Different

My wife was dropping Dane off at his Kindergarten class today.  She usually stands by his hook to hang his coat and change into his gym shoes.  We need to stand back and let him do it himself.  Other kids his age dress and undress themselves.  Dane needs to learn this and be more independent.  He needs help buttoning and zipping up his coat and pants.  If he can't do it after a few tries then we help him. He has problems with his fine motor skills.

Dawn led Dane into his class and was listening in on a conversation he was having with the other children.  Dane said that when he gets big that he will ride bike to school.  One of the boys at the table looked at my wife and told her, "I don't know why he talks like that.  He always does."  My wife responded, "Because he's awesome!"  The other kids seem to really like Dane.

I talk to my wife on the phone on break at work to see how things are going.  When she told me about the boy's comment he made about my son it made me think.  I thought that other kids are starting to notice that he's different from the others.  It also scared me a bit to think that the other kids might gang up on him and pick on him.  Dawn assured me that the other kids really like Dane.  I hope that these kids back him up also if there is trouble down the road.

Fine Motor Skills & Gross Motor Skills

A topic brought up at Danes therapy was how his fine and gross motor skills are.  We have noticed a decline in his fine motor skills.  He is having trouble zipping up his coat and putting on his shoes.  When he writes he doesn't hold the crayon correctly and struggles to write his name and draw shapes.  He did okay cutting with a scissors in a strait line.  Towards the end he just ripped the rest of the way off.

As far as his gross motor skills, he is doing very well.  He can run strait and climb.  The therapist asked if he was ever clumsy or had trouble with balance.  I told her that Dane recently has been able to ride his bike without training wheels.  He has very good balance and he is fast.  Too fast and he's hard to catch and keep up with.

Dane is a very good problem solver.  He loves it outside and always tries to get out of the house.  I tell him to wait and he gets upset and storms off outside when told "Not yet."  I don't like it that he gets up early in the morning and right away want's outside.  I say that we can go out at 11:00 and it's only 7:00.

Dane is capable of telling time by the numbers and understands the little hand on clocks.  He pushed a chair up to the battery operated clock on the wall, took it down and turned the small hand to 11.  Funny and smart thinking but that's not how it works I told him.  Turing the clock ahead 4 hours doesn't make it 4 hours later. Whether he understands that or not that was very interesting (and funny) that he did that.

The therapist recommended getting Dane some small legos to build with to work on his fine motor skills.  Usually in school they let the kids put beads on strings to make bracelets and necklaces for that type of skill.  Stacking blocks is also a good tool for learning hand-eye coordination.

At the end of the day the therapist suggested that we set the timer for about 5-7 minutes and make it a game to pick up the house.  During that time the kids and the parents do as much as they can in that time until the timer goes off.  Afterwords is supposed to be a celebration that they were good helpers and to treat them with some type of reward.  We're supposed to give them high 5's  and really soak it up on how helpful they are.  That's actually a good point because the kids are old enough now where they need to help out more.  It's always "You do it."  I'm tired of the kids making me pick up their mess.  It's time for the foot to come down and make them clean up after themselves.

writing name & understanding emotions

Danes therapist that he sees 3 hours twice a week has noticed that Dane can recognize emotions and facial expressions.  That is only when someone is really sad and crying.  Happy and laughing.  Angry and yelling.  Only when it is to the extreme emotion that Dane understands what the other is feeling.  She will be working with him more on this to make him understand emotions more clearly.  There is no in-between with emotions that Dane can relate to.  If I say to him with a stern voice, he cannot understand that I am getting upset.  If I turn that into yelling, he will understand that I am getting mad.  That goes for happy and not laughing and sad without crying.  He cannot read between the lines on how people feel.

Dane needs to work hard on his fine motor skills.  When the therapist worked with him on writing his name, the longer they worked at it the better he got.  After they switched around to play therapy and then back to writing his name it was back to where he started.  He has troubles doing a tripod grasp around a crayon.  His teachers would break his crayons in half to help teach him the proper way to write.  He also lacks control when coloring.  By now, he should be able to stay in the lines when coloring a picture.  He scribbles all over with no control.  Also, his darker and harder pressed scribbles are turning into light strokes that are barely visible.

Dane knows and can recognize the letters of the alphabet.  When he writes his name, it is not horizontal. The therapist hopes to have this corrected because he is now in Kindergarten.  The letters seem to be all over with no control. 

Play Date

Since my wife works the night shift I need to keep the kids entertained to let her get sleep.  Usually I have to run out to the country to visit their Grandpa.  Out there I get a chance to put my feet up and let the kids run around.  I also get to get caught up on my family and talk with dad.

I have to discipline the kids when they don't listen or do bad things so I punish them by not going to their Grandpa's.  That also hurts me because there I can unwind and have help watching my kids.  I feel they see too much of their Grandpa and that's probably why they don't listen to me.  Grandpa likes to give in way too much and not say "no."  That causes trouble for me when I get the kids home.  They feel like they can do whatever they want and walk over me.

Some days I am so exhausted after working all day.  My feet hurt, I'm tired and hungry.  All I want to do is get home some days and take a shower and sit down.  Luckily today the kids were actually napping when I got home and I got to catch a cat nap with them.

After they woke up that's the start of another full time job keeping them happy and entertained.  I let them go outside and Dane organizes his pinwheels and played with the bubble mower.  Ally plays on the swings.  Sometimes Ally will take things from Dane and he hits her in the back.  I hate it when he does that.  He needs to learn to use his words and not his fists.  He needs to hear that makes his sister sad and it hurts her.  The no hitting social story from the school helped explain that to him.  His therapist also explains to him.  He has a hard time seeing how others feel.

I told them we'd go up to the park because I had to send out a letter for another speech evaluation on Dane.  I went the wrong way and instead of turning around I went to my cousin's place.  He has 2 boys the same age as mine.

It is important for Dane to have someone close to him to play with.  I have seen many benefits with his behavior watching and learning from other children.  Daycare is very beneficial having him see all the other kids dressing themselves and how they use their manners.  We do not need daycare the way our work schedules line up.  We use it 2 days a week for Danes benefit.  It also helps my wife to get some sleep after working all night.  It also gives me a couple hours to get something done around the house and a break from the kids.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays Dane has his therapy after Dawn works all night.  She has to come home and quickly get the kids back out the door for the next few hours.  I don't know how she stays awake.  This is just something we have to do to help Dane overcome some of his issues.  He is maturing and learning to do things more independently.  Right at the moment his fine motor skills are declining and therapy and us have to help him work on that.

Imaginative Play

What a wonderful thing to come home from work to.  Silence.  Both kids taking their naps at the same time on the couch with Maisey on the television.  Food on the stove and a hot bath run.  Wonderful.  I like it.  I like it a lot!

I'd like the kids to start playing video games.  These new systems are so complicated with all the buttons and action going on.  I brought out from storage the old 8 bit Nintendo Entertainment System from my childhood.  What junk.  None of the games would stay on.  I kept getting the blue flashing screen.  The only game I actually got to work was the original Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt combo game.  I wanted to play Duck Hunt and the kids wanted to shoot the ducks.  I think this would help Dane with his hand, eye coordination and fine motor skills.

There must be something with the new flat screen TV's.  BANG BANG BANG!  Then that laughing piece of shit dog comes up.  "Let me see that."  I say.  Same thing.  3 misses and the laughing dog.  Even with the zapper up to the screen would miss the ducks.  There I go.  Getting the kids hopes up for something cool and turns out to be a let down.

The wife is off to bed and the kids are wound up.  Dane wants to go to Grandpas, go figure.  He gets upset and takes it out on Ally.  He starts to slam doors in her face and slap her arm.  He even started to scratch her.  When he gets in that attitude frame of mind I have to keep Allyson distant from him or he tries to hurt her.  Sometimes I think she brings it on and irritates him by taking his toys from him.

Looks like rain so I have to bring the kids inside and get some laundry done.  First thing they do in run around the basement with those loud dump trucks.  Dawn wakes up and tells me to take their trucks away.  I'm trying to do laundry.  After I get a load in I'll take them back upstairs and "try" to keep them quiet.

I thought I'd bring out Ally's doll house and try some imaginative play with the kids.  Dane showed no interest at all.  Not because of the doll house.  Because he lacks imaginative play.  That really sucks that all Dane see's is reality and can't use his imagination.  He did laugh when I used the small dog to pretend play drinking out of the toilet and then lick at Ally and his faces.

Confused

I don't think that people see the way my wife and I see our son.  I know that from looking at him that he appears that there can certainly be nothing wrong.  He is a smart and handsome young man from looks.  On the inside is what people don't see and what we deal with.  Behavior wise.  If I were to record and show one of his meltdowns they would be in shock that this is the same boy.

Medical terminology has not given us a term to describe my sons autism.  I am sure that he is high functioning (HF).  He is now using speech to ask and get what he wants.  It is hard to figure out what he is saying at times and he gets frustrated. He is using fine motor skills at school to bead a string into a necklace.  He is starting to ride a bike with training wheels.   He is doing lots of normal little boy stuff.

He does good at early education in school.  They give him sensory breaks every two hours and take him out of class.  He had only had 1 fairly difficult meltdown the year so far.  He seems to be making some friends and getting to socialize better.  He used to shy off to the corner by himself away from everyone and play with his toys.  Nobody else existed in his world.  He has come a long way so far.

However, it seems that no one sees the inside behavior that my wife and I put up with.  My father has seen how his temper can change over something small.  I see it every day.  Everything at home sets him off the wall.  Turning on the microwave, starting the dryer, pushing down the toaster.  Little things all the time.  If he does it first or has the chance that I let him he will be fine.  Then a while later I forget and do something that throws off his routine all hell breaks loose.  He will hit the floor, bang his head, hit the walls, hit his sister, tip over chairs and stomp on the floor with his feet.  That is very aggravating.  That is not normal.  His therapist said something about an audio processing disorder.  This causes him to do the things he does without thinking because their is more hormone in that part of his brain that sets him over the edge.  Fight and Run she also described it as.

At therapy for the time hes there, he cooperates.  At school, he listens.  At home it can be a nightmare.  We have been seeing improvements with his therapy and he holds back from hitting his sister.  In turn he hits himself and bites his hand. Thinking about it now it seems that frustration sets him off a lot.

Big Boys Club

During my son's intensive therapy today we were given advice on how to treat Dane more like a big boy and make him feel needed and appreciated.  The therapist recommended small chores and not to give him a question option of "Would you; Can you?"  Instead we have to get down, put our hands on his shoulders and calmly say to him, "Put on your shoes."  "Pick up your toys." etc...Try to make and hold eye contact as well.  She explained that once a parent masters control, all it takes is a look and the child will know what you want of them and they will stop in their tracks.

The therapist explained that my son is expressing a need for attention.  This can be both positive and negative.  Any form of expression you give either praise or anger gives the child some type of attention that the child wants.  You must remain calm and not accelerate their emotion.  Again, you must get down to their level and explain calmly what you want from the child.

She also gave us some explanation saying that telling Dane that he wants to be a big boy and help out like a big boy.  She called it the Big Boys Club.  She wants us to explain to him that when other kids are getting ready for class what other kids will think when he's not ready.  When he refuses to brush his teeth we have to explain that he doesn't want yellow teeth or cavities.  We have to push into his world and help him to grow up.  Children live in the present and we as parents teach them about yesterday and tomorrow.  We should not dwell on the past or worry about the future.  We need to live and connect with our children in the now. 

Working with a child and helping develop their fine motor skills is a skill a child doesn't loose.  Recently, Dane stopped zipping up his pants and coat.  He says he can't and it usually makes me give in to him and zip up or start for him.  The therapist told us that he's doing that for attention.

Tonight I kept giving him the "Your doing so good; You are a big boy; You are such a great helper."  Compliments.  I'm not sure but I think he could see right through it.  Getting his jacket zipped up didn't seem to take as long.  He said he can't.  I got it latched and said, "Okay, I helped, now you finish."  He zipped up and we spent the next several hours outside playing.

Another thing the therapist suggested was separating his sister from him.  She is attached at his hip when ever he is around.  I can see why he gets angry at her and hits her.  He wants time away from her.  We were recommended to get Dane into his room and play alone and have Ally do something else, away from her big brother.  Easier said then done is what I was thinking as she told me this.  It's worth a try.

I mentioned how washing his hair is like pulling teeth.  She suggested that it may be the tingling sensation he feels down the back of his neck while shampooing that makes him so restless and irritable.  She thinks that showering him may help stop that sensation.  

Getting the kids in the house and ready for bed Dane had lost a small bell that was in the guinea pig cage.  He freaked out.  Screamed and cried.  He opened up the cage and was digging through their bedding looking for that little bell.  He was a train wreck.  How can something like a small bell turn someone into a basket case?  I don't know.  Until he found that bell did he not feel like a total weight lifted off his shoulders.  I am so glad he found that bell or I would never hear the end of it.