Special Help for Special Needs

#221 Serving is Caring

Today my little girl and I got to spend some quality time with the folks at the Pediatric Urgent Care.  No big deal, she just had a little blunt force trauma to the head.  She is alright.  It looked and sounded worse that it was.

While dawdling in the waiting room, I watched the clerk that was checking people in.  He clearly did not know what he was doing.  I know this because he had to turn around and ask somebody else a question before every mouse click.  The most interesting thing about this clerk was watching how he managed to interact with scared and sick children, and parents that were on edge.  He appeared to be the only one in the building that was completely indifferent to everything going on around him.

Maybe I’m wrong, Maybe he was passionate about his work and was genuinely concerned about the children and families that came through.  If so, he was doing a masterful job of disguising his feeling with his irritated facial expressions, his monotone voice inflection, the blank eye gaze, and the flippant manner he used to toss a clipboard at a mother.  The icing on the cake was the enormous full-body stretch he performed in his chair while conversing with the mother of an infant.  Wow!  All I could think was that this guy was a total loser and the hospital needed to set him free to find a vocation that was more suited to his unbecoming demeanor.

I share this story because it reminds me that serving others is about caring.  The clerk was taking information from people and handing out forms but he was not serving.  Serving involves caring.  Those with the most tedious and low-level positions can make or break an experience with a customer, client, or family by caring.  Care about the quality of your work, care about how you make others feel, care about how you are perceived, care about brightening someone’s day or lightening someone’s load.  Serving is based on caring.  

If you are a teacher, a therapist, a doctor, a nurse, or the clerk at a pediatric urgent care, you will do yourself and everyone else a favor if you start caring more, because true service starts with caring.

Please share this with friends, families, professionals, and clerks that work with children and their families.  You can receive regular perspective, insight, and suggestions for working with children with special needs by “liking” this page or use your RSS reader to subscribe to Special Help for Special Needs.

 

#220 Is Your Child "Normal" or "Weird"?

Schools are set up to deliver to the masses.  It is assembly line education, and often assembly line therapy.  Many hospitals are set up the same way.  Both places are set up to deal with hundreds of people, resulting in a one-size-fits-all approach to therapy and education.   This works great if you are “normal”.

But if you are weird, the system (often) doesn’t know what to do with you.  Anyone who is not normal is “weird”.  Kids that have very high IQs are weird.  Kids with complicated sensory integration issues are weird.  Parents that don’t agree with the school’s plan for education or therapy are weird.  

The school system is okay for most children and families, but if you are weird, be prepared to rock the boat.  The system was not made for you.  Often it takes years of wrestling with a school system to develop a plan that works to help a child achieve their potential.  If you don’t have years to spend and your child is “weird” then you need to avoid the “normal” therapists and find the therapist that is weirdly skilled at helping kids with special needs.

Does your child and family fit in with the masses, or are you weird?

Please share this with any of your friends that might be a little weird.  To receive regular posts that have perspective, insight and suggestions for children with special needs,  ‘like’ this page or use your RSS reader to subscribe to Special Help for Special Needs.

 

#219 "...but I don't have any good ideas."

I hear people say all the time that they don’t have any good ideas when it comes to helping their child.  They also say the same things when it comes to writing a blog, cooking food, buying valentines day presents, or being innovative at work.  The problem is not a lack of good ideas, it is a lack of any idea.   

People get in the habit of censoring their ideas and if the idea doesn’t pass the awesome test, then it is not allowed out of the mind.  The way to generate good ideas (and the occasional great idea) is to generate a lot of bad ideas.  If you set a timer for 10 minutes and commit yourself to writing down as many bad ideas as you can, you can’t help but come up with a few ideas that are worth pursing.

You need ideas to help your children progress- Ideas on how to help them succeed at home, in school, with friends, and how they could help themselves.  Therapists and teachers are paid to come up with ideas, but nobody has cornered the market on brilliant ideas.  You know your child in ways that a therapist or teacher never will.  Your ideas bring fresh perspective to challenging situations, so stop complaining about not having any good ideas and start throwing out some bad ideas.

Bad ideas almost always come before good ideas. 

Please share this post with anyone who wants to help their child, but doesn’t know how.  You can receive more encouragement, insight, and suggestions on helping children with special needs by ‘liking’ this page or use your RSS reader to subscribe to Special Help for Special Needs.

 

#218 Have you had a Snuggie idea lately?

I think the Snuggie is ridiculous.  It is a blanket with sleeves that has become remarkably trendy.  The Snuggie idea went viral and has become a blockbuster.  You can even get designer snuggies now.  

Often, the most fun and engaging things you can do with your kids will be like the Snuggie.  You start playing a game you got at the dollar store or one that you made up.  You might have thought the game was a silly waste of time, or just a stupid thing that the kids may like but certainly not a grown adult.  You may also think the activity has no educational or therapeutic value, but there is a good chance that your kids will love it.  Because they love it so much they will do almost anything to play the silly game.  That is where your opportunities lies to include partice on therapy activities or their academics

Unfortunately, not every idea is Snuggie caliber.  Some ideas really are just stupid.  In order to find the occasional activity that is a home run, you have to try a lot of stuff with your kids and keep what works.  If it has been a while since you had any brilliant ideas, you should purposely start throwing out ideas that you think are stupid.  You never know when something like the Snuggie idea will catch on and your kids will beg to play that that game with you for years to come.

Please pass this post on to anyone that lives or works with a child with special needs.  You can receive regular posts with suggestions and insight for those who live and work with children that have special needs by subscribing to Special Help for Special Needs or “like” our Facebook page.

 

#217 Story Cubes- A Language Goldmine

I have run across a new favorite therapy game that your kids will love.  Rory's story cubes is a collection of 9 dice full of pictures.  I use it in therapy to draw out conversation with kids from 2nd grade through high school.  

There are almost infinate ways to use the dice.  You can give them all to one person and let them tell you a story based on the pictures that come up.  You could distribute the dice and let each person add to the story.  

Last night my family played during dinner.  Each person rolled one dice and I asked them a question that related to the their picture.  On my wife's turn, her picture was a magnet.  I asked her what she wished she could permenantly magnetize.  My daughter had to answer the question, "What would you say if you could talk with the president?  I was asked about jumping out of airplanes.  

This could also be a great prompt for creative writing.  

Most therapy games and tools are very expensive, but this is not a therapy toy (per say).  It is less than $7.00 at amazon, so you can't go wrong.  

What games do your kids love?  If you have found some that your kids love and promote speech or langauge skills, or motor development, repond to this post  with the nane of the toy or game.  Please pass this along to any parent that is looking for fun games that also promote creative thinking, thougt organization, as well as expressive and receptive language skills.

 

#216 It is an Honor to Help

If we ever meet at a party and you ask me about some concerns you have with your child, I will be happy to talk with you.  In fact I would find it to be an honor.   

It is a privilege to serve families, and watch great things happen with the kids.  It is a blessing to me to watch hope and excitement come to parents who have become calloused by disappointment, frustration and confusion.  These feeling are often magnified when the person who is suppose to help them seems indifferent, too busy to care, or not fully engaged. 

If you don’t see hope and excitement come into the eyes of a therapist, a teacher, or a doctor when they talk with you about helping your child, it may be time to look for some new help.  If they don’t have these feelings welling up inside themselves when they have opportunity to help, how can they possibly stir-up momentum, hope, relief, and excitement in others.

Please subscribe to Special Help for Special Needs using your RSS reader and ‘like’ this page.  Better yet, share these posts with the parents, friends, and teachers of children that have special needs.

 

#215 A Plan To Go From Socially Awkward To Socially Competent

Yesterday, I wrote a post, describing how the root of most social awkwardness is tied to a person’s assertiveness and responsiveness in communication.  Below is a 3-step plan for improving a child’s social interaction skills by rebalancing assertiveness with responsiveness.

The first step in helping children become socially competent is determining how their communication is out of balance.  Are they overly assertive? Are they appropriately responsive?  They must be trained to recognize the cues (verbal and nonverbal) from others.  A Speech-Language Pathologist that specializes in children can help with this.

The second step is to make a plan.  If the child is overly assertive, he must be trained to give others an opportunity to respond to his assertive acts.  If the child is perceived as unresponsive or passive to the assertive acts of others, he needs training and opportunities to ask questions, give comments, or make requests of others.  While some therapy with a speech pathologist may be required, you must also know be very familiar with the plan because you will be the primary one supporting your child as they develop new social skills.

Step three is practice.  There is no substitute for practice.  The child should start attending every social event possible with the intention of talking with people.  They don’t need to interact with others for a long period of time at the beginning, but they need to start getting comfortable with using different ways of interacting.  As they begin using their new skills they will need a lot of encouragement and reinforcement because changing their social behavior will feel uncomfortable for a little while. 

Some people are naturally gifted at social interaction.  However, if a child has struggled with this in the past, parents and teachers may be comforted to know that social interaction is a skill.  Because it is a skill, it can be improved through a plan to rebalance their level of assertiveness and responsiveness in communication.

Please subscribe to Special Help for Special Needs using your RSS reader or ‘like’ this page to receive regular posts on helping children overcome their extraordinary challenges.

 

 

#214 What Makes Them Socially Awkward?

Sometimes it is hard to say why a child is socially awkward, you just know that they are.  It’s sort of a “you know it when you see it” situation.  Most often, the root of the awkwardness can be traced to their use of assertiveness and responsiveness in communication.  

Individuals with excellent people skills have learned that there is a balance between using assertive communication acts and responsive communication acts.  Children that are socially awkward often don’t pick up on the cues from others that their communication is out of balance.  Since they don’t recognize that they make others feel uncomfortable, they make no efforts to change. 

Assertive acts include initiating interactions (verbal or nonverbally).  This may involve greeting others, requesting action, requesting attention, requesting objects, and making comments or statements without prompting.  

Responsive acts go hand-in-hand with assertive acts.  When someone requests action, then a response should be made.  When there has been a request for attention, a response to the request should be made.  While comments and statements do not necessarily require an response, they may be a good opportunity for a child to add to the discussion. 

Things get out of balance when one person makes significantly more assertive acts than the people they are interacting with.  It will also be out of balance if the child does not respond to the assertive acts of others.  This sort of behavior may be perceived as not listening, rude, or stubbornness.  

Tomorrow I will post a 3 step plan for the child that is socially awkward to become socially competent.  Please pass this post along to anyone who works with children that struggle with social skills.  You can receive more posts like this by subscribing to Special Help for Special Needs or just ‘like’ this page.  

 

#213 Sensory Needs Must Be Met First

Children will have a very hard time making progress in speech therapy or academics until they have their sensory needs met.

When children have sensory needs that are not met, their bodies may go to extreme lengths to satisfy their sensory cravings.  Speech and language therapy and academic work often lends itself to more sedate activities (i.e. sitting at a table or being still for the purpose of increasing their attention to task).  A child’s sensory needs may make it almost impossible for them to be still because they are craving movement, or deep pressure, or they can’t stand the way their clothes feel on their body, or a noise in the hallway keeps them from focusing.  

If you have a normalized sensory system it may be hard to comprehend how powerful the sensory sensory system is.  Imagine try to concentrate on formulating sentences or organize your thoughts if the lights in the room were blindingly bright.  Do you think it would easy to sit still if it felt like your underwear was creeping into all the wrong places.  Could you focus on problem solving while feeling dizzy?  You will probably agree, it would be very hard to concentrate in the above situations.   

Until a child’s physical needs are met (that includes sensory needs), the mind will have great difficulty ignoring its sensory craving, making speech and language therapy or academics unproductive or (at best) minimally effective.

Please pass this article on to someone that lives or works with a child with sensory and communication challenges.  Ask them to ‘like’ this facebook page or subscribe to Special Help for Special Needs so that more people will receive information to help their child.

 

#212 Done with Deciding

Andy Andrews made the quip “if 5 birds are sitting on a pier and 4 decide to fly away, how many are left? The answer is 5 because just because the 4 decided to do something doesn’t mean they actually did it!” 

We are one month into the new year and many decided they were going to get off the couch and do something great this year.  Many parents told themselves that they would do something to become a better parent.  If you have a child with special needs, you may have talked to yourself about being more proactive with the school, or following through with therapy homework.  

The point is that it doesn’t do any good to decide to do great things.  Deciding and doing are totally different.  Stop thinking about all the good you are going to do, and get up and actually do something.  Even if you don’t quite know how to do the thing you’ve been thinking about, or you don’t know how to get started, you must get active.  Doing something that is aimed at achieving your goals or helping others achieve their goals is far more likely to end up being successful than waiting around for all the stars to align.

You are done deciding.  Do something!