I work with pre-k / K age children who have been diagnosed with autism, many of which have high anxiety at times. I’m looking to expand my list of coping strategies for these children as wide as possible. I’m asking you to please comment with any and all coping strategies you’ve used or known to have been used with young children, and also please share this post so I can collect as many ideas as possible. I very much appreciate you taking your time to help me help these amazing children! 
Tag: autism
Spreading Awareness
I strongly feel the need to spread awareness about acceptance today. I experienced a situation this week at a local gymnastics center that made my blood BOIL inside.
We all know that this world is not perfect by any means, and everyone has a right to their opinions, but it is absolutely maddening to me when a child is pointed out and excluded simply because they have special needs.
One of the children I work with had been enrolled in a mommy-n-me type gymnastics class for 2-3 year olds. Before enrolling, the parents spoke with the manager of this gymnastics center to discuss their child’s needs, the specific skills they are working on, and making sure that it would be okay for their child’s behavioral therapist (me) to come along each week and join in class to support the family. The parents were reassured that all of this was completely acceptable, and were feeling positive and confident about enrolling in this class.
Unfortunately, come week 3, this manager comes over and sits down next to the mother to tell her that he had another parent text him saying that this particular class has too many people in the room, and the crying is distracting. He continues to talk saying, “I know she has her issues…” and “when she starts crying if you could just take her out of the room” and “I’m just trying to keep everybody happy here.”
First of all, the children are 2 and 3, they ALL cry at some point during each class. Second of all, NOBODY would be able to look around that room and say, oh that child has autism so that’s why she’s crying. Lastly, the only thing taking her out of the room will do is teach her that she can scream and cry to get out of something she doesn’t want to do, which is basically the opposite of what we are trying to teach.
Now yes, we could’ve decided to say to ourselves, we will show him, our child is going to be amazing! The thing is though, as a parent of any child, you want the best for them. As parents we all have to do things and have conversations that make us uncomfortable, but is it worth the anxiety of going back every week wondering which parent doesn’t want you there, and if the manager is going to kick you out, and if you’re being watched over constantly? I think not. The family decided to terminate their membership and seek out other options for both of their daughters.
I was at first trying to figure out if the manager of this place was ignorant, playing favorites with another family, or just being a dick. The more I thought about it though, the more I started thinking that whatever the reason, the comments still hurt. The reason doesn’t necessarily matter, and I cannot change what happened and what was said. I can though be proactive in trying to prevent these types of situations from happening in the future. The only thing I could think of to do that would actually be feasible, is to write about it and ask people to share it.
I want to remind people to stop and think before they speak to others. Everybody deserves the opportunity to do the things they love, and not be judged for doing them because of their age, race, gender, sexual preference or ability. I believe it all comes down to two simple words that are the root of many uncomfortable situations, and that many people forget.
BE KIND.
Be kind to yourself, to your friends and family, to acquaintances, and to strangers. Be mindful of the fact that someone’s behavior you may be witnessing right now is just this one moment in time. You may or may not know them, but there’s a pretty good chance that you don’t know what may have led up to what you are seeing. Nobody is perfect, everyone has challenges in their lives, whether you know what they are or not. The next time you start to make assumptions and judgement about someone else, stop and think before you speak.
Snippet – Here is a tiny snippet of one session of therapy in a shift I worked this week.
This particular child has moods some days that can make your head spin!
ME: “Hi! Are you ready to go play? We are going to go outside first today, it’s so nice out!”
CHILD: (While kicking and squirming and screaming and crying) “No! No outside! Go away, go away! Not socks and shoes!”
ME: “Yes, come on let’s hurry, we have to take a walk and find some sticks and pine cones to make some new ornaments for the tree. I need your help!”
CHILD: (still screaming and now trying to hide) “No, no, no! I don’t want outside!”
ME: “You can walk or I will help you.”
CHILD: “No no no no no no nooooooooo!”
ME: (silently pick him up and walk through the house to the back door and go outside)
CHILD: “No no no! Put me down!”
ME: (silently set him down carefully on the sidewalk pathway) “Alright, let’s see, OH LOOK! I see TONS of sticks! Help me pick them, there are so many, we can find some really good ones for our snowman ornaments!”
CHILD: (screaming and crying at this point, no words)
ME: “Ok, I will set my timer for you, you can have one minute to cry it out, and then we will play.” (set the timer on my phone and set it down next to him)
CHILD: (continued to cry until he heard the timer, and then he stopped, not saying anything)
ME: “Ooh it’s time to play! Let’s go find some things for our ornaments, and then we can take some toys out of the garage.”
CHILD: (stands up, takes my hand, begins to walk with me) “No! Go back, go back the other way!” (but no tears and not trying to let go of my hand)
ME: “Let’s go check by the pine tree, I’ll bet we can find lots of pine cones! Hmmm, I don’t see any, do you?”
CRUNCH!
ME: “OH NO! I just stepped on one!” (I bent down and picked it up to see how smashed it was, and to show it to him so we could talk about it) “Uh oh look, I smushed it!”
CHILD: (giggles and looks up at me) “Uh ohhh, it’s hurt!”
ME: “Awe, I’m sorry little pine cone, I didn’t see you there.”
CHILD: (giggles harder) “Yeah you naughty pine cone!”
ME: “Ooh hey look, see the white stuff on here, that’s called sap. The syrup you eat on your pancakes is made of sap. Want to smell it?”
CHILD: (sniffs pine cone)
ME: “Does it smell like syrup?”
CHILD: “Nope, it smell like sap.”
ME: “Oh no! This sap is so sticky, look at my hands! They are full of sap, yuck! You better watch out, I’m going to get you with my sticky sap hands!”
CHILD: (huge smiles and laughing) “What?! Ahhh noooo!” (and runs away laughing)
We proceeded to chase each other back and forth around the yard for a few minutes before going back inside. I never knew how sticky sap actually is. It took me 3 times of washing with soap and hot water before I could get enough off to actually function. He thought this was funny too, as I was trying to wash and making a big deal about it not coming off.
This all played out in about 15 minutes. This is why I love my job!
Oh and P.S. – if you’re in Wisconsin and looking for an opportunity to work with children, or know somebody who does, check out this link. We are always looking for people!
And you thought YOUR Monday was bad!
I thought MY Monday was going to be bad when I woke up with this head cold still hanging around, and the pipe under our bathroom sink just decided to fall apart. May not seem like a big deal to some since we were able to quick fix it ourselves fortunately, but since we’ve moved in this house a year ago, we have had one plumbing issue after another.
Later in the afternoon I decided to take the child I was working with at that time outside to play. The weather is pretty perfect here today so I just had to take advantage. You never know what you’ll get in October in Wisconsin, but you DO know at this time of year your days are numbered for nice weather.
I’d like to mention, before I go on, that this particular client of mine is a 4 year old boy with autism. This entire spring and summer he has been deathly afraid of ALL bugs. Only very recently has he been able to tolerate being somewhat near a bug without a complete meltdown. About 2 weeks ago or so we had found a tiny little toad outside in his yard and he was intrigued. He did not want to hold it or touch it, but he would look at it carefully, and tell me about it. It was brown, and bumpy, and had 4 legs. The last few times we have gone outside since then, he has wanted to search for the toad. We haven’t seen him since, unfortunately, but I’m sure we will come across another one eventually.
Now today when we were outside, we went to the garage to get out some things to play with, and as I reached for the door handle I noticed this leaf bug (see pic above) hanging out on the top of a broom stick that was propped up against the garage. My little boy was right next to me, and without thinking I shouted, “WOW! Look at this cool leaf bug!” As soon as it came out of my mouth I thought, Oh shit he’s gonna freak! But he didn’t! I decided to get a stick and carefully move the bug on to it so we could get a closer look. As we were observing the bug, and describing it, I noticed it only had 5 legs! Insects are supposed to have 6! It is hard to tell in the picture I took since you can’t see all the legs anyway, but one of the 2 big back legs was GONE!
Here’s where my title comes in…. I thought MY Monday started off bad, can you even IMAGINE losing one of your six legs, and one of the LARGEST ones at that?!?!? I guess that’s the life of an insect, but it made me think. It seems to be so super easy to focus on the bad or hard things that are happening in our lives, but remembering what we are thankful for always takes a little more effort. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea, but I do know that I am not the only one that thinks that way. In my personal journal, that I hand write things in, it’s filled with mostly entries that have at least started out negatively, if not were entirely negative. One day though, I was given the suggestion to journal more often, even if I thought I had nothing to write about. It was a challenge to me at first, but when I was taught that the entries could simply be 3 things that I was thankful for that came out of each day, or 3 things that made me smile, or 3 things I learned, I realized it wasn’t so hard. I realized that I didn’t have to only journal about what was bothering me, and it felt GOOD to write about happy thoughts. I LOVE writing about, and sharing happy thoughts. Now that I do it more publicly, it’s even more rewarding just to know that I have possibly made even ONE person smile today.
Who knew a leaf bug could be inspiration for an entire post?!?! I bet he doesn’t even know he’s famous now! (Do leaf bugs have genders? Maybe it’s a she.) Well either way, the leaf bugs of the world have now been given some huge street cred. (Eat that you nasty wasp who stung me last weekend!!!)
Playground Slides, It’s the Simple Things
I just KNEW today would be a good day! (2 posts in one day probably won’t happen too often) As I’ve mentioned before, I work with young children who have autism. Once a week with one of my clients we attend a class where all the children get to be with their peers for some fun, structured, learning time. During this time each week we are lucky enough to be at a location that has a playground, so we get to have outside time. I have been working with this particular child for a year and a half now, and the progress he has made all around has been mind blowing to me.
This child has never been one to enjoy playing outside, so part of our therapy was to introduce to him, and teach him how to play outside. We would make visual schedules for the things we were going to do when we went out, and go through each one in order. For example a schedule might say, 1. Ball Play, 2. Ring around the rosie, 3. Chase, and 4. Bubbles. Each of these activities would have a picture to go along with it. Now though, when we go outside he is able to ask for what he would like to play, and he will also play what I suggest without having to have the schedule. Seeing this progress, and reflecting on how far he has come is EXTREMELY rewarding to me! Seeing these children grow and knowing that I have helped them get here, brings happy tears. When you work with a child for this amount of time, and you grow a bond and relationship with not only the child but the family too, you can’t help but to feel so much emotion.
Now here is where it gets better, my reasoning for writing this post. This afternoon we were outside playing on the playground. To give you a picture of this child, when we first started this class at the beginning of summer, he only wanted to walk around the playground, pick up and throw the woodchips or try to eat them, pull leaves off of trees, or walk through the bushes. I slowly, and I mean slowly, was able to get him to come by the equipment. We started with just watching the other children for short periods of time. Next we moved to touching it with our hands. The next step was to stand on the first stair. After that we graduated to climbing up multiple steps, and the different types of “steps” the playground has to climb. (The climbing did not start until the beginning of September.) All of those steps though were with manual guidance from myself or other adults. The last 2 weeks he has been initiating the climbing, and going up on his own. Now that, in itself, is HUGE!
Well, today I decided that I was going to try to get him to go down a slide. He has always said no, or screamed and ran away when I’ve tried to get him to go down a slide with me. I was kind of waiting for the right time to approach it, and I knew that I’d have to do a sneak attack. On the smaller of the 2 structures, he had climbed up to the top and was just standing and looking as I followed right behind. I said to him, “Let’s go on the slide!”, as I reached for him and sat down at the top of the slide. He screamed, “NO! No slide!”, but I followed through and set him on my lap. He tried to grab the top in order to stop us from going down, but I put his hands down and just went. Now mind you, this slide was a slow, plastic, curved slide that at the top was about 6 feet from the ground. I wasn’t trying to torture or traumatize him by any means. When we got to the bottom he had a HUGE GRIN on his face. My goal for him was for one time down the slide today. When I saw the smile, my heart felt happy. I asked him if he wanted to go again and he said no, so I just left it at that. I did not want to push it. I knew we would graduate up to more. About 5 minutes or so later I asked him again if he wanted to go down with me. He immediately said no, followed quickly by, Yes, yes slide. I could NOT believe it, I was SO EXCITED! So we climbed up the steps and sat down, and he plopped right down in my lap. I started with, “Ready, Set” and he said “GO!” After this 2nd time, HE started asking ME to go down the slide. After another time on this same slide, he jumped up off of it, looked at me and reached his hand out and said, “Come on, let’s go, this one.” I grabbed his hand and he led me toward the larger structure and we started to climb up. I asked him, are we going down the big slide? He said yes! My insides were so filled with happiness, and excitement I could barely contain it. Again, I sat down and he plopped right down in my lap, and it was ready, set, go! I checked again to see if he was smiling and he was! (As I’m writing this right now I feel those feelings inside me and I cannot stop grinning!) I was SOOOOO PROUD!!!! I made sure to grab him and squeeze him and tell him how excited and proud I was of him, and he just smiled and then ran off to play. I could NOT stop smiling and my insides were shaking. There are moments all the time when I get super excited and feel proud and happy when I see that lightbulb moment in the kids, but this one, it definitely takes the cake!
I’m telling you, it’s the little things in life that seem to bring the biggest joys. I would have never thought that a child’s first time down a slide could make me feel so great.
Cake By the Ocean 