I took a couple of clips from my last play session with George. George and I spent 1 1/2 hours together in this session. Below are two clips that I especially liked.
In the first video I played with clapping. George will not clap on his own to songs but likes it when we do. We are working on him participating more. It is as if his brain struggles to tell his body what to do. In this clip I wait and give him plenty of time to respond and 'help' me to clap. I play with him to anticipate me being silly too, which he really likes as you can hear from his precious giggle.
Some of you may notice the same music cd as in my Moments in the Playroom video. George looks through our cd case and picks what he wants. He picks this one on purpose and is really into in right now. That is another new thing he has started to do. Yeah, love to see his progress!
I just love to hear George giggle in that video!
This second video is an example of something we do in the playroom called recharging and deepening. We do this when George is less connected and doing solitary play. Sometimes we join him and explore what he is doing and do some parallel play, but other times we do what feels right to us, which may mean giving ourselves a break like he does.
I had been putting a wooden train track together for quite awhile as he was turned away rocking back and forth on the mattress. I created even more space between us by turning my back to him. When the video begins you can see him start to spectate and check out what I was doing.
I didn't put any pressure on George to come interact with me. Also, very important, inside my mind I wasn't expecting him to come join me. I was going to have fun playing whether he joined me or not and be happy with my decision. With this mindset I don't feel guilty if he doesn't come interact with me, feeling like I am not accomplishing anything with him. Him watching me and practicing in spectator play is an accomplishment, however if he remained rocking in solitary play that would also be an accomplishment. He is being treated like a person in any real relationship. Sometimes I want to be alone and other times I want to interact with people. This is huge as a parent to be able to ENJOY just being with my child and not feel like I have to MAKE something happen and teach him something amazing when I am with him and feel like a failure if it doesn't happen.
So take a look at how my recharging time went.
I had a great time and look forward to more time in the playroom with George!
Please leave any comments, questions or share your experience while playing with your child/children! I would love to hear from you.
Hey Yvonne, this is perfect! I wish we could show this to special needs schools everywhere. It makes me really happy for George--and sad for Marco and lots of other kids. When I think of the way we used to force Marco to play with trains and blocks and puzzles! We actually had "drills" for these things in our ABA program. But this is beautiful. Thanks for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments Alicia. Your thoughts mean a lot to me. I would not spend too much time feeling sad for what you did with Marco though. You were doing what you thought was the best at the time, trying everything and not giving up on him. It is so obvious you are the perfect mom for him and I can tell when I watch your interactions what a special relationship you have with him. I do understand what you are saying though. I think all this 'measurable' data that schools and 'professionals' need gives our kids the impression that if they do not 'perform to a certain standard' then they have no worth.
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