When my son with ASD was seven years old he had been fully potty trained about one year and was now speaking in sentences again. We were still waist deep in daily therapies: ABA, PT, OT, speech, social skills, counseling, genetic testing, neurologist, etc., etc., etc. Squished between all those appointments were his two younger siblings: my darling 4 year old daughter and 2 year old son. They were sweet kids, but were, and still are, classified as "high spirited." Waiting rooms afforded us a lot of time to spend together playing, reading and just generally keeping them off the heating ducts while playing hide and seek.

With a sibling with autism, my younger son was at a much higher risk to also develop an ASD. At the time, the geneticist gave us a 1 in 5 chance that he would. He crawled, walked and spoke on time, made great eye contact and was extremely social. But he just couldn't calm down. The smallest things would send him into a frenzy. I would sit and hold him while he screamed and flailed that he couldn't play with a knife he saw me using to prepare dinner. Like all families with autism, we had at least 25 Thomas the Trains, all absolutely identical. But if his brother dared to play with the one HE wanted, the super tantrum would begin. Sometimes I couldn't even hold him and I would be forced to put my toddler in his car seat, where he would bruise his shoulders against the restraints. I once sent him to his room when he seemed relatively calm.  First the pillows came down the stairs, then the stuffed animals, followed by the sheets. Then I heard a scraping noise across the floor. I ran upstairs to find that my almost three year old was purple with rage as he was dragging his twin sized mattress across the floor to throw down the stairs. Hercules and I needed help.

I was able to get my toddler son to my older son's development pediatrician fairly quickly. Due to his age, we couldn't rule out an autism spectrum diagnosis, so we labelled him to get interventions as quickly as possible. The biggest difference came from the Floortime for Parents workshop and Stanley Greenspan's book Engaging Autism. This method gave me the tools I needed to help teach my son how to calm down.

"What tools?" You may ask. Get ready to act like a toddler. My son and I used the time we sat together every day waiting for the two bigger siblings to get out of school. I would arrive thirty minutes early and pull out a bag of toys to play with him. When he took the Thomas Train, I would pitch a fit. Yes, heads turned as I cried, "But it's MIIIIINE!" My toddler would watch me, and eventually HE would coach ME how to calm down. "Mommy, it's ok. Don't cry. There are two Thomases. We can each have one!" At home and in my mini-van, I could get down to his level, often on the floor, to play the games that made his eyes glimmer. And ruin them the way he was ruining them for everyone else. Sometimes it was fun. Sometimes a grown woman struggles to find the energy to act like a toddler. The workshop included a session where I brought my kids in to play with a trained therapist, who could give us feedback.

During all this, I had child #4. And the oldest's therapies kept right on chugging like a freight train. We ate a lot of jelly sandwiches in the van and in waiting rooms. But the time I spent learning Greenspan's method was priceless. It is very effective. I once implemented it on a visiting friend's twin sons. These two four year-olds were gouging each others' eyes out over a bottle of bubbles. I threw myself down beside them and screamed that I really wanted the bubbles and it just wasn't fair. How were we EVER going to ALL get turns?!?! The boys rose above the problem at hand and problem solved us out of it.

The workshop is coming up in March. Does your child have trouble self-regulating? Do you need more tools to communicate with your child? This workshop will give you those tools. While I'm crushing on Greenspan, I want to also plug his book The Challenging Child. I checked it out of the library to help me figure out child #5, a defiant child that I was trying to avoid raising into the next Genghis Khan . To my surprise, almost half the book was devoted to the inattentive child, which was my fourth child to a 'T'. It spurred me to get him the interventions he needed in school and now, two years later, is doing great.  (It also turns out I'm not raising Genghis Kahn. #5 is going to be fine.)

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FEBRUARY CALENDAR 

  

FAMILY FUN February 8, 2019 Dad's Night Out Worcester Railers Vs Greenville DCU Center  Foster Street  Worcester MA  7:05 PM Fee: $9.00/ticket February 19, 2018 Bowling & Pizza Mohegan Bowladrome 51 Thompson Rd. Webster MA  10 AM Bowling 11 AM - Pizza $3.00 /pp February 20, 2019 WAchusett Meadow  Snowshoeing 113 Goodnow Rd  Princeton MA  Session 1 -10 AM  Session 2- 12 PM  $3.00/pp February 21, 2019  Candy Camp at Heberts Candy Mansion $5.00/ child includes two candy crafts  and ice cream sundae bar Session 1 10:30 AM Session 2 12 PM February 21, 2019 * Parents of Teens Support Group   & Expanded Teen Social Group Pizza Ice Cream & Game Night   6-9 PM  * note this is Thursday not Wednesday February 22, 2019 Friends & Family Movie  West Boylston Cinema Rt 12 , West Boylston 10 AM  $3.00/pp

SUPPORT February 9, 2019 Sibshop Chinese New Year  Choey Lee's  45 Sterling St  West Boylston 11:30 AM  - 1:30 PM  Fee: $10:00 per child $15 family cap February 11, 2019  Parents & Tots  4:30 - 5:30 PM  February 13, 2019  Parents of Children & Tweens  Support Group 7-9 PM  February 21, 2019 * Parents of Teens Support Group   & Expanded Teen Social Group Pizza Ice Cream & Game Night   6-9 PM  * note this is Thursday not Wednesday February 27, 2019 Parents of Girls and  Girls socialization Group   6:30 PM  - 8:30 PM