Friday, August 29, 2014

Natural Play Therapy Class Review

Rachel and I have completed our series of 14 Natural Play Therapy (NPT) interactive web classes this week.  A huge thank you to everyone who helped make this possible for us!  We had a great experience and learned so much that we are applying as we work with George. Rachel is using what she has learned from NPT with the clients she works with in the community.   I will share a bit about what I specifically learned and post my last video I made for class.

This is a picture of my classmates.  Julie Sando is the top middle and her co-teacher is Kristen Lee Langelier.
Kristen is in the second row first picture.




We had a great mix of volunteers, parents with children on the spectrum and former certified NPT child coaches.  Our group represented three different countries, Australia, Canada and 3 time zones in the USA.   Technology at its best.

I learned valuable information from all of my classmates, from their stories, experiences, perspectives and the videos they shared.  I fell in love with their amazing children and thoroughly enjoyed watching them work with and learn from their children.  Not only did I learn about working with people in a respectful, non-judgmental way, but I learned so much about taking care of myself and relationships in general.

We also watched some videos from our NPT instructors working with children.  The videos helped me a great deal and were amazing to watch how they gently integrated their goals for the children into their play in such a fun, respectful and non-judgmental way.  Our children on the spectrum are so sensitive and pick up so much of our thoughts and feelings without us even speaking. All the more reason to be coming from a place of respect, love and acceptance for where they are at and who they are at this point in time and celebrating all their accomplishments no matter how small they may seem.

Speaking of celebrating, I have been celebrating since yesterday the fact that George is now putting the bubble wand to his mouth, sometimes in his mouth.  It sounds so trivial but it is a step along the way to our goal for him to blow a bubble off the wand on his own.  He had such an aversion to doing this for years then yesterday while I was blowing bubbles for him, I set the container down and he pulled the wand out and instead of giving it to me he pulled it right to his mouth and kept doing it, taking turns with me.  Today he did the same.  Yeah!  Small steps reaching towards our goal.

During the time span we were taking our classes, I had some exciting play sessions with 4 children other than George.  I would have loved to do more but it was not realistic right now.  Maybe in the future I will be able to work with other children and parents.  What I can do now is share our story and how NPT is helping us to connect with George and realize our goals for him.

I will look forward to taking more NPT classes in the future as the time is right.  I am so impressed with all the people I meet involved in NPT.  Their love for people on the spectrum and their positive attitude is contagious.  It sure beats having people tell you how worried they are about your child and that no one in the area we live could help him.  I know someone who can....ME and my amazing helpers at Team George including his brothers and Dad.

Below is my video I submitted in my last NPT class.   I had several goals I was working on in this segment, at the same time I was watching George to gauge if he was connected and if I could request more interaction from him.  One of the goals I was working towards was for George to touch a food item, pasta, on the palms of his hands.  The idea is for him to get used to touching all different foods beginning with dry and moving to different textures like crumbly, wet, foods he could mash on his own etc...  The goal is for at some point for him to start bringing the food to his mouth on his own with no pressure.  So the pasta was the beginning and he did awesome even using both his hands.

Another goal I was working on was having him follow my directions.  There was a natural opportunity to teach him to shake and he happily followed my lead and let me show him.  I also went into the activity hoping to allow each of us to get what we wanted, his current joy of pouring and watching the movement and my desire for him to happily touch a food item and follow instructions.

Take a look and see what you think.  I believe we had a good balance.


It felt amazing to share this interaction with him.  He was engaged and interested in what we were doing.  He also added a twist to the activity by letting me know he wanted his feet in the tub.  When he was done, there was no pressure and we went right on to the next activity and had some more fun together.

Please leave a comment below sharing your thoughts on the video and/or blog, ask a question or share an experience of you working with your child.  I would love to hear from you.

2 comments:

  1. Great news about the bubble wand. It's wonderful that George decided to do this on his own--that he took the initiative. I love your description of the class, and I especially love your realization that you do know someone in your area who can help George!!!

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    1. Thanks for reading our story and leaving your comments. George is taking more initiative now and that is challenging for him. I think he is headed for a great growth spurt this year!

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