Journalling

My RDI task at the moment is journalling about working with Bright Eyes to cooperate and co-regulate.

Bright Eyes has been improving in his ability to be guided and to participate in a game or a task, as opposed to having to control it all the time.

We have really been enjoying having games with his Brum car and another one which I christened 'Sheridee'. It's a girl car apparently. They have been shopping, built garages, visited the beach and the snow, sailed in boats, pretended to be airplanes, gotten married to each other and generally had as full and interesting lives as is possible for small toy cars.

Bright Eyes continually invites us to participate with him, saying 'Want to play?' in a really sweet voice and full eye contact.

Today we made signs with the names Brum and Sheridee. I wrote their names in pencil, and gave him the fat texta to hold to trace over them. He wouldn't do it unless I had my hand very close to his on the pen, but the movement and the grip was all his. He seemed very proud of them at the end when I showed great excitement at the fact that he had written by himself.

We had a blow-out the other day on a walk around the lake. Bright Eyes decided to be the 'leader' and delegated his brother to being the 'follower'. His brother was unhappy about this and chased him to try to take over the 'leader' role. Fisticuffs ensued and I had to hold Bright Eyes back and say "That is not ok."

His brother took off, and Bright Eyes collapsed on the path. "I can't go. We have to go home. Home time. etc etc" in loud yells and screams. I sent the sister after the little one and got Bright Eyes up by noticing that he might get bitten by mosquitoes if he remained on the path. We walked along with him in varying states of unhappiness, but at least he was moving. It will be interesting to see if he can cope with not necessarily being the leader next time we try it.