Summer camp; very affordable therapy time

Since the school district dumped Shea's summer school or ESY (Extended School Year), we decided to try something new.

Vashon Youth and Family Services do Chautauqua Kids program at the elementary school cafeteria. It is a nice big open space with an air hockey table, games, art projects, bike riding club and a different field trip each week. Off island even!

The program directors and teen mentors take the kids swimming 2 times a week and stick to a loose but structured day. Lots of variety, lots of supervision but not much hovering.


This was about self sufficiency and independence and doing for yourself. Sure there was help near by but Shea just got into the habit of taking care of stuff himself. A huge step for us.

This is mainly for kids whose parents work and the times are from 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM. For $180 a week, it could be perhaps the most affordable day care set up around.

And, I am so glad we tried it! I considered it intensive social and behavior therapy and WOW! did it work.

We were tentative at first but Shea zoomed and soared with the structured fluidity, friend making, playing with the big kids and generally just having a great time.

The program directors were extremely sensitive to Shea's allergies and his speech issues. I just feel like I struck gold. So much so that I signed him up for several more weeks and ended the summer fully in love with the program.

When school got out in June, I was nervous about 1st grade. I thought it could go either way and was poised to worry. But now, after all the growth and talking and socializing and resolving issues this summer, I feel that Shea is really ready to go for 1st grade and give it his darndest!

Thanks VYFS and Chautauqua Kids! You made our summer!

Dancing through that social scene

Today is the first school dance for a certain brand new middle school-er in my family.

Titled "The Welcome back to school" dance, it is directly after school and won't just have dancing.

Carnival games, prizes and, of course, plenty of sugar laden treats will keep kids busy whether they dance or not.

One of the neighbor girls said, "Everyone is asking someone to go to the dance!"

Really? Actually not everyone because she and my new middle school-er did not. But apparently some people did.

The results? Lots of declines but thank you very much. Ah...just like life.

The preferred mode is to meet up with a few friends and brave the social scene together without the added stress of an arranged "date" at 11 or 12.

Holy crap!

Jake said this morning, "This sure does seem like a lot of pressure to put on the kids." Thank you very much. I agree. But at least there are other things to do other than dance.

I remember my 6th grades dances. Light was dim, the girls clustered giggling in their "party clothes", boys visibly uncomfortably, lurking on the extreme other side of the room. Any dancing? No, not much.

Dances really didn't get rockin' until high school or at least 8th grade.

Molly told me at 6:00 PM last night that she volunteered to bring treats to the dance. Yow! Too late to make anything so I called the local bakery to save our bacon.

So, they are selling treats too? Ah ha! I get it. This is just another fund raising opportunity for the school. I get it now.

Let's hope they have fun and not take all this too seriously.

For some, it is a lot of pressure. Wish we didn't have to start them on it so young.

Alas.

UPDATE:

Well, dances are different these days. There was plenty of dancing, not much standing around uncomfortably. The 8th graders planned, organized, decorated and picked the music for the dance. They get to decide what to do with the money raised.

I think most of the 6th graders were a little shocked at how sexually charged the older kid's dancing was. I figured there would be some bumping and grinding. Well, there was LOTS of bumping and grinding from the 8th graders.

Adults behaving badly: teaching our kids how not to act

This has been some week in “Adults Behaving Badly”.

First, South Carolina Republican Congressman, Joe Wilson felt a prime time presidential speech to both houses and the nation was an appropriate time to holler out "You lie!" reminding us all of a petulant 8 year old. Although, our president was not speaking a mis-truth and Congressman Wilson has now been formally admonished by the house, I am sure this will just give him more to complain and feel bitter about. Considering the current discourse in our august body politic, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.

Then multiple title tennis champion, Serena Williams, displayed an ugly, profanity riddled melt down during a match at the US Open. Brandishing her racket like a weapon, she proceeded to display the most “unsportsmanlike” behavior in the sports history. I couldn't help but think that Serena seemed to have a pretty practiced potty mouth for someone raised Jehovah Witness. I guess money and fame changes everything.

And, now rapper Kayne West, felt that it was his right to grab the microphone away from the Video Music Award (VMA) winner Taylor Swift so that he could drunkenly offer his unwanted opinions about who should have really won. For goodness sake! Where is a good hook when we need one?

Being a positive role model for kids seemed to be so much simpler in my day. And, we wonder why we are having a hard time teaching our kids to be polite, be a good sport, don’t interrupt, don't name call and certainly don’t fight over stupid things.

If this isn't an ideal opportunity to profess "do as I say, not as I do" I don't know one.

Kids aren't stupid. They are little intuitive sponges soaking up input at an alarming pace. There is a lot in our culture to protect our kids from; inappropriate music, TV, movies, internet content to name just a few. But, until now, it seemed somewhat safe to watch a presidential address or a tennis match or a music award show. How naive.

Perhaps we could use this opportunity to point out very bad behavior no matter who does it. A simple statement like, “Wow, even adults do some really dumb stuff sometimes.” could go a long way.

Reinforce to your kids that it is never ok to name call or yell at someone even if you disagree with them. Try to model productive, respectful ways to disagree for your kids. Talk about how things can quickly escalate if allowed and a situation can become dangerous.

And hopefully if our kids get the lesson they can try to influence some of the adults out there who need a manners refresher course.

Teaching good manners to kids resources:

Manners and Etuquette for kids

Rude busters

Kids good manners

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Other articles by Seattle Special Needs Kids Examiner:

Late talkers, helpful anecdotes and when Einstein first spoke

Treatment strategies for curing autism nutritionally

Public school, special ed and gifted programs: is it working for your child?

Train wreck: the good, bad and the ugly

The good? Actually the good is real good.

Our new Speech and behavior therapist gal came on Monday. She came to my house. Shea needed about 47 seconds to be shy then invited her to play magnets.

They had a wonderful time. She pushes a little harder then some, insisting he says a word not just once, but 3 or 4 times. It went really well and I look forward to having her input all summer.

The bad? Shea is doing Mini-hawks sports summer camp. All week, from 8:30 to 11:30, they (39 little kids 4 - 6) play and learn about baseball, soccer and basketball. After 3 solid hours of play, I know they are tired but they get out right next to the big playground at the elementary school. It is nearly impossible to not let him play a while after wards.

Shea wants to be the fastest, climbing the highest, running, jumping, doing circus tricks. On the playground he is a leader but just doesn't have the language and socials skills to deal with that role. Basically he is getting more and more cranked up. And, not in a good way.

One little boy points at Shea and said, "That boy made Logan cry today." I tried to find out what happened, tracked the boy down, heard what happened. I guess Shea took his hat and wouldn't give it back and then started hitting.

I apologized to him and tried to explain that Shea doesn't have many words and talking is hard for him. That he didn't do it to be mean.

Well. It was going down hill fast. I feel I need to jump right on it if Shea hits. I am not going to just hang back and let my kid hit some other kid and not deal with it. I corrected him once and hoped he could keep it together if he just calmed down. I probably should have just taken him home then. Implement a 1 strike you are out rule.

I am sure this is part of his Sensory Integration issues. He gets so cranked up when he is playing with lots of other kids that he is literally whirling top speed, no time to STOP and communicate, no time to listen to his mom, no time to focus on his behavior. He starts hitting. You know, train wreck we are on our way.

The ugly?

Shea went to play on a big dome climber and, of course, all the other little boys followed him over. The behavior continues and he hits the same kid again. I jump right on it again but he is inside the dome. And, get this...he is running away from me, eluding and ignoring me. Will not come to me. Laughingly he continues to elude me while my blood is beginning to boil, I am saying the old, "you come here right now! I am going to count to 3. Shea! I mean it. I want to talk to you."

Pointless. He thinks it just hilarious that he doesn't have to listen to me and that I can't get him.

Until, I moved my fat butt right on down and climb inside that stupid dome and grabbed him, peeled his fingers off the bars and jettisoned him out from under that dome. I literally had to physically remove him from the area with dozens of mothers, fathers and other kids watching. He was still trying to run from me and refusing to walk. We had a long, excruciating, not very gentle walk all the way across the playground with Shea in full melt down rotten kid mode and me barely able to keep from completely exploding.

Absolute horror show.

Tomorrow? I don't think so. Time to shake up the dynamic. We are going to the pool.

Mother's talk influences kid's social skills

Really? I guess I need to catalog this under, "Duh!"

From CNN:

Mothers often get blamed for the way their children turn out, and a new study gives additional weight to that accusation.

Mothers have opportunities to teach empathy every day, psychologists say.

Research from the United Kingdom shows that the way mothers talk to their children at a young age influences their social skills later in childhood.

The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, found that children whose mothers often talked to them about people's feelings, beliefs, wants and intentions developed better social understanding than children whose mothers did not.

In the first part of the study, mothers were asked to talk to their 3-year-old children about a series of pictures depicting scenes such as a child coming out of school looking happy and people waiting in line. Children whose mothers talked about the mental state of characters in the picture tended to perform better on social understanding tasks, the researchers found.

The effect persisted when the researchers revisited the families -- 57 of them remained in the study until the end -- on an almost yearly basis. The authors controlled for socioeconomic status and IQ of the mothers and found that these factors were not as relevant.