Wednesday, September 9, 2009

If you want to move someone, find out what moves them

"If you want to move someone,  find out what moves them."a speaker said at a work meeting. He is speaking to Marketers about consumers

But I am thinkng of this statement today, as I am playing with R in the evening.

The child loves technology.

The WiiFit and the DVD are his toys of choice

While ideally our children are supposed to spend their time with "appropriate" toys and minimal time with electronics - its hard to enforce this strictly.

Largely for reasons of compassion.( some for reasons of laziness and fatigue )

Most Autistic kiddos work so hard between school,  therapy and appropriate play in their  precious carefree childhood years that it seems so heartless to take up their little free time with more of the things they should be doing

In the evening during R's ABA, I  watch a rerun of a House MD  show about an Autistic boy.

House , commenting on the amount of therapy the boy gets, says to Cameron( I think he empathizes with the feeling of being an outsider)

"there is an inner circle of skinny white people and there are the people who dont belong... like this Autistic boy.... The people in the inner circle must beat all the people on the outside into shape. Or they must institutionalize them so they are no longer eye sores."

The parents in the show are the "ideal" parents of autism recovery books ( the ones who give up their lives so they can become parent therapists to their children) . The child's day is so over scheduled that my heart twists in compassion for the child ( and the parents )

I  resolve today to see if Floortime principles of following the child's lead can work with Floortime must-nots ( electronics ).
So we do the Wii Fit and I turn that into a bit of a Floortime Session- with a lot of back and forth interaction on where I should step and what I should do.
Then over dinner R wants to listen to some Classical Music  on his DVD -
I make that Floortimey too.
By asking him if I should sing or be quiet
When he says "Siduh" ( sing )
I am extra  silly and sing the tunes  in numbers ( example for Blue Danube its 12345.....1 2 3 4)
We do the Blue Danube,  the Four Seasons, some George Bizet in this way
And R is Entranced
Music and numbers in one heavenly concoction!
And keeps choosing different songs for me to "Siduh" ( Sing ) in "Burz"  Numbers
We have effortless Joint Attention, Back and Forth interaction.
We also have a great time
I am Magic Mum  this evening.
And it feels good

5 comments:

Rachel said...

I love how creative you are! I find myself at a loss to connect activities with Itty Bit - and still find that same balance of letting him simply enjoy things sometimes.

Thank you for the award - hope to put together a post soon - you are too sweet! And congratulations to you! :)

Sending a bit of linky love your way in a few minutes... please let me know if you'd prefer not. I think it is the loveliest picture of you and R!

Sande said...

Believe all momma's feel your issue. Is this good for my kids, bad for them, too much too little, do they need this or that, up or down, in or out ... and we do the hokey pokey and we turn around......!

If they hold our heart and we hold theirs, much is forgiven and they can thrive even in spite of us sometimes :)

Stephanie said...

you are absolutely a magic mum. even without your bit of innovation demonstrated here.

robin said...

This works well with discipline as well. Fortunately, I learned what my daughter desired (a cellphone) and used it to get acceptable behavior from her. That saved us throughout the teenage years!

Anonymous said...

=) Love those magic mom moments! It's so hard to balance everything. It's like each day I have to learn what I need to do that day because it's always changing. I love that quote you shared. It's so true.

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