Brags 2/24

[akafred]

It isn't Wednesday but it has been a few weeks and I have one.

Current meds regime (Strattera, guanfacine, tiny dose of Ritalin am and after lunch) is working really well. Her anxiety is super low right now, she is confident and relaxed most of the time. Notes from her teacher include:

Math - Charlotte usually has math cut up into individual problems or rows to keep the anxiety and pressure low. On Wednesday she did a whole worksheet of 50 math problems. It was even timed! And she got them all right! It was designed to take 5 minutes but it took her 15, but they are going to repeat it once a week and see if she can improve her time. She was very very proud.

Reading - Still seeing lots of improvement. She is bridging to chapter books at school where not long ago she would just thumb through and look at the pictures during silent reading time. At home she reads chapter books but only with lots of help from me keeping her on task and reading alternate pages. Also she has always refused to answer the questions at the end of leveled texts. If you spent time discussing the story and engaged her with some little "tricks", you would discover that she really did comprehend the story, she just would not do more than a couple of the canned questions. Well Friday she answered 100% on the comprehension questions of a harder than usual text and read 99% of the words correctly in the text (and self corrected her one error). So that is a lot of improvement!

It's nice to see the behavior improve. It's incredible to see the return of her confidence and happiness. But it's just the buttercream on top when she makes so much academic improvement too!

[waverly]

I posted it WP, the physical therapist and I decided that DS's last day of PT will be March 22.

OT is still continuing. We started that later. I haven't spoken with his OT but I am planning to pull him for the summer. He does swimming at the same time as OT and swimming provides many benefits plus he might be upset, not to mention it's a hassle to pick him up from camp let alone pick him up in the middle of swimming. So planning to end OT mid to late May.

[akafred]

Feb 24, 2018 10:01:52 GMT -5 waverly said:

I posted it WP, the physical therapist and I decided that DS's last day of PT will be March 22.

OT is still continuing. We started that later. I haven't spoken with his OT but I am planning to pull him for the summer. He does swimming at the same time as OT and swimming provides many benefits plus he might be upset, not to mention it's a hassle to pick him up from camp let alone pick him up in the middle of swimming. So planning to end OT mid to late May.

We're dropping OT for the summer too. We dropped it the summer she was 5 and it took until January to get a slot again, so the past few summers we have juggled camp schedules so we could take her every other week, which was enough to hold the slot. Now they have decided it is a high attendance percentage like 95% so we are dropping it again. Her favorite camp has a long bus ride and DH and I just can't take her or afford to take every Wednesday off work, and we really didn't want to not do that camp. Hopefully she'll get her slot back next fall.

[waverly]

We'll see how it goes the next 3 months. I am hoping he gets to the point that we don't have to restart it in the fall. A lot of his issues are due to being double jointed and strength that PT worked on. He is doing pretty well- some hyper extension in the wrist and fingers are affecting things. I want to work on the eye tracking issue that I will bring up to her this week. School has no issues with him.

I don't expect him to be entirely on level but as long as he is within 6 months to a year of his peers I think we are OK given that he is doing good academically. And doesn't seem to be injuring himself as much/ improved body awareness. He is on the older side of his classmates which helps too because he might be at the same level of a kid 6 months younger than him and they are the same grade. I do also feel though that I have to keep pushing sports/ direct instruction because he won't intuitively pick things up and he needs more practice than some kids.

[lemonberry]

DS has been having little conversations with us about his day like who he played with, what he did, what other people did.

He got his haircut today and even let them use clippers.

He's been washing his hair himself. He use to freak out if you even tried to touch his hair or if any water got in his face.

[funchicken]

DD1 has started wearing socks again! I usually buy her Toms or other shoes she can wear without socks, but I really want her to wear shoes that are more appropriate for PE (which they have 3 times/week). We've had 3 weeks of her voluntarily wearing socks

[akafred]

Feb 26, 2018 8:15:03 GMT -5 funchicken said:

DD1 has started wearing socks again! I usually buy her Toms or other shoes she can wear without socks, but I really want her to wear shoes that are more appropriate for PE (which they have 3 times/week). We've had 3 weeks of her voluntarily wearing socks

That is incredible! DD has been putting socks and shoes on appropriately lately also. The first half of basketball season was a nightmare, and going to the skating rink was becoming awful because I had to tie and retie to get the tightness right. (She can tie her own shoes but won't because of the sensory piece). Now that her meds are in a good place and her anxiety is low, it is a non issue. Which is pretty interesting to me. I didn't realize the role anxiety played in her sensory issues.

[miranda]

There was some nice team interaction at scouts this weekend. We finally have a reasonable-sized den, so the boys have a chance to actually interact. We played a quiz game where I asked questions and they had to find the facts from the infogram. DS blew everyone out of the water; I was actually trying to ask questions I didn't think he'd get because he kept winning everything. He's really good at fact finding! Yet he can't see his lunchbox in front of his face, sigh.

At the pack meeting the boys had to pick a leader from their group without input from the adults. Lots of alpha males in our den and they couldn't decide. DS wanted to be leader badly. But he was the first to finally cave and say to another boy- okay, I'll vote for you. Then the other boys fell in line.

[mightymaude]

Today was evaluation day for DD. She was so happy that she didn't have to go to school that she was uncharacteristically bubbly and outgoing, and separated readily to go with the psych.

Yay, but pretty sure they are going to think we are lying about refusal to work, refusal to talk, and anxiety through the roof.

[mightymaude]

I have one for DS also.

He was doing really well socially this school year--until recently. He met a bunch of kids in the neighborhood over the summer, and b/c he's a relatively physically adept kid that loves to run around outside, he fit in well and was part of the gang. But, as cold weather has rolled around and they've been forced inside more, some of the kids have realized he's quirkier than they're ok with and they started physically bullying him. He is understandably sad, but is also dealing with it really well. He's not trying to continue being their friend, and he didn't run home to tattle the first instance of anything mean. He attempted to work things out himself and when they didn't, he informed us and is taking logical steps to continue friendships with other kids and stay away from the ones picking on him. We're working with the parents to deal with the rest of it. I'm impressed with how he's handling it all.