A very explosive morning........ I don't like waiting!!

Today was a real challenge for me because there was loads of traffic as there had been an accident on my carers way to work so she was late....... I find this super hard to deal with especially as on my timetable it said Amy pick up so that is all I would do for the hour I waited was stare out of the kitchen window which made things so much worse but that was on my plan!! Amy has now told me to make a waiting folder so if for any reason I need to wait for things any other time I have a folder I can go to......

This was how talking to mom went while I was waiting but this was huge for me that I was able to talk to mom and didn't completely lose it I took great pleasure in being able to press the sentence bar and repeat 10 times I don't like waiting!!! I only screamed and lay on the floor at home and managed to communicate my feelings but after waiting so long when I got in Amy's car and we was driving I just couldn't contain the explosion any more 

I did tell Amy I felt frustrated then she pulled the car over and the rest was too explosive to talk it just involved biting myself and humming my unhappy noise

I realised though when I wanted comforting I didn't have the button to ask so instead managed to find like hug and Amy understood me phew what a morning!!

Sometime if you let them say no...

Today I wanted to take my lad for a new coat. His response no he had more important things to do like go on computer. But later we went out with no protest and choose a new red coat.

Trip to the cinema on way back had the staff really interested in his AAC and asking about it. He requested the tickets and the popcorn. No meltdowns no bad behaviour because I let him say no earlier. 

Keeping calm

At school my girl is a bit stressed at the moment.  One of things I've done is to create a 'calm' folder on her homepage which you can see here.

Inside the calm folder are a range of toys and items which help to calm her.  

It has been written into her IEP targets that staff will work on encouraging her to recognise when she is getting stressed and make an active choice from this folder before it escalates too far.  I like the idea of her learning to self-regulate her own behaviour and emotions and learning about her own sensory needs and preferences.  We will expand the calm folder over time to include other strategies we know she likes such as 'squeeze' and massage.