Just us

Bright Eyes had a great day today.

He was happy, calm and fun to be with. We made juice, we played 'mummy and baby tigers', we painted together and we made silly faces at each other for a long time.

What made the difference? A couple of things.

1. We had nowhere to be and nothing to do except hang out.
2. It was just him and me all day because the baby brother was at day care and the big sister was at school.

He seemed a lot more relaxed on his own, and I was more relaxed without having to deal with three little children's needs all day.

When he started to get oppositional or refuse to do something and yell "I won't", I started to yell it back at him in just the same tone, as if I was making fun of him. He looked surprised and then stopped the yelling. I said things like, "You sound like a huge lion when you do that!" or "You sound like an angry hippopotamus." It got a smile and defused the tension.

When both the other children came home, Bright Eyes began to get difficult and tense again, and I found it much harder to keep the calm again with two other children reacting to him as well.

It makes me wonder if I should plan one day with just him at home next year. It might make a big difference in his calm levels.

And, shock horror...

... I have actually started to read about homeschooling.

This is a massive departure from my previous thoughts about education.

It has come about because so many other RDI parents seem to be homeschooling their children. The problem with regular schooling seems to be that they get too tired to do any RDI learning, and it doesn't help with learning flexible thinking or co-regulation.

I am currently looking into Enki education. I'd be interested to hear from others who are doing something similar.

Cuddle cuddle cuddle

Today, finally, amongst all the end of year Christmas shemozzle, was a day where we didn't have to go anywhere, and we didn't have to do anything much.

I found that Bright Eyes was a lot calmer with the slower pace. In the times when he did start being oppositional, I just said, "You need a cuddle", hauled him on to my lap, and waited with him for a while - about two to three minutes. Then he recovered himself, and went back to do what I had suggested in the first place.

We did lots of 'together' activities. He asked to have a picnic in the lounge room, so we went to get the picnic rug together. Then we chose what we could eat together. After that, he helped me roll up the rug (he picked my pilates mat... not exactly picnicesque, but hey, it was comfortable) and we put it back together.

When eventually we did get in the car to do a few stops at some shops, he started refusing to get out of the car, but again, a cuddle in the back seat and at times, carrying him for a little bit, did the trick.

In general, it was a calm morning, not because he was perfect, but because I was going slow enough to avert the traumas.

This is progress, right?

Back to basics... again

Today was another of 'those days', where Bright Eyes just couldn't cope with anything. He tantrumed to turn off the TV, get in the car, go into the shops. He tantrumed at lunch, dinner and bath, and then again at bed. It was all too much.

So when it came time for RDI lab time, I decided to play it cool and take it very easy. I hardly used any words at all, and concentrated on physical co-regulation. We rocked a lot of the time, him sitting on my lap. We moved front and back, and then side to side, and then when I thought he was calm enough, we circled around together.

I tried to get him to play a finger game with me at one point early on, but he couldn't cope with the interaction so we went to a row-row action which was easier for him.

By the end he was well regulated and was able to cope with a 'falling in the mud and cleaning up' game with me, but in general, everything I did was all very slow, quiet and rhythmic.

Calming down after tantrums
I seem to be getting better at calming him down when he really throws a wobbly. I hold him on my lap (and he's happy to have the cuddles) and just rock back and forward gently. After ten minutes, or when I judge he's peaceful enough, I make a comment on something we can both see, or something about him. Eg. "There's a bird in the garden" or "You've got ten toes on your feet." I don't offer questions or abstract ideas - he seems to calm quicker if he focuses on something concrete.

Looks good, but...

Bright Eyes looks like he is interested in the alphabet, but actually he is scripting.

His script for the letters ABC is long and complicated and is completely taken from an introductory segment at the beginning of every ABC Kids video we own.

It goes like this:

duh duh duh duh duh dee da, A

duh duh deeeeeeeee, de de de, B

duh duh duh, duh duh duh, C

A. B. C.

We are the Hooley Dooleys, so how do you do,

We are the Hooley Dooleys, and who are you?

Trust Us, We're Bananas.

I'm Blinky, Blinky Bill.

A-A-A-R-D-V-A-R-K, A-A-A-R-D-V-A-R-K,

duh duh duh daa, do do duh dah, Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle!

Give yourselves a big clap everybody!

ABC. Bringing you the best in children's video.

(He gets a bit stuck on the Aardvark bit...)

In a related piece of news - he can spell his name, and even type it on the computer. I guess that's good!

Carols chaos

Our town enjoys its annual Carols by the Lake, organised by the Lions Club. The way they attract a crowd is to invite every single group of children in the town that can sing a song or do a dance, and then watch their parents and grandparents roll up.

Bright Eyes' preschool and his sister's school choir were both asked to perform a couple of numbers, so I took all the children along to enjoy the concert.

The preschool was on first, and Bright Eyes was a star... sort of. Their first mistake was to put him near a microphone. He knows what they are, and he knows how to use them, so he spent the entire time making noises and saying 'Ssssh' into it. At one point he spontaneously introduced the next song, and he did all the 'Oys' at the right time, really loudly into the microphone at the end of the song lines.

The crowd thought he was hilarious. His sister thought he was embarrassing. I was torn between the two feelings. He was cute, sure, but I wished he could have even tried to sing along and do what everyone else was doing.

The honest truth? I think he was working the crowd! He knew they were laughing at him, and he liked the response and was angling for more.

(In the end, the excursion was a bit of a disaster. There were way too many flies and they were sticking to all of us, and Bright Eyes and his baby brother were getting more and more upset, so we left as soon as his sister's choir sang. I won't be taking them out alone again on a summer evening again for a while.)

Photographer

The beauty of a relatively cheap digital camera is that the children can use it without us having to worry about them wasting film.


Bright Eyes loves our camera. One of his favourite afternoon activities is to walk around the house taking photos. Some of them are wonderful - a selection follows.

his view of mum in the kitchen

the inside of the washing machine

self-portrait... he held the camera out as far as he could and snapped