Sunday, May 20, 2012

Getting Close to Summer!!!

We are starting to wind down the school year here. The weather has been lovely out for the most part, which means Nick is loving to be outside. When daddy is home they take lots of walks around the neighborhood and Nick could not be happier!

Last week Michael started doing some martial arts classes because he is being bullied at school. The last incident was about two weeks ago. (not sure if I blogged about that or not?) The school is investigating it and for the rest of the year the 7th and 8th graders do not have recess together. But we felt that Michael did need to learn how to defend himself for the future, so we signed him up for a couple of different martial arts classes. It turns out that he loves them! So, between the two martial arts classes and hockey, we have an activity 6 out of 7 days.

Nick is doing phenomenal. He is doing stuff in school and then it is translating over to his home life. Yesterday he cleaned up his mess with NO prompting, he is putting away his dishes, and using words more and more. His meltdowns have decreased to about one a day-and that is not even a major one. Thursday evening was a true test of just how far he has come. I had to take him along to Michael's hockey game by myself since Mike had to work. He had one minor episode of aggression at the beginning, but Nick and I were able to control it and enjoy the rest of the game without incident! After every period we went outside for a couple minutes. I would countdown the minutes for Nick "8 minutes til we go outside......7 minutes......2 minutes" After the period was over, I took him outside to sit on the steps for 2-3 minutes. I counted down there as well, "2 minutes and then we go back inside ok...." This seemed to work like a charm. We avoided a massive meltdown, and got to see all of Michael's game. It was a win/win for both of us!

I have another meeting with Nick's team on Wednesday. Since Nick will be out for three weeks before his ESY (extended school year) starts, I am trying to think of things that we can do outdoors for that period.  I am bringing these ideas to his meeting so that we can get some PECS made up of these activities. Other than that, not too much going on here. We are falling into a new 'normal' with Nick. One that has not involved a lot of meltdowns, aggression, or SIB. It has been a wonderful break!