Summer Didn't Suck So Bad Before I Knew The Term: ESY
Gwendomama | Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 7:00PM ESY?
Extended School Year.
If your kid isn't severely something, you don't usually get it.
We got a reduction in Apraxia Speech Therapy by 2/3. We went from three hours of 1:1 speech therapy per week to one hour per week.
Has Bubbles adjusted well to this?
Not so much.
Yesterday was an Apraxia Triple Challenge Adventure.
Can you hear the cheering? That was for me, for making it through the day.
Bubbles is not adjusting well to his reduction in speech therapy hours from three/per week to one/per week. He is going through this awesome fun phase anyway, I call it the TRP: Transition Resistance Program. He says 'I don't want to' to almost anything at all, but once we get there he is fine. So I just nod and affirm that his protests are heard, but of course I continue with the original goal.
"You don't want to go potty, yes I know. Do you need help with your shorts?"
"You don't want to go to the store. Please hold my hand in the parking lot."
"You don't want to go to speech therapy. Let's go see what Guru has to play with today!"
My formula is pretty much: TRP + acknowledge + ignore = results.
Yesterday I got out 'The Box' of speech therapy tools and Bubbles went instantly into FULL FORCE TRP mode. Tantrums were thrown in for good measure.
I remained calm. I repeated myself. I stuck to the program.
Tantrums escalated. Things were thrown (by him).
Forty five minutes into it, we had made no progress.
I went into ABA mode. I had no more tricks left but ABA.
I like to think of ABA as outsmarting my very smart kid into doing something he is resisting, with a positive result. (Whatever works for you, right?)
It worked. I don't know that I am going to be able to spend three hours trying to get him to do one hour of speech program every single day (did I mention that I am also in school?), but at least I was smarter than a three year old yesterday.
Thank you, Squid, for the awesome new toy which broke the evil spell and brought me compliance. (Also, as my old friend pointed out, praise to the tried and true, never-gets-old toy, the fabulous Tickle Bee!)
Reader Comments (3)
That formula (TRP+A+I=R) is brilliant! And look at you, discovering it so early in your special-needs journey. I've been at this for sixteen years, and my formula generally looked more like the following for far too long:
TRP-(I+I+I+I...)MD+A+(M+SB)/[(I+I+I+I...)MD]=R
Explanation: In the face of Transition Resistance, I would repeatedly ignore my sons's protests. This would cause an exponential rise in the inevitable meltdown (MD). Too late, I would acknowledge their angst, then try a combination of modifications (M) to my goal and shamelessy bribery (SB), the amount necessary of these being inversley related to how badly I'd mucked things up with my repeated ignorings.
I like your formula much better.
Mama Mara
I haven't laughed so freaking hard in weeks.
Thankyou! Now where is the windex for my computer screen....?
I need to follow this formula! We had a trip to the ER this morning because I chose to ignore a tantrum. Severe apraxia + 3 year old male = mother's nightmare