In So Many Words

The regular students in my son’s first grade classroom have to complete a think sheet if they pull all four of their cards in one day, so when we created my son’s behavior plan, we wanted to include a think sheet for use after a timeout (timeouts are for yelling or physical aggression only at this point).

His OT created one just for him. I wasn’t sure what it would look like and how much writing would be involved, so I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw that it was mostly circling things. She used emoticons for the emotions and other colorful icons to illustrate the other areas, and it has worked beautifully.

I scanned one of the think sheets so you could see it – sorry it’s not a better image.

A couple of notes:

• Stop and Think is something the speech teacher uses with all the kids.
• Park It is something we pulled from the training world and included in his behavior plan. It basically means that when you have a question or comment that is inappropriate for a particular time, it can be written down and addressed by the proper person later. Sometimes that’s the teacher and other times it comes home to me. We have it right on his communication sheet. I’m not sure if I’ve posted about that before, but I’ll try to scan a copy of that for a future post.

Michael has even asked to fill the think sheets out when he goes to his quiet space because of being upset about something (that is not the same as a timeout, just a place for when he is overwhelmed or starting to get out of sorts). The OT has encouraged this because it will help him become more aware of how he is feeling before he gets out of control.

We have been following the new behavior plan for one month now, so I am emailing the team to get their feedback and ask for the numbers on how many timeouts there were for each thing. But I know they are pleased with his progress overall, as well as relieved that the new TSS is so much better.

If anyone would like a copy of the Word document, just email me or leave a comment below requesting it and I will email it to you.

This post was written for the Steady Mom 30-Minute Blog Challenge I would encourage to check out the other posts and also the Steady Mom site as there are some great changes happening over there.

First of all, to break down the title, “healing prayer” in this case refers to inner healing, not physical, and “on the go” refers to in my car on the way to work this morning.

I have been feeling tired. I get so frustrated that I am still dealing with depression, even after years of medication and therapy and prayer. I am just tired of being sad.

Don’t get me wrong, there has been progress made – significant progress. I don’t feel like this ALL the time, and I have more energy than ever before, but it is still a struggle every day.

So I was asking the Lord this morning to tell me what is holding me back and I immediately heard the words “worthlessness” and feeling like I am “not good enough”. The next thing I thought of is how I am always saying “I should…”

I place so many expectations on myself, and many of them aren’t even realistic. I get down on myself for not picking up new skills immediately or for not knowing how to handle a social situation gracefully or for not being enthusiastic about playing with Michael every time he asks. The biggest one is that I tell myself I should be better by now because of how long it has been – ironic, because that’s what keeps me from asking for more help when I most need it.

So, the next step in the process is to ask where this came from, where did it start. The memory that popped into my head was of being a few weeks into first grade and being tested by the school psychologist (or someone like that) before being skipped to second grade. I vividly remember watching her draw a picture of five apples and then her amazement that I could tell her how many there were without looking at the picture. I told her, “But I watched you draw them.”

I still don’t think that is necessarily an impressive thing for a six year old to do, but the memory has always stuck with me.

Anyway, I find it interesting that the memory I saw was of being praised, not of being criticized (because I certainly have those memories as well!). I feel like it’s the combination of being praised when I could do something well and being scolded or simply overlooked when I didn’t rise to the top that I interpreted to mean I needed to do things well and learn them quickly to be worthwhile.

There’s more to the process, but that’s as far as I got this morning, and on the way home from work I was too distracted by the three separate people who pulled out in front of me and starting to wonder if I was perhaps invisible.

This post was written for Steady Mom’s 30-Minute Blog Challenge. I wrote most of it in 15 minutes just before I started work and spent another 10 minutes finishing it just now.

Nothing in my brain is really connected right now, so this post may not make much sense. But I wanted to at least keep people up to date with the main stuff.

First of all, I’m so irritated with myself that I haven’t downloaded the pictures from Trick or Treat or the school Halloween party. Michael ended up going as a bottle of mustard, which was so cute, especially since yellow is his favorite color.

I also keep forgetting to take the camera with me to swim class, but he has made so much progress in the few weeks since he started. He is willing to try everything in the water and actually like floating on his back in the T-position the best (which freaked him out at the beginning). He is putting his face in and doing scoops and “diving for rings” in the 2 foot area. The only thing he is scared to try is jumping in the pool. The instructor has told him that he has to do it next week, and that he will help him. I am talking to him about it every day to encourage him about how good he will feel once he has done it.

Today was a whirlwind. There was no school today, so Bob took off work to stay home with Michael. I went into work early, and then we all met at the psychologist’s office to share the new school behavior plan with her and talk about how things are going in the playgroup and at home. Then I went back to work until it was time to go to school for the Parent-Teacher conference.

I had a great meeting with his teacher and case manager (the learning support teacher). His academics are great, and they are seeing a decrease in the yelling and an increase in him recognizing when he needs a break. We have what I think is a great behavior plan that is starting tomorrow, and we will also have a new TSS starting tomorrow.

When I got home from the conference, the BSC and the new TSS were at the house. It was great to meet her, and we are all very optimistic about how this will work out. Now we are getting ready to go out to a new support group meeting for Asperger’s/PDD-NOS/HFA. I’m not sure what it will be like, but I thought it was worth checking out.

So a very busy day – but I feel good about everything. I don’t really have a to do list put together right now, so I need to go through my pile of stuff and sort out what’s left to take care of. That’s my plan for tomorrow after work, and that’s about as far ahead as I can think right now!

This post was written for Steady Mom’s 30-Minute Blog Challenge. To see some actual to do lists by people who are really getting things done, check out Crazy Adventures in Parenting’s To-Do Tuesday.

It’s 1:01 pm on Saturday, and I am starting a new blog post. It’s part of the Mom’s 30-Minute Blog Challenge over at SteadyMom, so I am giving myself 30 minutes to write this post and publish it. I will have to go in on Tuesday to link up to the challenge, but that’s it.

So, what to talk about? Well, I wanted to tell you about my amazing new discovery (new to me, anyway) that has gotten me back into the fun of blog hopping and commenting while still keeping up with my favorite blogs. It’s the Next bookmark in Google Reader.

I found it by clicking on the Settings link and then going into the Goodies section. All I had to do was drag it to my toolbar and then I can click it at any time to go to the next unread blog post in my Google Reader. I can leave a comment, click around, do whatever I want, and then just click the Next button again when I want to read another post. I love it, and it has gotten me totally turned back on to commenting again!

You may have seen this before, but I thought it was cute. This is the page I saw when I clicked Next after all the posts had been read:


And when I clicked on the “End of the Internet” link, this is what I got:

So, if you saw a comment from me today, please know I have been reading your blog all along but just gotten out of the habit of clicking through to leave a comment. Shameful of me, really, because the interaction and community is such a critical part of why we all do this.

I also wanted to share a couple of the things I read today that really caught my attention:

• How To Give Yourself to Whatever the Moment Brings, and Forget Stress at Zen Habits
• The Sparkle Effect at Adventures in Autism (this one made me cry in a good way, and not just because the story takes place right next to my hometown).

So, that’s it for me right now. It’s 1:21 pm, and I am getting ready to hit the publish button. And just in time really, because me son is calling me to come and see what he is working on.

*****Visit the 30-Minute Blog Challenge to read more posts or find out how to join in.*****