto each of Peter’s feet.  But when Peter tried to wiggle his pants up (still completely under the covers), he discovered to his chagrin that the mischievous Charmander had inserted one of its own legs into one of the pant legs so that it was tangled up with Peter in the pants!  After Peter had struggled to right the situation and get his pants on, he threw the extricated Charmander out of his bed onto his brother’s.  Then to my delight, he threw the covers off, and got up out of bed, quickly, not in slow motion, not requiring coaxing or tickles, and made his way to the bathroom to complete his dressing.

The story doesn’t end there.  Peter usually takes an eternity to get dressed, lying on a long  vanity seat a prior owner had converted the bathtub into.  But miracles of miracles!  When Peter spied Charmander sneaking up to steal his shirt, Peter snatched the shirt first and popped it on.  Ta-dah!  Competition won the day, and beat any timer I could have set to use classic behavioral methods to complete his dressing.

An Imperfectly Good Day

Peter and I went skiing for the day.  It was beautiful and sunny.  Just getting to and from the mountain was fun for Peter because he loves long car rides.  We made up songs to sing on the chair lift together.  He did a great job skiing, following me carefully as we did big long turns, and trying to get his feet into parallel as we traversed the slope.

Unfortunately, at the end we had a couple of mishaps.  When trying to untie my poles (I had threaded the handle loops together to make a CASS hold for Peter), I accidentally hit his fingers with the end of one pole.  Peter was a good sport, just rubbing his hand, without a sound.  I apologized profusely, and he said “I forgive you”  with a repeat-after-me prompt. But at the very end, when Peter was seated in the car, I had just gotten his ski boots off when he reached over and slammed the car door shut.  The only problem was that I was still between him and the door, leaning over to pick up his boots.  Bam!  I felt the car door slam against my head, and screamed in fright.  Peter said he was sorry, and I had him do several do-overs, ie practices, on how to look around carefully for people before you close the car door, and then told him I forgave him too.

So at the end of the day, we made a tally.

Ski trip

Bad	Good
	Long car ride. ☺☺☺
	Singing on the chair lift. ☺
	Great job skiing! ☺☺☺☺
Mama hit Peter’s fingers with the ski pole.	Peter forgave Mama. ☺
Peter hit Mama’s head with the car door.	Mama forgave Peter. ☺☺
3 sad faces	11 happy faces

 

What was more, happy or sad faces?  The forgiving made up completely for the accidents, and there was much more good than bad, so we decided we had had a very good time on our ski trip!

We reviewed the day with Papa, using the chart as a memory prompt.

Sometimes our kids can use some help with developing perspective when things don’t go completely right on a given day.  Counting up happy and sad faces helps by providing a concrete visual.  Reflecting on imperfectly good days are a great opportunity to develop perspective on life.

 

Oiling the Tin Man

Some days, Peter’s inertia is so big that it borders upon catatonia.

Today was one of those days.  My husband and I took him to Descanso Gardens to hike around and get moving.  Peter moved like a patient with Parkinson’s Disease.  I had to walk arm in arm with him, chanting  ”Right, right, right, left right” to get his legs to move with any speed at all- otherwise, they just seemed glued to the ground.  He just kept asking me for “Car ride, please.”

So I sent my husband to go on ahead about 50 feet, and said, “Peter, want to earn minutes for a car ride?  If you can walk over to Papa, who’s waving over there, in one minute, I’ll give you a stick.  You can trade in every stick you earn for a minute of car ride.”  I had Peter push “start” on my cell phone timer, and then cheered him on to make that long walk to Papa.  He started out slowly, but as he saw the seconds running down on my cell phone which I held up, he moved faster and faster.  When I started the last 10 second countdown, he even ran a couple of steps!  Success!  He just made it, and proudly accepted a stick I picked up from the ground with a big smile.  We kept this game up all the way up the hill to the Brody House museum.

After earning five sticks, Peter seemed to have warmed up.  He walked at a normal pace for a while, without needing the stick incentive.  When he slowed down again, we resumed the game, but needed fewer repetitions to keep moving.  We made it back to the entrance after earning another three sticks only.  And we even varied the game in which he got the stick after one minute of successfully matching my pace as I would walk super slowly, faster, stop dramatically, etc. (If he didn’t keep pace, I threatened to stop the timer and start all over again, but never had to carry that out.)

I suspect there’s something wrong with that basal ganglia that controls initiation and stopping.  Behavioral techniques like the game we played are like the oil that Dorothy would administer to the tin man’s joints- at least it works for a while.

Why is there a question mark at the end of a question?

The family was in the car the other day as we drove up to the snow in Big Bear after Christmas.  My third grader was asking one question after another about where we were going to stay, what we were going to do, what we going to eat, etc., without ever stopping for answer.  Finally I turned and asked him, “Luke, why do you think there’s a question mark after a question?”

Luke was surprised.  “I don’t know, why?”

I drew a big question mark on the frosty window pane.  “Does that look like something familiar to you?”  I asked, as I pulled on my ear as a clue.

“Oh!  Why is it an ear?”

“To remind you to stop after you ask a question and use your ears to listen to the answer!” I replied.   In fact in classical Chinese, the character for “listen” includes the radical meaning “ear” followed by the radical for “heart,” meaning you listen with both your ears and your heart.

“Oh!” said Luke, the light dawning.  He was quiet for a minute, but then it was business as usual. ” So when do we get there, Mom?”

I’m not sure what impact my point made with Luke, but I thought the one it might help the most is actually Peter.  Since Peter is so visual, and depends upon written words heavily to communicate, I’m going to turn the question mark into a social prompt for him.  I’ll explain to him how the top hook is an ear to remind him to listen after posing his question.  I’ll explain the bottom dot is an eye to remind him to look. Then, whenever he asks a question and starts walking away before getting a response, I’m going to start pointing to the question mark at the end to remind him to stop, listen, and look.

“Reaching Out” for a teenager with severe autism

Christmas vacation is great, but can seem a bit long for teenagers accustomed to being with their friends and classmates all day.  But what if the teenager is nearly nonverbal, gets really anxious in social situations, and is so hypersensitive to sound that he usually works in his own quiet room off the main classroom?  We never guessed Peter might feel that teenage social pull, until he let us know in his own way.

Near the end of Christmas vacation this year, Peter got on his AT device (Vantage), and keyed in “I want car ride.  School.”  We asked, “Why school?”  Peter replied, “Miss Laska (his teacher).”  We told him, “No school yet, Peter.  Why do you want to go to school?”  As options we wrote,  “Do you miss Miss Laska’s hellos?  Miss your friends?  Want to ask Miss Laska how her Christmas went?”  Peter circled “miss your friends,” adding “I” before “miss” to make the sentence grammatically correct.  “Oh, so what friends do you miss?” we asked.  Peter got on his Vantage and navigated to a list of names of all his classmates.  He then listed all the boys in the class, plus Miss Laska.  We ended up having him write all those names down.  The next day we went to school, Peter walked into the classroom, pulled out his list of names (with prompting), and said, “Hello…”, proceeding to read off all the names on his list.  Then he looked at everyone, said, “Bye!”, waved, turned, and bolted back to his own little room away from the main classroom, his quiet haven.

That was enough for Peter. But I thought it was beautiful. Considering all the barriers to social interaction including anxiety, sensory hypersensitivities, and communication skills, he still had that desire for it, and even managed to express that desire.  I’m not sure how satisfying it was for him to actually follow-through and greet all his friends, but the more practice he gets, the more automatic it may become with time.  Hopefully at some point, the pleasure will exceed the work and effort, and satisfying that desire for social interaction will become easier.  For now, I’m just amazed and grateful that he has it.  Despite everything, under all those challenges, lies the heart of a potential friend.