Re: Fun Acitivies

[Guest guest]

We do all sorts of fun stuff. One day I bought artist canvas for each

kid with some acrylic paints. They sat around my now paint-splattered

formal dining table and created their images. That's fun but sort of

expensive, but myself being an artist I love it. They all take dance

lessons together, go to school together, etc. I'm hoping if/when we

get our land we can get some horses for horseback riding. We also do

camping/boating at the lake in the summer. That's a great sensory time

for Allie, except for that one day she kept taking off on us.

For the most part, my child with autism does everything my NT kids do,

just maybe modified. We refuse not to allow her an equal member of our

lives, because she is. If we go out to dinner as a family, she's with

us because she's part of the famly. We go to movies together, we go

visit relatives, etc. Though we don't visit as much because Allie has

a wallpaper fascination and has been known to see a seam puckering and

begin removing it. If Allie's on overload, we do stay with her and

split, just like any family when one kid is sick or not able to do

something.

Debi

>

> DO any of you that have Autistic girls and boys do you do any fun

> activies with them??

>

[Guest guest]

I agree with Debi that you need to do typical kid stuff, with your special kid!

I think novelty places likes parks, zoos, and neighboehood landmarks are

important to expose our kids to, so that they share some experiences with

typical children. Sometimes taking our kids to these places can be hard, but you

adapt. I have to make sure I have a cup of ice at retaurants, or we cant eat.

Ella will stay occupied with the ice for a while, usually enough time to eat.

The park has become a good way for us to use sign language out and about We

sign " swing " , " more " and " all done " it helps get her use to talking and signing

outside of school and the house. Sometimes I think seeing other kids playing

really helps with her soocial and play skills. In general the more time she

spends around typical kids in novelty places including school, the more she

developes.

So have fun, and dont be scared to tell people about your childs disability is

it is needed. I really think that helping people understand whhy your child may

be acting like he does, helps heal everyone. I also know that my daughter likes

to play like other kids in places other kids do, and just because she may not

run around talking and shouting and playing age appropriate games with other

kids, she is still playing, in her way...and she is happy!

I love to watch Ella play, and sometimes her play or lack of play is

difficult, but patience is key...my daughter wouldnt touch a toy a year and a

half ago...now all I do is clean up after her.

Hope you enjoy the weekend,

Aimee

e_stull_1999 wrote:

DO any of you that have Autistic girls and boys do you do any fun

activies with them??

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[Guest guest]

Yes!

What developmental level are we talking about?

I have an autistic 8 yo daughter, I tried to build play into any activity

that smacked of therapy. My approach resembles floor time, influenced by

attachment parenting. We do anything that doesn't cause sensory overload, and if

it does, we will try it again at a later date.

I feel lucky to live in an accessible city with a good attitude about social

responsibility and inclusion. I also feel lucky to have a child with a great

sense of fun! My main job is to help her feel secure enough to try new things,

and model the behaviour myself.

Recently I ran up against one activity I wasn't ready to try, but we found

a good teacher and she is rock climbing indoors now! Her dad is learning to

belay to support her. Maybe she is modeling the behaviour for me, now.

Going to movies is tough. We try to go off hours when there are as few people

as possible. The experience is overwhelming for her, but she says she enjoys

it. We have often had to leave mid-film. It takes patience, it can take many

tries until she is confident in a new experience.

Transitions are tough, leading to meltdowns at birthday parties, and other

planned activities. You have to detach from the behaviour, support your child,

and not take it personally. This I can do, but I am often not patient with her

Father, who does not handle this as smoothly as I would. Unlike all the other

adults around us I guess I think he " should know by now " how to help her. I am

learning to be fair.

e_still_1999 wrote:

DO any of you that have Autistic girls and boys do you do any fun

activies with them??

---------------------------------

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Answers.

[Guest guest]

i mean do you like have those soft swing that you hang up so that they

can swing or have balls that they can bounce on??

[Guest guest]

I usr to have some occupational therapy stuff like that. Ella really loved bins

of rice to play in, we would put puzzle pieces in the rice and she would have to

find them. Also tunnels and tents are lots of fun. Ella also enjoted a ball pit

for a while in her room, they sell small ones at toys r us. I think taking our

kids to parks and other social places can be more benificial at times. Hope this

helps.

Aimee

e_stull_1999 wrote:

i mean do you like have those soft swing that you hang up so that they

can swing or have balls that they can bounce on??

---------------------------------

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[Guest guest]

We have a ball, and a balance board, and we wish we had a swing but we go to

the park every day. We have a trampoline in the living room. All her friends

LOVE that idea They take turns diving onto the giant beanbag. Why the

trampoline? To watch movies on, of course. DD gets so excited watching films we

found bouncing helped her system deal with the adrenaline. The beanbag was for

scrunching down into to calm down, the friends diving onto it is a side effect.

This does not make for a sophisticated interior design, but it suits our needs

for the time being.

Somewhere several years ago we read one hour of bilateral exercise a day is

highly reccomended for autistic kids and took it to heart. It probably does

anyone good, but we saw a significant difference in her co-ordination within

weeks. We also do yoga.

dana

e_stull_1999 wrote:

i mean do you like have those soft swing that you hang up so that they

can swing or have balls that they can bounce on??

---------------------------------

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[Guest guest]

Dana:

Can you describe some of the bilateral exercise you do? My daughter has

developmental coordiantion disorder and I try do as much balance stuff as I can,

but would appreciate knowing what you do as well.

Jack Der Hagopian

Esme's dad

Re: Re: Fun Acitivies

We have a ball, and a balance board, and we wish we had a swing but we go to

the park every day. We have a trampoline in the living room. All her friends

LOVE that idea They take turns diving onto the giant beanbag. Why the

trampoline? To watch movies on, of course. DD gets so excited watching films we

found bouncing helped her system deal with the adrenaline. The beanbag was for

scrunching down into to calm down, the friends diving onto it is a side effect.

This does not make for a sophisticated interior design, but it suits our needs

for the time being.

Somewhere several years ago we read one hour of bilateral exercise a day is

highly reccomended for autistic kids and took it to heart. It probably does

anyone good, but we saw a significant difference in her co-ordination within

weeks. We also do yoga.

dana

e_stull_1999 wrote:

i mean do you like have those soft swing that you hang up so that they

can swing or have balls that they can bounce on??

---------------------------------

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[Guest guest]

Hi, Jack:

My daughter in the beginning had a very low frustration tolerance and still

gets discouraged easily when confronted with her physical limitations. Her main

obstacles were balance and flexbility. She has made real progress with balance,

but flexibilty is still a challenge. My most important job was, and still is,

to keep it fun and look like we are just playing a game, with no hidden agenda.

Then I sneak in the exercises! This was easy in the beginning, just having the

balance board, ball, and trampoline in the house was novelty enough, but as she

grows it becomes more challenging, so I'm glad that Scot, one of her aides, is

teaching her to rock climb now, and teaching her Dad to belay.

I have a yoga practice, so a lot of what I do stems from what I have learned

on the mat. Cat and kitten pose and double down dog are her current favorites,

where we work on the same mat. This is about 15 minutes of her day, currently.

We count running and walking as bilateral, too, so lots of family walks and tag.

Climbing on the many playgrounds around here is helping with upper body and

balance.

We keep an exercise ball in the living room for backbends, or as she says,

looking at the cat upside down. Getting our two cats attention has always been

a great motivator, and for some reason Carmen exercising fascinates them,too.

The trampoline was a stress buster, mainly, but we find her legs have gotten

much stronger.

Swimming is her main joy, yet she's frightened every time we go. She is

afraid of the water, she will not work with a teacher, so it falls to us. At

first she would only go with me. Once she's in the water she sings the whole

time, and she celebrates every little bit of progress she makes. The leisure

pool we go to has lots of physio props like boards, dumbbells, diving rings, and

life jackets, has a great gradual entry shoreline. In the summer the lake near

our place is a great place to practice without the props and she accepts that

they are not available there.

My brother had a severe head injury and multiple fractures at nineteen, the

whole family got involved with his rehabilitation, but my Dad had a real knack

for using whatever was available; a board a log, an old tire. I saw my brother

make far more progress at home than in rehab, due to Dad's ingenuity, patience

and the time he took. He worked with the therapists, learning what was

required, and duplicated a lot of the simpler equipment at home. They

reccomnded horseback riding, which was not readily available. (Still, my parents

drove four hours there and back twice a month so he could have the experience)

My father realized a lot of the balance and co-ordination required were similar

to canoeing, and they live on a lake shore. 20 years later they are still using

the canoe, still working on balance and co-ordination, long after the horse

program folded.

Trying new things meets with much resistance, transitions are tough around

here, it can take many baby steps to get Carmen into a new activity. Keeping it

light, modeling the behaviour ourselves, making it a shared activity so it is

not just about her " deficits we are overcoming " (YUCK) but about look what we can

do now! Using what motivates her to draw her further into an activity, for

example she is fascinated by the colour blue, so Scot has been moving the blue

holds further up the climbing wall) She perseverates on cats, we work them in

when possiible, doing cat yoga, let our cat Ty be the teacher and copy his

poses. Not being able to do those just results in giggles instead of

frustration.

Also every bath we are trying to work on her hamstrings, the warm water helps

her relax. It takes about two minutes, and since it is routine like brushing her

teeth, it gets done.

I don't know if this rambling is helpful at all to you, but thankyou for your

question. Progress can be slow, and the repetition can get to you. There are

months without change, then one day you see a little improvement, and once in a

while the improvement from one day to the next can be dramatic. There, that was

easy! Carmen says and then laughs as if she could have done it all along.

Dana

Jack Der Hagopian wrote:

Dana:

Can you describe some of the bilateral exercise you do? My daughter has

developmental coordiantion disorder and I try do as much balance stuff as I can,

but would appreciate knowing what you do as well.

Jack Der Hagopian

Esme's dad

e_stull_1999 wrote:

i mean do you like have those soft swing that you hang up so that they

can swing or have balls that they can bounce on??

---------------------------------

Share your photos with the people who matter at Yahoo! Canada Photos

[Guest guest]

Thanks Dana:

No, it wasn't rambling, I enjoyed it. Almost two years ago, we got Esme into

some vision therapy. it turns out her eyes weren't teaming together correctly

which as you can imagine made learning/testing drawing--everything more

difficult. this was with perfect 20/20 vision. To me it is an extended apart

of the developmental coordination disorder or dyspraxia as they used to call it.

In any event, we got such gains with that, along with nutritional supplements we

were doing that we were just thrilled. then the therapist suggested we take a

look at primal reflex retraining. The theory being that because of the

neurological deficits as infants, some kids never mastered the primitive moves

ie lifting head up and arching upward. (which we do as an exercise called the

superman). Of course you have to master these to be able to learn the more

complex or rather these basic ones become so automatic that no conscious thought

is required to perform the movement. There are a series of these movements,

some similar to yoga, some not, but a lot of crossing midline stuff. Its

amazing how many ends there are to the puzzle that our special children.

God Bless

Jack Der Hagopian

Re: Re: Fun Acitivies

Hi, Jack:

My daughter in the beginning had a very low frustration tolerance and still

gets discouraged easily when confronted with her physical limitations. Her main

obstacles were balance and flexbility. She has made real progress with balance,

but flexibilty is still a challenge. My most important job was, and still is, to

keep it fun and look like we are just playing a game, with no hidden agenda.

Then I sneak in the exercises! This was easy in the beginning, just having the

balance board, ball, and trampoline in the house was novelty enough, but as she

grows it becomes more challenging, so I'm glad that Scot, one of her aides, is

teaching her to rock climb now, and teaching her Dad to belay.

I have a yoga practice, so a lot of what I do stems from what I have learned

on the mat. Cat and kitten pose and double down dog are her current favorites,

where we work on the same mat. This is about 15 minutes of her day, currently.

We count running and walking as bilateral, too, so lots of family walks and tag.

Climbing on the many playgrounds around here is helping with upper body and

balance.

We keep an exercise ball in the living room for backbends, or as she says,

looking at the cat upside down. Getting our two cats attention has always been a

great motivator, and for some reason Carmen exercising fascinates them,too.

The trampoline was a stress buster, mainly, but we find her legs have gotten

much stronger.

Swimming is her main joy, yet she's frightened every time we go. She is afraid

of the water, she will not work with a teacher, so it falls to us. At first she

would only go with me. Once she's in the water she sings the whole time, and she

celebrates every little bit of progress she makes. The leisure pool we go to has

lots of physio props like boards, dumbbells, diving rings, and life jackets, has

a great gradual entry shoreline. In the summer the lake near our place is a

great place to practice without the props and she accepts that they are not

available there.

My brother had a severe head injury and multiple fractures at nineteen, the

whole family got involved with his rehabilitation, but my Dad had a real knack

for using whatever was available; a board a log, an old tire. I saw my brother

make far more progress at home than in rehab, due to Dad's ingenuity, patience

and the time he took. He worked with the therapists, learning what was required,

and duplicated a lot of the simpler equipment at home. They reccomnded horseback

riding, which was not readily available. (Still, my parents drove four hours

there and back twice a month so he could have the experience) My father realized

a lot of the balance and co-ordination required were similar to canoeing, and

they live on a lake shore. 20 years later they are still using the canoe, still

working on balance and co-ordination, long after the horse program folded.

Trying new things meets with much resistance, transitions are tough around

here, it can take many baby steps to get Carmen into a new activity. Keeping it

light, modeling the behaviour ourselves, making it a shared activity so it is

not just about her " deficits we are overcoming " (YUCK) but about look what we can

do now! Using what motivates her to draw her further into an activity, for

example she is fascinated by the colour blue, so Scot has been moving the blue

holds further up the climbing wall) She perseverates on cats, we work them in

when possiible, doing cat yoga, let our cat Ty be the teacher and copy his

poses. Not being able to do those just results in giggles instead of

frustration.

Also every bath we are trying to work on her hamstrings, the warm water helps

her relax. It takes about two minutes, and since it is routine like brushing her

teeth, it gets done.

I don't know if this rambling is helpful at all to you, but thankyou for your

question. Progress can be slow, and the repetition can get to you. There are

months without change, then one day you see a little improvement, and once in a

while the improvement from one day to the next can be dramatic. There, that was

easy! Carmen says and then laughs as if she could have done it all along.

Dana

Jack Der Hagopian wrote:

Dana:

Can you describe some of the bilateral exercise you do? My daughter has

developmental coordiantion disorder and I try do as much balance stuff as I can,

but would appreciate knowing what you do as well.

Jack Der Hagopian

Esme's dad

e_stull_1999 wrote:

i mean do you like have those soft swing that you hang up so that they

can swing or have balls that they can bounce on??

---------------------------------

Share your photos with the people who matter at Yahoo! Canada Photos