RDA week success

We spent four days up in Sydney this week doing Bright Eyes' RDA, or Relationship Development Assessment.

It has been eight months since his first one, and it was definitely time to refocus and see where we all are at. I found the week very helpful and I have come home enthusiastic and refreshed, ready to work in better ways with him.

Improvements
A very good thing that came out of it was to see all the things Bright Eyes can do now that he couldn't do when we began. He really has improved in his relationship skills. He's far more aware of us. He can understand more. He can transition from activity to activity well. He can cope with changes and differences much better. He can follow instructions better.

And where he started right from the beginning with the RDI stages eight months ago, he has now progressed to the new 'Stage 3' objectives. I like numbers like this - they give me a feeling of achievement!

Blockages
Probably the most useful thing we discovered was that all the tantrums and bossiness that I have been complaining about (loudly) on this blog for the last month come down to the same problem - super-high anxiety.

It should have been obvious really. I've always known he was highly anxious, and I could tell that he was anxious when he screamed and ran away. I just didn't realise that the bossy words are the same problem, but in a different form. High anxiety leads to 'flight or fight'. Before, he used to flee. Now he fights.

The solution is not to fight him back or punish the behaviour. The solution is to reduce the anxiety, because once he is calm and quiet, he will quite happily be convinced or brought along to do whatever it is that we are asking of him.

Fixing it
How do we reduce the anxiety? First, be aware that it's happening. I am learning to listen for the rise in his tone - it's a tightness in his throat. Then I follow the four S rule - Simplify, Slow Down, Stop and Sssh.

Just quietening my voice, making gestures more deliberate, giving him more processing time and not piling extra options on him works a treat.

Our consultant helped us do this a few times in the sessions in her office, and it made a remarkable difference. Since then, we've tried to follow it, and we have really noticed how much easier everything is.

Objectives
We have come back with lots of things to work on, but a lot of parent objectives too. Our use of gestures and language still needs work. We also need to work hard to not get stressed ourselves when he gets uptight. Our consultant recommended one of her families buy a heartrate monitor each. I've pinned an imaginary one onto myself today and really tried to notice my own heartrate increase when his anxiety rises.

Our consultant also had a few words to our daughter to help her understand that when Bright Eyes acts belligerent, he's actually anxious.

In the car afterwards, I heard him behind us start to boss her and get angry at her after she touched him by mistake. I tensed up, ready to spring in to the altercation, but I didn't need to. Instead of biting back with the same words, she put her arm around him and stroked him. He calmed down straight away and the biffo was over.

Altogether
Bright Eyes has come home from the week away almost a different child. He certainly is happier and calmer. I feel so very grateful for this program and for our consultant, and I have a new burst of optimism and strength for the next six months. Thanks y'all for your support and prayers.

RDA week

I am very pleased to say that Bright Eyes has had a great day. Not too much defiance, hardly any grizzling or bossiness and lots of smiles, fun and eye contact.

In fact, as well as 'playing together' in our RDI lab time, he came in to my room at the end of my nap and we spent 20 minutes tumbling all over the bed together. "Get up Mum," he kept saying.

So we're off this week for our 'Relationship Development Assessment' which is where we work with our consultant for six sessions over 4 days, looking at what Bright Eyes can do, and what we do, and working out how best to attack the next six months.

I'm looking forward to it... and I think we all need it. See you all soon!

Not so good

Today Bright Eyes threw his first tantrum about going to preschool. He wouldn't get out of the car, so I had to grab him and then carry him kicking and screaming through the gate. The preschool teachers got him to calm down by getting out the train set - a surefire winner.

But we're all a bit concerned. He has been going downhill for the last four weeks in terms of mood and irritability and tension.

I have a dreadful feeling that what I once read about the GF/CF diet is coming true. It said that for some children, GF/CF works for a number of months, but then the digestive tract starts to react to other types of starches like riceflour and cornflour etc.

The solution is to follow the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, which basically cuts out all sugars and starches. But that sounds really tough. I'm not sure I can do it.

I bought a cookbook by Sally Fallon today - Nourishing Traditions - which might give me some more ideas and see what we can do.

Vegetable success... sort of

I could tell you in detail about the six tantrums in the last three days, or I could focus on the positives instead!

It's true, we have vegetable liftoff! Kinda. I have been trying him out on fresh squeezed healthy juice at the local shops and he has happily gulped down a beet/apple mix a couple of times.

So I decided it was now time to get out the juicer again. Previously (about five months ago) I tried juicing for him, but he hated the noise of the machine and wouldn't drink the proceeds.

This time, however, he made the juice himself. He stood up at the bench in his apron, took the fruit and vegies, juiced them and then drank it all afterwards.

We put in beetroot, apple, carrot and a tiny bit of spinach. It was a beautiful red and tasted pretty fine! So today he has already had his daily quota of fruit and veg!!!

We drank it together with lots of eye contact and giggles and going on about how clever we were to make juice!

We also made a lovely gluten free loaf of raisin toast together. To a supermarket GF bread mix I added linseed/sunflower mix, sultanas, cinnamon, an egg and some grated apple. It worked beautifully. Next time I'm going to throw in some processed zucchini as well (skinned to avoid the green colour). He gobbled up the bread for lunch. It's the first time he's ever eaten any bread I've made for him.

I can see juicing and bread making being on our regular list of RDI lifestyle activities.

Feeling happy!

Photos

Bright Eyes blowing out his candles


Dad and the three kids, plus baby cousin
Presents: he got lots of dressing up outfits, including a B1 camouflage, plus the all-important Buzz Lightyear.





Lunch! What did he eat? A cracker and vegemite, a few slices of ham, orange juice and a piece of gluten free cake. Actually, no, just the icing off the top...

Next, soon

In the last few weeks, Bright Eyes has learned the concept of something happening first, and then something happening next or soon. He has even got the concept of his birthday being first, and then his sister's birthday being next.

Now he wants to be first to do everything. When I bring out the morning tea, he says, "Bright Eyes first. James next." He has to be first to get in the car, and first to get out of the bath.

It's quite handy actually. If the two of them are doing something and I want them to do something else, I can trick Bright Eyes into doing it by saying James can go first... he's not happy about that!

Our prayer bulletin for August

Dear friends,

Firstly, many apologies. I lost my list through a variety of reasons including changing computers and basic incompetence and had to make a new one by going through the list of contacts and trying to remember who had said they wanted to be on! If you’re not on and you’re reading this on the web... let me know if you want to be back in the fold!

Thanks for your prayers. After I sent out the last prayer bulletin about six weeks ago, Campbell took a HUGE leap forward the very next day. His comprehension and speech was better, he was more settled and he was more independent. It was a nice ‘global’ answer to prayer.

Unfortunately, none of the specifics were answered! He still has not put his jacket on for me (and it’s 10C outside today) and vegetables have not touched his lips. He did actually put a couple of pieces of healthy chicken sausage in his mouth AND CHEW AND SWALLOW, but this remained a twice-only event and has not happened since.

His gains in comprehension and language have remained, but his settled behaviour took a dive after about two weeks, and for the last three to four weeks, we have had a lot of tantrums and uptight behaviours. As well, he has become bossy, bossy, bossy! It frustrates me because I just don’t know why it happens. And then when he improves for a couple of days, I don’t know why that’s happened either.


Our prayer points this month are mostly parent-focused because we both still find the hard, annoying days very draining, and because his progress, to a large extent, depends on our efforts and skills in therapy and diet.

· Pray for Cecily to have patience, creativity, energy, love and a flow of positive language through her head each day. Pray that I’ll be able to increase my therapy time, and successfully engage Campbell in day to day activities.

· Pray for Andrew to use the smaller amount of time he has with Campbell (due to work pressures) to good effect.

· Pray for us both as we undergo another week of Campbell’s assessment and parent training at the end of august. We need good ideas and good techniques for getting him to work with us every day.

· Pray for Jemima and James who both have normal frustrations with their brother. Ask God to help us all have a peaceful and harmonious family life.

· Oh yes, and pray that Campbell will be healed of the autism. (:


We really appreciate your care and concern for Campbell and us!

A sign of things to come

We were driving past a girls' high school in Sydney today, just around get-out time. Bright Eyes looked out the window and said, as a general comment, "So much girls!"

It's a nice example of him beginning to see things that are not just street signs or similar static things, and sharing his experience with all of us.

Happy Birthday Bright Eyes

My little boy turned 4 today. He is really growing up! It almost made me misty-eyed to think that on this day four whole years ago, he joined our family. We have been richer for it!

If you see him around, don't wish him happy birthday yet, however. We are celebrating his birthday on Saturday because Daddy is away right now. He didn't know it was his birthday today and we didn't tell him!

This is the first year that he has sort of understood the idea of age, and the idea of birthdays.

On his first birthday, he spent most of his party screaming after waking up from his nap and finding the living room stuffed with relatives all looking at him.

On his second birthday I imagine he spent most of it running away or obsessively playing with cars. (I can't remember it!)

On his third birthday, he blew out the candles and opened the presents, but he didn't really get what it was all about and certainly had no idea of what was going on leading up to the actual moment.

This year, he understands that it will be his birthday soon and he will be four. It's nice to be able to start talking with him about things that are going to happen in the future, and have him kind of understand.

New technique

Getting Bright Eyes to cooperate with me in what RDI calls 'guided participation' is one of the crucial parts of our therapy program. Unfortunately in the last few weeks he has been a bit reluctant to join in with me if it's not something he really enjoys.

A typical encounter might go like this.

Me: "Bright Eyes, I need some help with the laundry. Let's do it together."

Him: "No, no, no, noooooo. No laundry. Mum, run to your room. No laundry. Bright Eyes no helping." This followed by stiff body and physical refusal to come with me, often crying and running away.

Me: "Ummmmm."

So today I tried a different tack. I remembered that less words are better and physical regulation comes before verbal regulation in RDI. Then I set up the laundry so it would be smooth and easy for him to come into it and went to get him.

I went right up to him, smiled and put my hand out. He gave me his hand and we walked together. I guided him towards the laundry, feeling a little bit of reluctance in his body, but he got over it and willingly went through the door saying, "Do the laundry. Laundry time."

I gestured towards the door of the washing machine (front loader), he opened it and together we pulled out the clothes into the waiting basket.

The same approach worked for unpacking the dishwasher together, plus dinner, bathtime and getting dressed later that night.

Hooray. I feel like I've broken through a barrier.

Why?

Most children by the age of four would be well into the 'why?' phase. Why is the sky blue? Why are you doing that? Why do we drive on the road and not on the footpath? Why? Why? Why?

Bright Eyes is four on Wednesday and he has never asked a 'why?' question in his life.

BUT.... he has answered one!!!!

Last night he said to me, "Shirt off please mum."

Without thinking I said, "Why?" and started to help him take it off.

20 seconds later he came back with the answer to the question: "Wet." It was true - the sleeve was a little bit damp.

Can you hear my heels clicking together in joy?

Bossy boy

Still a few tantrums this week, although not nearly as bad as last week. But Bright Eyes has been bossy bossy bossy!

"Don't do that mum. Go to Bright Eyes' room Mum. Don't touch it. Leave it. Go away mum. It's Bright Eyes'."

Charming.

On the upside, his preschool teacher came back from a few weeks Long service leave. She hadn't seen him for six weeks, and she was enthusiastic to tell me how much his language and understanding had improved in that time. I need to take the long term view!

Diet... food... nutrition

Bright Eyes' nutrition is high on my mind at the moment, following a great little public presentation by our homeopath on the 'Gut-Brain Connection'. I also happened to get out of our local library a book with this wonderful title: Happiness is a regular and full bowel movement, which focuses on many of the same ideas.

Digestion and nutrition affect the blood which affect the brain. This gut-brain connection is not widely known about or discussed as general knowledge in our society these days. We know we should 'eat healthily' but we grin naughtily and slap ourselves on the wrist when we don't. Eating well is a sort of optional extra in our minds.

We don't realise that for some people, eating right makes the difference between having brain fog all day or being able to think. Eating is for living, not living for eating.

What came out of the seminar is this.

Bright Eyes needs:
probiotics, fermented foods, good oils and fats, fruit and vegies and regular protein meals.

He needs to get rid of:
sugar, processed foods, gluten and casein (wheat and milk), artificial everything, chemicals and bad fats (I'm not talking about saturated animal fats, but trans-fats like margarine, vegetable oils that have been processed and oils that have been overheated so that they have free radicals in them).

It sounds great, and I am so truly convinced of all of it that every meal time and snack time I feel hugely guilty. The fact remains that he won't eat good stuff. He won't eat meat except for his own brand of sausages. He refuses vegetables and eggs and fish. He loves sugar and chips and lollies and hates yoghurt.

A doctor who wrote a book about all of this said that you can teach children to eat things. She put her autistic son's video on for 10 minutes and then turned it off and said "You can have it back on when you eat this pea."

Apparently it took forever, but he ate the pea. Am I willing to go through these sorts of agonies? I just don't know.

Brum

We had another Brum day today. In some ways it was useful. Brum went to the toilet and flushed with his wheels, for example, and Brum was much more keen to eat his dinner than Bright Eyes was.

In another way, it was a real nuisance. I think I have heard the word 'Brum' over 1500 times today. Brum has letters. He has wheels. Brum is stuck. Brum fell over and is very sad. Brum brum brum brum brum brum!

Currently, Brum is asleep in the drawer next to Bright Eyes' bed. He's in bed and is very comfortable. He just might get up early tomorrow morning and take himself out for some adventures, and not come back...

Going to church

After last week's tomasha about going to church (see a few posts down for a description of Tantrum Of The Year), I whispered into Bright Eyes' ears on Saturday night this week "We're going to church tomorrow. No crying for church, ok?"

He looked up at me and said, "No crying for church. Church is smile!"

You got it kid. (And he did.)

Finally clean

Bright Eyes took his first bath in a week tonight. For the last six or seven days he has been refusing and we have been happy enough to avoid a tantrum and live with him being relatively grubby for a few days.

The tantrums are settling down though, so we can go back to having a clean child again.

He would have been clean last night as well except for a little mishap.

Bright Eyes had been playing with his 'Brum' car all day, and Andrew's brilliant idea to get him into the bath was to say "Let's give Brum a bath." Bright Eyes thought that was great, so followed Daddy in, had his clothes taken off happily and was just about to get into the water for the first time in six days when... Daddy noticed that baby, who was already in the bath, had done a poo! Ick!

That was it for Bright Eyes. He has standards, and there was no way he was going into the bathtub even after it had been scrubbed.

Thankfully the Brum trick worked again tonight! Our clean boy is back.