Alex this week…

Tomorrow marks the end of Alex’s first full week on his new schedule… It is also a week and a half since the playground beatdown.

So, how is he doing?

He didn’t stay in his “old shell”, but definitely regressed into a much nuttier version of himself…. On most days we find ourselves questioning the validity of an ADHD diagnosis as the “H” only shows up in specific stress situations.  It has seemed like more of a branch, a facet of his differentness… Not my most favorite facet, but at least the rapid lap-running around the kitchen island, the constant little professor chatter, and the inability to hear us at all, without seeing our faces on the same level, at least those things are a type of communication.  So the end of last week and most of this week (so far) have shown us that he is handling the schedule change remarkably well, on one level, but it has also shown us that he has learned to dampen his responses to change on one level, which is a very social thing for him to do…However, we can’t seem to break through to find out what part of the past week and a half is sticking with him…

But we are working on it…

More tomorrow…

Sleep well!

xo

Bek

Creativity… A most excellent clever resource!

Amazing site on creativity…

Great brainstorming, creativity, thinking, teamwork tools….

I think this will help not only me, but also help teach kid some new problem solving skills….

Enjoy!: CreatingMinds.Org

xo

bek

Labels.

Staying Dry.

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Here is Alex…It was raining hard when he came home from school. He wanted to play out on our lanai. I talked him through finding a towel and how he would use it to dry his feet when they got wet on the lanai.

So he put the towel down on the wet lanai and shuffled around outside with his feet tucked into it. He got soaked. The towel? Soaked.

I realize now that I didn’t walk him through and show him: where to put the towel, the precise sequence of events from putting the towel down as a mat, through every detailed movement of his spontaneous play outside, and eventually over to the mat, nice and warm inside the house, to dry his feet.

Because that’s what he needs. Precision. He is intensely rule based and fairly non-flexible.

But he’s wonderful.

But I’m exhausted.

Anyway.

What I want to talk about today is labels.

Alex has a label now. It’s not a precise label, it’s very broad for now, but we now have a label. For us a label is a tool, it is for communication and for research to find the help we need to help him have a happy and healthy life.

So here is my assignment for you. Close your eyes and think what either of the following word means to you. Embrace your interpretation. Then scroll down. (If you would like to, you may anonymously share your initial thoughts in the comments area….don’t worry you will not be judged…I went through this…I’m still going through this….)

Autism.

Ok. Here is the DSM IV (from NIH)/Diagnostic Criteria for Autism and Asperger’s…. Please read them carefully…

Diagnostic Criteria for 299.00 Autistic Disorder

1. A total of six (or more) items from (1), (2), and (3), with at least two from (1), and one each from (2) and (3):
1. qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:
1. marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction
2. failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
3. a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest)
4. lack of social or emotional reciprocity
2. qualitative impairments in communication as manifested by at least one of the following:
1. delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through alternative modes of communication such as gesture or mime)
2. in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others
3. stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language
4. lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play appropriate to developmental level
3. restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:
1. encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
2. apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
3. stereotyped and repetitive motor manners (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
4. persistent preoccupation with parts of objects

2. Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas, with onset prior to age 3 years: (1) social interaction, (2) language as used in social communication, or (3) symbolic or imaginative play.
3. The disturbance is not better accounted for by Rett’s Disorder or Childhood Disintegrative Disorder.

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Diagnostic Criteria for 299.80 Asperger’s Disorder

1. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:
1. marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction
2. failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
3. a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
4. lack of social or emotional reciprocity
2. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:
1. encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity of focus
2. apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
3. stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
4. persistent preoccupation with parts of objects
3. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
4. There is no clinically significant general delay in language (e.g., single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years).
5. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction), and curiosity about the environment in childhood.
6. Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia.

Looking at the criteria, has your view on what Autism means changed?

I know mine did.

If you are a parent with a kid with PDD of any type- what was your crash course like? What has your experience been with other people understanding even the basics of autism and what it means?
With the amount of Autism news everywhere, I’m amazed that the news outlets virtually never cover the criteria. I get that the human interest story is the child who has the most symptoms and the most impairment, or the greatest non-autism hardship that affects their autism, or their family’s ability to provide for them and their special needs. i really do understand that… But the focus completely on the human interest side, and the lack of an explanation of what autism is, without delving into severity, is doing a great disservice to many children. My dad insists that nobody thinks that autism is really bad parenting and lack of discipline. Then again, he doesn’t read the comments after articles online and he has never been to Target and experienced the full-on Alex fallout because the kid can’t handle the lights and sounds. He has never been there when an old man informs me that “a good beating” would fix Alex because that’s what worked on his kids… And this isn’t just one experience. It is many. Those people are out there. I am grateful that I can express the why to the judgmental butt-inski’s of the world with one word.

And I am reminded (and I have to find the source of the quote) of the mom on a message board that said, to the “well meaning” stranger, “If a kid had cancer would you try to spank it out of him?”

Many people see autism in two ways, there’s the “all autism looks like Rainman. If the kid isn’t acting like Rainman, it’s clearly a discipline problem.” (by the way, you can read about Kim Peek, who was the inspiration for Rainman, on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek)…

And there are the people who see it as purely a discipline problem. (and people like Dennis Leary. I will not get into that at this time.)

And then there are the people who live with it every single second of every single day, be it their own or their child’s or their patients (does not apply to all doctors…we have found that out…We are just learning, yet by reading the basics we seem to know more than some of the physicians)…

So when I use a label to explain something my kid does, please don’t assume or treat us like we are:
1. Trying to restrict our child’s success in life.
Pretending this doesn’t exist is cruel and more restrictive than a true label.

2. Looking for a problem.
We are not looking for a problem. It is there. This didn’t happen overnight. We have known our child for almost 5.5 years. Frankly, we are greater experts in Alex than anyone reading this. We, with the help of family, friends, and a few undereducated professionals, gave the benefit of the doubt too many times. That has delayed helping him in such a dramatic way that has made his treatment more complicated, exhausted all of us, and worse, it has damaged his self-esteem.

3. Restricting him from enjoying life.
We are working hard with Alex so that he may enjoy life, understand it, and not be so scared of things like moderate to loud sounds and the lights at the grocery store. We do not restrict him from anything. Alex requires extra effort from us to keep him safe, due to various issues. This is not us being paranoid. It is us being responsible and keeping our child alive. When he was a preemie, someone with a cold could have infected him and killed him. Now that he is 5, the safety issues are different, but he requires the same vigilance. He falls down and gets hurt (frequently. the child is blessed with my physical grace.), he gets sick from playing with the kid with the snotty river drying on his face at school. We want Alex to have the ability to make good choices for himself in life, so he can experience more and give more to the world. Keeping him alive and giving him the tools he needs to even just have a back and forth conversation are important parts of this. We are not restricting him, we are helping him explore his world. If you need further description, what may appear as restriction to an outsider (anyone who doesn’t live with this every day) is actually comparable to providing a wheelchair bound person with a ramp. We are giving Alex his ramp.

4. Bad parents.
We take this parenting thing very seriously and because of Alex’s needs, we also do work harder at parenting and learning to be better parents, than many folks (not all by any means, and everyone has their *thing*) who have an average or neurotypical kid who just needs the basics (love, food, basic health care, clothing, and a roof over their head). We also have to be teachers, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech therapists, detectives, physicians, psychologists, behavioral specialists, nutritionists, project managers, and schedule everything with the precision of a railway scheduler/conductor.
So before you judge us to be bad parents, or suggest we “just love him”, know what you are judging and in most cases, know that you have only read the brochure about this land we inhabit, you have never been there or even seen the extensive slide show or even checked Amazon to see if there is a Fodor’s or Lonely Planet guide for our world.

Anyway, enough of my babble. I guess I just want everyone to listen before they judge. (and yes, I have both complete strangers and someone close to me in mind when writing this)…. Learn before you preach.

I also find that the people who lecture on labels and applying them to anyone, are people who have never had anything in their lives that are worthy of a label. Most people who have a label (and to clarify I’m not talking about labels thrown around in name calling and derogatory fashion…I’m talking about labels to describe a fact.) understand how necessary and helpful they are….

Hugs all around…
B

(by the way, in case I didn’t mention it in my lengthy entry, Alex has PDD-an extremely broad label that contains Autism and other disorders….We are 99.9% sure he has Asperger’s… You can check out WrongPlanet.org for more info on Asperger’s…)

Rubik’s Confusion

Rubik’s Confusion

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Finished the language and speech part of kiddo’s evaluation with the county folks…

Turns out he’s on the upper end of the average range or above it on all things.

Except one.

In receptive language he is severely impaired.

While we had a bunch of work to do before this, now we can focus a little, but I feel like we are snowed in and a little panicked…

Even though this isn’t really news to us. I mean, the term “receptive language” and all of the other language stuff is, well, like a foreign language to me. We knew something was going on, we still don’t know what, but at least we have some validation to our observations which is little comfort, but at the same time, I am forever second guessing myself in a way that I’m going backwards from acceptance and I’m trying to reach for denial with all of my might so maybe I can just curl up with kiddo there and pretend everything is 80’s sitcom normal. But I never get there. And I’m really tired. We could all use the break. But there are no breaks in sight…

So the eval (we haven’t had our formal review yet) was on Thursday and on Friday I came home from a pharmacy run and boy told me a story. Then he told me another one. My little boy stood there and very slowly and meticulously told me something that happened in his day. There was a beginning, a middle, and an end.

He is five.

He told me that he came home and there was a box from amazon.com on the chair. He told me that he looked inside and it was empty. He told me the box didn’t belong on the chair. He told me that he brought the box to the recycling bin. He told me that with Daddy’s help they smashed up the box and put it in the recycling bin.

It was the most gripping account of anything I have ever heard in my entire life.

My little guy doesn’t tell stories. He doesn’t have conversations where he is an active participant in the dance that is a conversation. He blurts stuff. He collects facts. He runs into the room and announces that “The big radio at Target looks like a face” and runs out… He is random yet structured in every part of his life. He does not tell stories. He does not answer questions.

Later that evening I was snuggling with him in the big bed before story time. I asked him about school and the other kids. He has been having a hard time. I asked him why he couldn’t finish his lessons in class today (according to his teacher via my husband).

I expected nothing, except perhaps a change of subject. Lately, his obsession is smoke alarms and fire sprinkler systems, so I was expecting the step by step run down of the sprinkler trigger mechanism.

Instead, he told me- slowly and step by step – that one of the younger kids came over and took his blue colored pencil and broke it so he could not do his lesson.

I was floored.
I asked him if he told the teacher and he said no. So we talked about what to do next time something like that happens. Of course, from what I know of the way his brain works, the solution we discussed can and will only apply to the very same situation, with the very same child, and the very same lesson, and the very same blue pencil. He is very literal and rigid about these things.

But he told me, and we talked about it.

Today everything was back to the usual. The three of us are just so shell shocked with everything in our lives that we were all pinging off the walls and irritating each other.

But that one glimpse of his problem solving with the box, and what happened at school, were the greatest gifts.

Hopefully, when the rhythm of school begins again in the new week, we’ll be able to have more of these talks. I don’t think he is understanding it yet, but I think he is working on memorizing conversational and story patterns…But if that is the case, at least I can get that glimpse into his school day, that may help him more than anything else…

And, faithful reader, if you have read this far, you are probably wondering about the picture…

Hubby was taking a picture of kiddo with his new Rubik’s Cube (he can’t mix up the colors, it will put him over the edge and if he finds out the stickers come off none of us will ever sleep again….) and told him to hold the cube in his hand…

So he is holding the cube in his hand….

ADDitudes…

It’s ADHD awareness week… (ADD is grouped in with ADD…Even for those of you that definitely lack the “H”)..

There are many, many fabulous resources in cyberspace covering many different aspects of ADHD…From many different angles…

One of the best jumping off points for info on living (as a person with it, or a person with ADHD kids, or spouse, etc) with it can be found at ADDitude

Another great resource is CHADD but for me ADDitude is much more anecdotal, accessible, and informative for my learning style and our family issues (all three of us have ADHD/ADD…You probably knew that about me just by reading my blog- even the non-ADD specific entries!)…    I do use any and all resources I can get my hot little hands on though…

Oh and ADDitude has some wonderful printables to help with organization/scheduling/practical stuff as well as fact/suggestion sheets on many topics within the scope of ADHD/ADD…

Best invention ever…

Best invention ever…

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

I never thought of myself as the sort to wear earplugs. I am the sentry of our home… I am the one who is always on alert, ears cocked for the slightest sound because the boys are pretty oblivious for the most part…

A couple of months ago we started using a dawning alarm clock (a BioBrite one) and the seller sent me a pack of ear plugs with the clock.
Because we have frequent and sudden foul weather here (and multiple tornadoes in the past couple of weeks) I would only wear one ear plug- in the ear facing “up” (I am a side sleeper) so I could drown out hubby’s snoring and obnoxiously loud breathing and maybe grab some zzzzz’s without being woken up by his nightly cocophany. That worked well as I could still hear enough with the unplugged, yet dampened by my pillow, ear so I could hear boyo through the baby monitor. But then I’d flip over and the breathing/snoring/senile moaning would have me wide awake again…

So I did some research and found The Earplug Superstore. Oh yes. Thank you oh wonderous world wide web!

While they do have excellent descriptions of all of their plugs I figured I’d try a sampling of foam plugs, like the freebies I got with that clock… So I ordered their “softest and smallest” sampler… A huge selection of fascinating colors and earplug marketing strategies… I’m not kidding. I have a pair of NASCAR “sparkplug” earplugs and another pair of Camo Plugs! Craziness!

Anyway, I also decided to try a higher end pair of earplugs…. I ordered the “SleepSoft” plugs made by Alpine. They promise a dampening of ambient noise but still allow one to hear the doorbell and children calling… They have open “ducts” to prevent “pressure” differences and they keep one from feeling cutoff.
Well, they arrived and are a miracle. It was mid afternoon when the package arrived and the grass was being chopped outside…. I went into boy’s room where he was playing music and I put in the plugs and had him speak to me… I could hear him clearly (but slightly dampened/quieter) but I could no longer hear the lawnmower or clothes dryer.
If these weren’t so durable I would have ordered the 6 pack! They are very comfortable and come with a little stick/applicator thingy as they are so flexible that you won’t get a great fit just using your fingers. They do come in a handy slider pack/container for safe and clean storage…
As far as using earplugs for ADD/ADHD, I am planning on using my giant sampler pack on the weekends when hubby is typically in charge of boy while I rush to get everything done and in some sort of order. I am so easily distractible by the slightest sound. One of my ADHD/ADD books recommended using noise cancelling ear phones but ear phones are out in our home as boyo would obsess and freak out if he didn’t get to use them and there goes any peace and quiet… So for now, for a couple of hours on Saturday morning, I will be escaping to my quiet little place to focus and maybe finish something for a change. Obviously, I would not wear earplugs while home alone with the kiddo…No way. Too risky, even if I can still hear him a little bit…Also that would be insanely rude and I try not to roll that way…
Anyway, I’m testing my “portable isolation booth” (ha ha) tomorrow morning…. Hopefully, this will increase my productivity and focus in general, so that I can finish the things that require intense focus, and have more time to spend with the boys…
I’ll update soon…

Ch-ch-ch-changes…

Lots of changes happening in our little world right now…

thankfully baldguy has been asked to stay at his job for a couple more weeks to help transition one of the clients so that worry can get pushed away for more immediate concerns and changes…

Boy just does not transition well…The kid needs consistency…Yesterday I found out his teacher had been let go.  The two aides/teachers who work in his classroom are wonderful, but they are very different.  Over the past year I have been able to tell when his head teacher was out for the day by his behavior and attitude at home afterwards.  Transitions like this set him back so far.  We try to prepare and help him, but in this case he was told his beloved teacher was out on vacation last week… and Boy is home sick so far this week so I don’t even know if they have left a note in our box.   So there was no warning…No ability to help him transition by saying “see you later”… This could set him back months.  Gahhhhhhhh!

and he’s sick.  Kid on cough syrup (and they did not have any dye free cough syrup at walgreens yesterday) with a hefty dose of red dye #40.  No wonder my hair is falling out in handfulls this week.  He is crazed.  He is the kind of crazed that you see on Cops and zombie movies- hyper and lashing out, mumbling incoherently, shouting nonsense, utterly pantsless.   We see his ADHD most of the time and we have adjusted and it is only some of the time that he doesn’t self-sooth these days, but this week has been like living with an angry, illogical, drug addled strung out little man.  He is usually our family safety officer.  He will often request backup if I am plugging something in (because you always need to have a grown up buddy when doing things like that) and has frequently declared that plugging anything in must wait until daddy gets home… Yesterday, in his whirlwind he plugged the radio in by himself (during a huge thunderstorm)…This morning he found the one roll of film in our home and unwound it completely…I may completely lose my last marble in the coming weeks…

Anyway. Just home with boy trying to keep him out of trouble.  His ADHD in this sick and cough syrup addled state and my ADD (completely and utterly without the H) are extremely incompatible and frustration runs deep in both of us.

Ok. Enough of my babble. He is “watching” a CD on my TV.  He likes to watch the numbers count down.

I need to check my to do list and make sure I’m knocking things out….

In the next week or so I will be blogging about some new tools we are and will be implementing into our home to help with our rampant attention deficit issue (all three of us have it…) …

Speaking of which…Boy just hollered at me that we need to dance.

Ok. I’ll be back.

Hugs.

b

The best tool in our potty training arsenal…

For years (a little over 4 of them) we struggled with potty training the little guy. Yes, he has some other issues (on top of the drama that is a 4 year old boy at times) which threw a little extra zest into the challenge, but as we had never potty trained another kid this was our normal…

We did, however, amass quite the arsenal of potty paraphernalia during out journey…Most of it addressed specific issues boyo and I were having during the process, but none of them were a perfect solution.

Here were our main issues:

1. boy is blessed with my proportions. He has a long torso and short legs.

2. boy is bigger from front to back than most potties and potty seats

3. boy is fiercely independent when it comes to learning new things. he is also secretive. he will practice something, in private, until he gets it perfect to show us. We think this may be genetic, as we are big on the “do your best” thing rather than the “you have to do my version of your best and I am completely delusional and this will scar you for life” dealio. Anyway, example: he didn’t walk until 22 months (for many reasons) but when he did he just walked. He never stumbled or fell down. He just walked like he had been doing it for a year.

4. With my physical issues (arthritis and early on in his potty training history, projectile vomiting whenever I would move, and a giant tumor, pulsing with hormones, in my neck) emptying and cleaning the little floor potty was necessary, but frustrating and frequently painful and exhausting.

Eventually, we discovered that boy was still dropping a dook in his shorts and telling us, proudly, that he had crapped or wet his pants. Odd. Well, as it turns out, we were encouraging him to, in basic terms, do his business in a container and then we were dumping the goods in the big, flushing toilet and then scrubbing the “container”, he figured he would up our efficiency and just crap directly in his underpants which could then be thrown into the washing machine with some stain treating and rinsing. He decided that this system was much easier and more efficient and he didn’t have to break up his playtime as quickly to get to the “container” to drop the kids off in a timely fashion.

It was at this point that I realized we had taught him that you poop and pee in one place and then you transfer them to, basically, a garbage (that flushes)…

Boyo is very literal. I can see clearly, how our struggle went on for so long… Hindsight is 20/20

So we moved onto the Baby Bjorn potty seat, which was the only seat around that would accommodate all of the necessary little dude gear without him shifting around (and possibly wiggling the seat a bit and scaring the…well, you know… at least he was in the appropriate place for having the poo scared out of him)….

Of course, this meant that every time he had to use the potty he had to locate me, communicate with me regarding his needs (or just do a dramatic pee-pee dance and then flat out deny that he had to pee while a puddle formed around his feet) , and then we both had to venture to the bathroom, where I would lift him (remember the arthritis? Not a good match for lifting my 36lb wiggly kid)… He would then do his business and wash his hands and move on.

I did notice that he was doing better with the potty thing when he started school, but of course everyone had been chanting before he started “when he sees the other kids being big boys and big girls and using the potty he will want to as well”… So I just wrote it off as peer pressure…

One day, my genius child got the stepstool out (we rarely used it as he still couldn’t reach much even with it) and attempted to climb up onto the regular toilet by himself (I just watched and didn’t intervene as he is a “practicer” with everything). Well, a stepstool (made for kids) has a few critical flaws: the one we have (which we love for other uses) has 2 steps…If boy is on step 1 he doesn’t have enough turn-around space and does not have the leg length to just park his butt on the toilet seat… If he is on step 2 he is very high and the drop down to the toilet seat is terrifying… It definitely doesn’t help that the regular kid stepstools do not have a handrail or grip bar of some sort.. Poor kid was so scared at the top of the stool that he just stood there crying softly and shaking a bit… Pants around his ankles and he couldn’t move because his balance, at that time, was still not the greatest… Note: to this day he takes his pants completely off when he has to pee, even in public restrooms… I have a feeling it was this particular incident with the stepstool that triggered that quirk…

Anyway, I toyed with the idea of installing handicap restroom railings in his bathroom. But still the wooden, very cute, and personalized stool wasn’t the right proportion for this purpose…

Then one day… EUREKA!

When I had my spine surgery I found that even just boosting myself a little bit, to get my butt onto the bed, was torture (occasionally, I blacked out and fell over from the pain doing this)… So one of the nurses hooked me up with a metal step stool- with a higher handle on one side and a grippy surface to step on. It was a life saver for me (and later on, at home, my underused reebok step (with risers) replaced it as I had enough strength to step down without the handle)…

So I ordered one for boyo. I got mine off ebay… If you click the image above it will take you to Amazon.com and a stool similar to the one we bought (ours is apparently unavailable on Amazon at this time, it was by “Drive”, the one linked is readily available and looks to be the same or very similar). By the way, if you have a kid(or kids) or are ever planning on interacting with the pee-wee set, you might want to subscribe to parenthacks… Truly awesome stuff…

Anyway- within a week of it’s arrival we made a huge amount of progress- boy was potty trained. Most of all, it taught me, as a parent, that the key to my little guy’s success is letting him take ownership of his tasks. Helping him get to and from the potty solved some of the mess issues, but it was killing my back, and teaching him that he doesn’t have to be responsible for his bodily functions and the state of his underpants. The step stool has given him the freedom and responsibility to handle those things, and to manage his time better as it is up to him to get his butt up on that toilet before it is “too late”…

Some tips if you do get a stool like this for your kids:

Do not let little kids use the adult toilet, unsupervised… (kids can drown in 1-2″ of water…) Perhaps in the beginning of using such a stool it would be wise to park it a few feet away from toilet while it is not being actively used… The legs are wide (like a bulldog) apart and rubbergripped and the stool is fairly solid…It is not easy for someone under 3.5 feet tall to move..Use your judgment, of course, you know your kid best.

Do not attempt to wipe down the grippy surface with a disposable cleaning wipe(ie clorox wipe). Cleaning wipe dingle berries will accumulate rapidly. A spritz of spray cleaner and a wipe with a microfiber cleaning cloth works wonders… If the crevices are getting dusty, try a utility/scrub brush after spraying…

And after your dear child finishes potty training and his/her legs grow long and strong enough to not need this very valuable tool, do not dispose (donate or sell) of this… This stepstool is also steady and useful in the kitchen and, as I mentioned previously, after surgery…

I hope this helps at least one parent and one kiddo….

Hugs all around…

B

No mess and low stress….Kid-made card idea…

Oh no!

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Here’s a recipe for frustration:

ADD/ADHD kid + ADD/ADHD mama + craft supplies + desperate need for child-made greeting card

Ok, so he drew a perfect tulip at age 16 months. Before he could walk.

He couldn’t walk until 22 months so most of the really shockingly advanced stuff happened before that momentous occasion.

Still, I like to give the various grandparent’s handmade cards….

But my kiddo who has some language, neuro, and sensory stuff going on along with ADHD has a hard time sitting still and following even very general (or specific, trust me, I have tried everything) directions usually will just wind up with a giant table full of glue (see glue tip below!) and no cards will be made… I found that the easiest way to make anything with him is to do it in 5-10 minute increments… I do realize this is not teaching him to sit still and focus for very long, but at this stage of the game we are working with smaller goals (and we don’t always reach those smaller goals, so they aren’t “too small” ….they are just right…). He also tends to only see everything as a finite whole. So this is teaching him steps and details…

Anyway, I sat him down with a marker and a stack of blank cards (by the way, if you think you are going to make a slew of kid cards, why not buy a giant box from http://www.doubleupaper.com ? They are fast and the prices are great…For the price of 6 envelope and card packs from a chain craft supply you can have over 200 sets…I keep a case in my famed plastic containers- so they stay fresh and don’t absorb any smells (my husband makes tacos once a week. I love tacos but I still want to hermetically seal everything in our home first.))

See what I mean about ADD? I need mapquest for all of my tangents…Not that it would be *that* much help… :-)

Anyway, I sat him down and had him make smiles or a “c” or “u” on each card.

He did about 10 of these before he went to town making dots and destroying the magic marker tip….

He got up and ran around for a bit and then was willing to sit down for a few to do some more… I busted out the self-adhesive googly eyes and had him put eyes on the “faces”…. He did 15 of those (good for fine motor skills and dexterity, I believe)…

The next time he sat down he drew the mouths/smiles on the extra 5….

15 cards in no time flat (if you tally all of the time together and subtract the breaks)…
and nobody became frustrated, and both of us has a huge sense of accomplishment at the end of the project…

(and the grownups loved the cards… it must have been a nice change of pace for them to be able to say “wow a smiley face” rather than wracking their brains having to figure out what kiddo had drawn as he is king of the abstract these days…)

Not really type-A at all….But I have to be… For the boy….

Magnet Board…

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

This is our magnet board. I am not a neat freak. I’m nowhere near organized.  I am struggling with this, but it is helping…. *phew*
The magnets were made by me using the Make-a-Schedule software from Do2Learn.com ….
We use the magnet board to lay out boyo’s every task for the day… As he does the various things he gets to put the magnet in a little container (like a piggy bank)… At the end of the day we count them up and they count as points to be used for things on the “menu” of treats…

Right now it is broken down in a fairly detailed fashion but as he masters certain tasks that contain multiple steps they will be truncated to focus on other areas…

The Prize Menu comes from conversations with kiddo, so they really mean something to him…
He loves going to the big car wash (actually, it’s the same size as the other car washes, but that’s what he calls it…) so for 200 points he gets to go to the carwash with us… Or for 200 points we can go out for ice cream on the weekend… 200 points can also be watching a DVD movie with baldguy and me…

The magnet board/scheduling like this is not easy. Right now it and helping boy with the tasks on it are all consuming. I’m exhausted and burnt out but boyo is doing great. This is helping in a huge way with transitions- it’s like he can fight with us and totally lose his marbles, but the pictograms are irrefutable….

We are still working out the kinks… And eventually will have a more variable point system, but starting with the basics works best for us… So here we are…

Oh and the do2learn.com software is wonderful- the desktop version requires a bunch of downloads to get all of the images onto your computer (so you can use the software without a live internet connection- I do most scheduling during boyo’s therapy and they do not have wifi in that building so using it off-line is important to me… If you do order the desktop version make sure you scroll down on the get images menu- there is a “get all” option at the end- you don’t have to be a dolt like me and click them all and wait one by one… Ugh. need more sleep…)

Maybe I should put my sleep on the schedule…. :-)