The class I attended was New Frontiers and it was as equally amazing as the other two that I have attended. Every class / training I attend I dig a little deeper inside myself. My big work continues to be to drop my judgements of myself and others and LOVING big. I am making some great progress with being nonjudgmental and loving big. When I realize that I am judging myself or judging others I stop myself, take a deep breath, and asking myself..."by judging this situation how is it serving me?" I really pause and digest that question. In all honestly I am doing my best and that is all that maters. I use to think that when I was judging myself (or beating myself up over something) that I was motivating myself to do better. The truth is I can choose to be happy and accept that I am doing my best and do it again. I model this concept for my sweet little Hayden in the playroom all the time.
Hayden use to get super upset when his legos did not do what he wanted. Our team and myself have modeled several times how fun it is that we get to keep trying and choose to be happy. Hayden has made some real progress with things not going his way. He rarely tantrums anymore and has fun trying.
Here is a great book to read if you want to understand and put this concept into your life:
http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Choice-Barry-Neil-Kaufman/dp/0449907996
I am no means perfect and yes there are times that I choose unhappiness and discomfort. Those times have come to a minimum. When you think deep down about it what does being unhappy or angry do for you. Does it changes the situation? Does it make you feel good?
Hayden continues to make great progress daily :) Hayden's Son-Rise Team has been working hard the last month at deepening Hayden's connection to us. We have done this by backing off on the requests we make from him. He is coming to us now way more and is super invested in the games we do together. By backing away from requesting we have given Hayden back full control of the playroom. Super proud of Hayden and our team!!! It was a bit challenging to back away from our requests but we did it!!!
Hayden also made significant progress with tantruming and whining this past month. As a team we stopped accepting language that is screamed, whined, and shouted at us. Instead we tell Hayden we don't understand and tell him that he can just speak in a normal voice. WOW!! This technique has worked like a charm :) It amazes me how much Hayden understands and responds to what we are saying to him. It's like a flick of the switch....Hayden is screaming, we tell him we don't understand and he can just ask in a nice voice, and he totally tells us using a sweet voice with that amazing little grin he has on his face. Thank you intensive team for bringing this issue to my attention!!! We have ran with it :)
We had a fabulous Hayden's Son-Rise Team meeting last week!!! Here are the notes from our team meeting with all of the activity ideas for the next month:
Meeting Notes:
Pausing: give Hayden at least 8 seconds or longer to respond. This will allow Hayden time to process his thoughts and say / or do what he wants and does not want.
Windows: A new boundary with keeping the windows closed has been established. Let Hayden know that we want to keep him healthy and safe. When we have the windows open it can cause him to get sick. Ask that Hayden close the windows himself. Give him two chances.
Celebrating: Continue to celebrate, celebrate, celebrate every single word, every eye contact, every look, and any acknowledgement (looking at what you are playing with, taking what you are playing with).
Training: Maximum Impact is April 21st-26th. I would LOVE for each of you to go. If you are interested let me know ASAP.
GOALS:
Motivate Hayden to Look at Others to Start or Continue an Interaction
-Become Santa using voice or sing Christmas Songs
-Reindeer and Rudolph--red nose
-Christmas Decorations (tree and stockings)
-Christmas Songs--add movement
-Christmas Tree--ornaments
-Jingle Bells
-Christmas Finger Puppets
-Slapstick Humor
-Christmas Songs--change voices
-Have a big dice that has colored paper with pictures of motivations on each side.
-Bee Puppet stings you and Hayden. Have big exaggerated slapstick humor with the stings....use lots of big movements.
-Make a Cars Photo Album or Collage
Encourage Hayden to Use Greetings (hello, goodbye, see you soon, etc)
-Model Greetings exaggerated
-Say “Hi” using animals
-Cars and Puppets using greeting to one another
-Excitement and Exaggeration over greetings when changing workers in the room
-Putting Figures on Popsicle sticks (cars, etc) to model greetings
-Use a cereal box to make a house with door to use puppets, figures, cars, etc going in and out using greetings.
-Use Puppets to model greetings to one another
-Have Cars drive around and meet people. Have pictures of familiar faces around playroom and greet everyone. Place the same colored squares on the floor and move to the color that was rolled on. Have a prize for the end of the game
-Have Hayden run a race (around slide) and greet people
-Build a carwash out of a big box and use greeting to the workers...have Hayden dress up as a car and you as a worker
-Make a big doorway out of boxes and have different people, cars, or puppets answer the door. Model greetings and give tickles.
-Have 4 places set up in room with people to meet and give tickles after each greeting
Support Hayden to Increase Interactions to 4 Times or More an Hour
-Build by bringing new item instead
-Create Places and roads to places (houses, visit doctor)
-Make Lorax
-Building on Books and Songs he Enjoys
-Hats and Glasses
-Walk in as a Character
-Make Big Tree and Put on Wall
-Paper Chains
-Feather Duster that tickles him
-Hayden’s House of Motivation...on a poster board put 6 houses that have motivating characters behind the doors. On each house have instructions on how to get the cars or characters out of the house. Or have keys hidden around the playroom hidden around the playroom
-Make big pictures of us and different hairstyles out of construction paper and yarn. Have fun giving haircuts. Hayden allows us to cut his hair but does not enjoy it. So super model how cool it is to get a haircut
-Feeling Box....place objects of interest and non-interest in box and have Hayden stick his hand in a hole to feel for the object
-Use a kiddie pool and place foam squares in it. Place pictures of interest in the bottom of the pool and have Hayden swim to find the pictures.
Motivate Hayden to Allow Peripheral Variations in His Rigid and Repetitious Behaviors
-Fireman and Policeman Dress-Up
-Hopscotch out of Tape
-Songs
-Running Around Building, bridge, town
-Use Hats Puppets, Scarves, mustaches
-Build on his pattern of play by incorporating different things with the cars (car wash, go to the movies, take a bath, go to Grammie’s
-Make up song that has dress up clothes incorporated in it
-Cars go to Santa’s workshop and help Santa prepare for Christmas
-Family and Friends Mix Up....take pictures of family and friends and cut them in half. Have fun being silly and putting the family parts on different family members.
Motivate Hayden to Eat a Larger Variety of Foods and Stay Hydrated
-Bring a drink and express thirst
-Model and Celebrate when he does drink or eat
-Plant a garden with lots of fun foods and have the puppets, cars, and ourselves eat them
Ideas on How to Build Running Around Slide
March around Slide
Puppets run around slide
take train ride around slide
walk, jog backwards, crawl, scootering
pull around on scooter board
going on bear hunt song around slide
create running safe zone with tape
instruments and singing while walking
pretend to skate and skip
Ideas on How to Build on Playing and Looking at Pixar Cars
-Cars save someone....women with broken ankle in middle of street
-Ship cars somewhere to be repaired
-Paint job---tape, glue, color, add accessories
change the cars tire
-fill up with gas and pay for gas at gas station...great time to model greetings
-cars get thirsty and need to get a drink....great time for Hayden to get a drink
-fill up with the wrong gas and cars get sick to stomach..great eye contact game
-Tune up cars between two friends modeling relationships
-Bring Cars Rug in Playroom
-Make the Cars have gas and need to toilet (make toilet to take in playroom)
-have the cars talk in different voices
-Give the Cars mustaches and hats to wear
Activities Using Ping Pong Balls
-Make Character Faces on Ping Pong Balls (cars, friends, puppets, lorax)
-Make a wind chime with the balls out of tape
-Have Puppets eat the ping pong balls and poop them out
-Place the ping pong balls on a scarf and throw them in the air
-Tape ping pong balls to myself and pretend they are tumors that need to be removed
We have had a great month of November and are super excited for Christmas. Hayden has been talking about Santa and Frosty quite a bit the last couple of weeks. Santa is delivering and Elf on The Shelf this week and I am going to have some great fun with that :)
Hayden is exhibiting signs of yeast overgrowth again. I am going to take fruit and honey back out of his diet, start daily hbot, and give him grapfruit seed extract. Yeast has been an ugly battle for us. I am upping our game ;)
Big LOVE to all of You :)
Brandi
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